Review: Breaking Bad, Season 4, Episode 1: Box Cutter

By Jordan

Pretty much since its premiere, I have generally considered Breaking Bad to be one of the best shows on television. Ever since its stunning pilot, it has shown itself to be beautifully shot, almost perfectly executed, and incredibly intelligent television. The only reason we have never previously covered the show on this site is because during seasons one and two I was always a bit behind and playing catch up, and during season three I was just too busy to add another show to my schedule, what with real life constantly getting in my way. For its first two seasons, Breaking Bad lived (in my mind at least) in the shadow of Mad Men and I generally considered it to be the second greatest drama on television. Season three changed that. Last year, Breaking Bad was the best show on television, overtaking Mad Men and turning out one of the strongest seasons of television I have ever seen. I was very upset, therefore, when AMC delayed the season four premiere from March to July; I was, of course, extremely excited for tonight's premiere. And I am happy to report that, for the most part, it didn't disappoint.

There are a few examples I want to point out before delving into the episode as a whole, that indicate to me the level that this show is operating at (and it's quite high). The first is the fact that the titular box cutter appears twice: originally as Gale uses it to open the packaging on the equipment for the shiny new meth lab, and later when that lab is sullied as Gus murders his right hand man in an effort to intimidate Walt and Jesse (and, also, because he was too obvious at the scene of Gale's death). The second is the Large sticker on Walt's new shirt toward the end of the episode: after disposing of a body, Walt is, in spite of his increasing slip into immorality, shocked enough that he forgets to remove it, in contrast to his sharp attention to detail. Skyler notices, though, and tears it off, commenting on the shirt ("Kenny Rogers, huh?") but not bothering to ask a question she doesn't want to know the answer to. She is changing, and quickly at that.

The first three seasons of Breaking Bad opened with a shocking, almost surreal opening sequences. Season one gave us two dead guys in a Winnebago and a half naked Walt preparing to commit suicide before getting caught. Season two gave us a burned, eyeless Teddy bear floating in a swimming pool. Season three gave us two unknown men joining a mass of people crawling towards a shrine to murder. This year, the show changed things up a bit, giving us a flashback to Gale as he prepares to take charge of the new lab. At this point in our journey, the show doesn't need to open a season with a bang; we know the shocks are coming, and those of us who are caught up know exactly how tragic it is to see the optimistic Gale ("I doff my proverbial cap to you sir") just months before his tragic death. And just like the opening of every other season, we are given a brief view into the consequences of Walt's actions. This may be the most subtle yet, but each opening has given us a clear view of how Walt's degradation affects those around him. In the first season, we saw murders that were directly his fault, but committed out of desperation. In season two we got a glimpse of the effects of Walt's actions, which lead to the plane crash that resulted in that bear landing in his pool. In season three, we saw that the death of Tuco would not be forgotten that easily. And this year, we see that Walt's moral degradation has cost an inherently kind and gentle man his life.

Not a lot happens in "Box Cutter," but then not a lot has to. We know the score going into this episode, and the show lays it out pretty much perfectly. Walt and Jesse are about an inch from being murdered, as Gus knows he needs them now, but clearly won't be satisfied with the current arrangement for long (and his near-wordless scene in the lab, in which he silently enters, disrobes, murders his right hand man, dresses himself again and exits with only a single line of dialogue, is phenomenal and an excellent display of the show's always superb cinematography and sense of pacing). Saul knows he can't trust Mike and fears for his own life enough to have hired a bodyguard (and when it looks like Walt's plan might have failed, Saul cynically turns to the bodyguard and asks, "You got a passport, right?") and searched his office for bugs. Skyler is knee deep in Walt's business, both because Hank's medical bills are rising and because she seems more and more invested in his livelihood. Hank is still angry and depressed, though he is able to walk at least 16 feet given twenty minutes. Marie is still optimistic and trying to pep Hank up. And Gus is still smart enough to know when he's been out played, but still prideful enough that he is not willing to easily admit defeat.

"Box Cutter" sets up a lot of the conflicts in this season and does it so fluidly, and with so much style that it is often a marvel to watch. We inherently understand that a game of cat and mouse between Gus and Walt is prepped to ensue. We see many times how characters can seal their own fates (Gale suggests the hiring of Walt, Gus' right hand man enters the apartment out of his own shock and anger, Skyler moves Walt's car indicating her own complicity in his crimes). We understand the importance of these characters actions, and how the way they act will always trump what they say (Gus' civility hides his monstrous evil, Walt's attempts, as per usual, to talk himself out of a situation are silenced by Gus' murder). We see the fear that these characters live in (Saul's paranoia, Skyler moving the car, Walt's desperation to stay alive). And, perhaps most significantly, we watch Walter White become encased in a new prison. When he "broke bad" in season one, his decision to start cooking meth was really about freedom, whether he claimed it was a necessity or not. Walt started cooking to escape his shitty job (s, if you count his evening work at the car wash), his claustrophobic family life and his generally unsatisfying existence. Yet now he finds himself imprisoned by Gus, forced to work in the lab that once was his ticket to wealth and total freedom. I imagine the bulk of this season will focus on Walt's attempts to get his freedom back, and the huge moral costs that freedom will come by. "Box Cutter" is not the best episode of Breaking Bad I've ever seen, and it's certainly a step below the show's full potential, but it does a lot of heavy lifting, both thematically and in terms of plot. It re-acclimates us to the lives of these characters and hints at the struggles that will likely form the center of this season. And that means that while it may not be an instant classic, it is a damn fine season premiere.

Grade: A-

Notes:

-"I don't consider him a professional." "If he's not, I don't know what that makes me."

-"He carpools? He carpools to work at a meth lab."

-"If you and he and everyone in America took a vote and changed the meaning of the entire English language, yeah, I guess I broke new ground."

-"You make it Gale vs. me or Gale vs. Jesse, Gale loses every time."

-"What did you expect me to do, just simply roll over and let you murder us?"

-"Well? Get back to work." Gus is such a fucking bad ass.

"We're all on the same page." "And what page is that?" "The one that says, 'If I can't kill you, you'll sure as shit wish you were dead." Sounds like a mission statement for the season, if you ask me. And if that's the case, I couldn't be more excited.

My Year in Lists: Week Twenty Four

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.

“If Never Mind the Bollocks and London Calling are held up as punk masterpieces, then there’s no question that Singles Going Steady belongs alongside them […] As for the music, anybody who ever combined full-blast rock, catchy melodies, and romantic and social anxieties owes something to what the classic quartet did here.”-Ned Ragget, Allmusic

“War seemed to be the motif for 1982.”-Bono

Every song (at least every good one) has a theme. Some albums manage to carry a singular theme throughout their runtimes. Some of these are concept albums, which attempt to create a narrative that drives the entire album. Some of them, however, are just albums that display a singular focus and an idea that was operating behind the scenes during the creation of these albums. This week, we will examine three such albums, three works that, while not constructed as concept albums or purposefully developed around a single theme still manage to display one message consistently throughout. Whether that message is one of love, peace, or sex (as they are in our three albums this week), we will look at how that message becomes an essential part of the album.

In early 1975, Howard Trafford placed a notice looking for other musicians who enjoyed The Velvet Underground's“Sister Ray” (it’s a marvel how many bands came together, not only in the days following the release of The Velvet Underground & Nico, when it is said that every person who bought the album formed a band, but in the ensuing years using the band as a touchstone to seek out other passionate and like-minded musicians). Peter McNeish, a fellow student at the Bolton Institute of Technology, responded to the notice, though he played mostly rock music and Trafford mostly electronic music. McNeish assumed the stage name Pete Shelley; Trafford became Howard Devoto, and along with Garth Davies on bass guitar and Mick Singleton on drums, they became the Buzzcocks, a name they selected after reading a review of the TV series Rock Follies in Time Out Magazine that said, “it’s the buzz, cocks!” (to be clear, at the time, “cocks” was slang for friend in Manchester).

By the end of 1976, the Buzzcocks had formed their own label, New Hormones and self-released their debut EP Spiral Scratch (they were one of the first punk bands to form their own label, a practice that would be essential to the alternative movement in the 1980’s when several underground bands were forced to form labels for themselves to get their music and that of other smaller bands released). The band’s trademark sound is a marriage of catchy pop melodies with punkish energy and guitar riffs, backed by a tight and skilled rhythm section that sets them apart from their traditionally under-trained and ill-talented (at least in the traditional musical practice of properly “playing an instrument”) brethren in the early punk movement. From the first, the Buzzcocks were a different kind of punk band: vocally and in their guitar patterns, they sounded punk, but compositionally, lyrically, and in presentation, they were a different beast entirely.

During their initial career (like many bands of the era, they have reunited for several more albums in the last two decades) the band released only three studio albums, and one compilation of their singles and B-sides. This compilation, released after their third album as they planned their (never to materialize in the original era) fourth, is Tab’s pick this week, the aptly titled Singles Going Steady. Rather than feeling like a piecemeal collection of releases, the album is a near constant parade of excellence, running an impressive gamut of emotions and dealing with subjects both political and romantic.

The album’s opening track “Orgasm Addict” is a tongue in cheek look at a sex crazed teenager that includes a fake orgasm vocal break, just in case the point would not have landed otherwise. “What Do I Get?” is a classic ode to teen angst, full of pained cries about lacking love, luck, and appreciation.

The most well known song on the album by far, and in fact the most famous song the band ever recorded is the justly touted and deservedly well known masterpiece “Ever Fallen in Love?” Written after the band watched Guys and Dolls, which includes the line “Have you ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn’t have?” Shelley wrote the lyrics the next day while sitting in a van outside the post office; the music was soon to follow. This song stands out amongst even the sea of successes that makes up Singles Going Steady, not only because it is the band’s best song (and I don’t think I’m alone in holding that opinion) but because it so well illustrates the way in which the Buzzcocks stood out in the early day of punk rock.

While bands like Sex Pistols, The Clash, and The Ramones were, at their essence, rebellions against popular music and musical conventions, the Buzzcocks had a clear respect for what had come before, and often integrated classic pop themes and melodies into their compositions. While played at punk speeds and sung in a punkish register (a sound that is hard to describe, but to my ear always sounds like a melodic howl of angst), “Ever Fallen in Love?” is basically a standard pop song, with a hooky melody and a focus on love that is more common in pop and rock than in punk. It isn’t too hard to imagine “Ever Fallen in Love?” having been recorded a decade and a half before its release by The Beatles during their early days (hell, I think it would have fit very well on Help!), and I’m not sure there’s a higher compliment I can pay to a song than saying The Beatles could have written it.

“Everybody’s Happy Nowadays” is a deeply cynical song, but that somehow doesn’t preclude it from being an insanely catchy one. “Harmony in my Head” is one of the few Buzzcocks songs written and performed by guitarist Steve Diggle, who reputedly smoked 20 consecutive cigarettes to achieve the gruff sound of the vocals. The album’s closing track “Something’s Gone Wrong Again” is a song about Murphy’s Law style worries (verging on full paranoia) that is so melodically complex it almost leaves behind the band’s punkish roots entirely.

The theme behind Singles Going Steady is one of love, an uncommon message for a punk album. Not every track is explicitly about love, but the band makes every effort to sing about love and romance regularly throughout. This theme ties in perfectly to the band’s tendencies to color outside the punk lines and to look back for influences both lyrically and musically.

The Buzzcocks are rarely heralded among the great punk bands of all time. To my mind this is because of their willingness to break the punk rules. It is conventional wisdom that punk began as a rebellion against what was seen as the strict and binding rules of popular music, but quickly devolved into sects as people tired of adhering to the quickly developed “rules of punk.” Bands had to play a certain way, dress a certain way, act a certain way and write about certain things, lest they be ostracized from the punk community. Of course, true punk bands that cropped up later in the life of the genre broke these rules as a way of displaying just how punk rock they were, but the Buzzcocks were breaking them long before people had even realized what they were. Some might argue this renders the band outside of the punk genre; I would disagree. To my mind, the Buzzcocks are unheralded punk pioneers, taking the sound of the genre and melding it with melodies and themes that were decidedly un-punk to create something unique in the punk pantheon.

U2 is the biggest rock band in the world. Whether or not that statement remains true today, that was certainly the case for a period in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s when the band went through a period of both critical and commercial success that ensures them a place in the rock canon (to my mind, this golden age stretches from The Joshua Tree, which we will discuss in a month, through Rattle and Hum and to Achtung Baby, though I know some who will argue that it continued all the way through 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind). While, as I just mentioned, we will get to The Joshua Tree in time, Collin’s original pick for this week, New Order’s Power, Corruption, Lies was already dealt with in this space back in Week Eight and so I requested that he furnish a replacement. In reply, he suggested we look at the album when the band was first getting its legs, their third studio album, 1983’s War.

Widely regarded as the band’s first overtly political album (but, as anyone who has ever heard Bono speak well knows, not their last), War focuses on both the physical aspects of war, and on its emotional after effects and is the time when, as Simon Reynolds put it, the band, “turned pacifism itself into a crusade.”

The album’s opening track, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” is an ardent protest song detailing the Troubles in Northern Ireland and specifically focusing on Bloody Sunday, the incident in which British Troops shot and killed unarmed civil rights protesters and civilians. The song was an early classic for the band, and instrumental to their breakthrough into the mainstream in America. And while the mere mention of Bono tends to illicit eye rolls at this point, in no small part because of his outspoken activism and politicization of practically everything, “Sunday Bloody Sunday” is a solid song, making a political point but not forgetting to be a rock song at the same time. It’s never subtle by any stretch of the imagination, but it it’s catchy enough that it doesn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth like so much of the band’s later work (especially their last two albums) tends to.

“New Year’s Day” is also an overtly political song, this time about the Polish Solidarity Movement, but again puts the music before the message, at least enough to make it as interesting as a piece of music as it is when viewed as a political message. “Two Hearts Beat As One” is a more traditional love song that indicates some of the potential that the band would fulfill in their golden age, but fails to compel in the way a song like “With or Without You” does; it makes fine listening, but it also tends to slip out of my mind as soon as it’s done. The album’s closing track ‘“40”’ is a modification of Psalm 40 from The Bible. The song was written, recorded and mixed in roughly half an hour, as the band was being kicked out of the studio and realized they needed a good closing song for the album. The song is fairly perfect as a coda to War, and has endured as a staple of the band’s live performances, yet again, it doesn’t hold the power of some of their later work.

The message that permeates War is one of peace. Throughout the album, even on the less political tracks, the band seems to be begging for the world to find peace and seeking it either within themselves or externally, in the love of another.

The U2 of War is a band just figuring out its own identity, a band that is learning it is going places, but is yet unsure what those places might be and how it might get there. The album has its starts and stops, but is ultimately a satisfying one. For my thoughts on U2 t its height, however, you gentle readers will have to hold your breath for Week Twenty Eight.

After toiling in relative obscurity (relative, in this case, to where the band was headed) for eight years, Red Hot Chili Peppers signed to Warner Bros. Records and released the album that would launch them to superstardom: their fifth studio album, and Ashley’s pick this week, 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik.

In 1988, the band’s guitarist Hillel Slovak died of a heroin overdose and drummer Jack Irons quit, leaving vocalist Anthony Kiedis and bassist Flea to find a new guitarist and drummer. Fan of the band John Frusciante came on as guitarist and drummer Chad Smith rounded out the lineup. Blood Sugar Sex Magik integrates the band’s typical punk-funk blend with more melodically driven songs, creating the sound that has carried the band to superstardom.

“If You Have To Ask” mixes Kiedis’ standard rap-sing style with a funk beat and a taunting chorus. “Breaking The Girl,” a classic Chili Peppers song, is a ballad (a rarity in the band’s previous work) that refers to Kiedis turbulent relationship with Carmen Hawk, and more broadly, his fears that he was becoming a womanizer like his father before him. More traditionally melodic than any song the band had done before, the song is also, as most of the band’s best songs are, a fascinating look into the conflicted inner world of Anthony Kiedis. “Breaking The Girl” is maybe the first great song the Chili Peppers ever recorded (though in fairness I am only passingly familiar with their previous work, so feel free to correct me on this point) and one of my favorites on the album.

“Suck My Kiss” is an unabashedly sexual song, an ode to fellatio and written about a kid Kiedis knew who talked endlessly about the blow jobs he was getting. “Give It Away” is focused on the idea of altruism and selflessness, a concept taught to Kiedis by his former girlfriend, punk rocker Nina Hagen, who once gave him a jacket he said he liked because she believed that giving things away made the world a better place.

Easily the most well known song on the album, and one of my favorite songs by the band to this day, “Under the Bridge” threw the band into the mainstream, becoming a smash hit. The lyrics of the song are taken from a poem Kiedis had written while contemplating the effects of narcotics on his life. Kiedis was feeling isolated from the rest of the band, as he had been sober for three years at the time of the album’s recording, and Frusciante and Flea often smoked marijuana together. This lead to him contemplating said isolation and coming to the conclusion that Los Angeles was his only true and constant companion. The song gets its title, and its most notable verse, illustrates Kiedis attempt to enter a gang territory to score heroin. In order to get under the bridge where the drugs were being sold, Kiedis had to pretend his fiancé was the sister of a gang member. Though he successfully scored the drugs, he considers the moment to be one of the worst of his life, as it showed him how far he would sink to feed his addiction. The song is a masterpiece of contemplation, isolation, regret and finally hope, as Kiedis pleas to be taken to the place he loves, where he could be among his band mates, friends, and family.

“Sir Psycho Sexy” is an eight-minute epic about an over-zealous, exaggerated version of Keidis, a man who can get any woman he wants and commit any depraved act he can imagine with her. The song is expansive, detailed, and illustrative, another enthralling journey into Keidis’ headspace. The closing track is a cover of “They’re Red Hot,” by blue musician Robert Johnson. The band recorded the song on top of a hill outside the mansion where they recorded the rest of the album. The song is propulsive, a blues-infused rocket of sonic speed that closes the album off with a spurt of energy that could hardly be attained over any longer than the songs scant, one minute run time.

While John Frusciante left the band after the album’s success (he had hoped to remain an underground group, and would later return for Californication, the band’s next masterwork after the less successful One Hot Minute), the rest of the group acclimated well to their newfound success, and Red Hot Chili Peppers have continued to turn out great albums periodically since (their newest, I’m With You will drop this August).

Throughout Blood Sugar Sex Magik the band examines nothing short of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Looking into Kiedis’ internal struggles with addiction and with romance, the album I, at its rawest and at its best, a look at the various things we do to ourselves to get by and the vices we rely on to keep us satisfied. Whether they are drugs, love, sex, or simply companionship, Blood Sugar Sex Magik tells us, they are an essential part of our lives, for we will forever be engaged in a struggle to tame, or be tamed by, our baser instincts.

Some albums, intentionally or not, center on a theme, an idea that becomes unavoidable as we listen to and absorb them. On Singles Going Steady the Buzzcocks examined pop music through a punk lens, centering on love as their main area of exploration. For War, U2 was looking at the causes and effects of conflict and searching both externally and internally for the peace they would need to excel as a band. And Red Hot Chili Peppers used Blood Sugar Sex Magick to examine sex, sure, but more deeply to look at the nature of vice and its place in our lives. Purposefully or not, each of these albums returned again and again to the same particular themes, and they colored them immensely. Whether released as a compilation as a career came to an end, as a tentative step forward for a band finding its sea legs in the ocean of rock and roll, or as the first masterpiece from a band entering its prime, these albums took one central idea, and ran with it until musical excellence was achieved.

Read more My Year in Lists here

Next week on My Year in Lists:

The Slits Cut, Prince weathers some Purple Rain, and Superchunk warns that there’s No Pocky For Kitty.

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Edinburgh Film Festival Round-Up

By Jordan

Earlier this week I attended the opening three days of the 65th Edinburgh International Film Festival. It was my first film festival, and I attended it while on vacation in the UK (a vacation I will return from later this week; devotees of Review to Be Named can expect the blog to be back on its regular schedule after Wednesday). I did not attend it as a member of the press (for anyone who is at all confused, I am not a member of the press, just your standard amateur mucking it up for the real critics), and therefore participated in fewer screenings than I might have otherwise. I saw seven films over my three days at the festival: three revivals (screenings of Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise, Sara Driver's You Are Not I, and Alexander Mackendrick's 1949 classic Whisky Galore!) and four UK Premiere's. Instead of writing four full reviews of the movies I saw, I thought it best to include short capsule reviews of all four, including grades as my standard regular length reviews do. You'll see more inter-review references than usual in these capsules, and a few asides about the festival experience, so think of these less as considered reviews and more as reports from the field. Without further ado, here are my thoughts on the four films I had the chance to experience at the Edinburgh International Film Festival:

The Guard:

Directed by John Michael McDonagh (brother of In Bruges director Martin McDonagh), The Guard is in several respects very similar to his brother's film. Also a pitch-black comedy starring a caustic Brendan Gleeson, The Guard is a self assured debut that knows exactly how clever it is and doesn't pull any punches as a result. Gleeson is stellar and hysterical as Sergeant Gerry Boyle, a boozy, drug-friendly, hooker frequenting small town cop who reluctantly joins forces with a standard, strait-laced, "by the book" FBI Agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle, who very subtly portrays Everett's transformation from shock to annoyance to loyalty in regards to Boyle) to bring down a drug cartel who murderously await a shipment of $500 million worth of cocaine (though, as Boyle continuously insists, the feds tend to overestimate the "street value" of their busts). In many ways, The Guard is a fairly standard, if a few shades darker, buddy cop comedy, but it sets itself apart by being far more hysterical, and far more politically incorrect than its more generic counterparts. Hilarious, engrossing, and just a full out blast to watch, The Guard is the kind of film that will make fans of In Bruges wait excitedly for the next project from one of the brothers McDonagh.

Grade: A-

Oliver Sherman:

A compelling study of the effects of warfare and of mankind's dual capacity for compassion and violence, Oliver Sherman is a tense tour de force. Propelled by three stellar lead performances from Garret Dillahunt as Sherman Oliver, an ex-soldier who survived a shot to the head but never got over the psychological aftermath, Donal Logue as Franklin Page, the man who saved Sherman's life and has since settled into a quiet, peaceful existence and Molly Parker as Irene, page's serene but willful wife, the film follows Sherman's surprise arrival on the Page's doorstep and its effects on both him and on the patient and, initially at least, understanding Page's. Written and directed assuredly by first timer Ryan Redford, Oliver Sherman is a stellar look at three people pushed to their limits and beyond and the long term consequences of trauma for two very different men.

Grade: A

Our Day Will Come:

The feature-length debut of director Romain Gavras (most well known for his inflammatory video for MIA's "Born Free"), Our Day Will Come deals with many similar concerns in its examinations of two red-heads who feel ostracized by their society and set off on a nihilistic road trip towards Ireland, where they believe they may finally gain acceptance. Remy (a forceful Olivier Bartelemy) feels alienated, disaffected, isolated and bullied by everyone around him until he assaults his mother and sister and escapes their control. He quickly falls under the thrall of Patrick (Vincent Cassel, stellar as always) a charismatic, racist, violent psychoanalyst who tells Remy he can be his own Messiah and lead redheads into a day of prominence. A pitch black comedy that at times becomes a disturbingly violent examination of alienation and racism in French society, Our Day Will Come is a road comedy for the deeply troubled. While the film at times loses itself in surrealistic tangents (one of which features Cassel in a threesome while a stone faced red headed girl watches from a couch) and is often too on the nose in its "red heads as minorities discriminated against in French society" metaphors, Our Day Will Come is consistently interesting and occasionally moving, with two great performances and a propulsive pace that moves on from any useless or uninteresting tangent quickly enough that none prove too distracting. For much of its runtime, I was reminded of a remark made by Don Cheadle in The Guard soon after he meets Brendan Gleeson: "I don't know whether you're really fucking smart or really fucking stupid." Gleeson just smiles in response, and Our Day Will Come seems to grimace at the same question. It doesn't know the answer, and neither does Gavras (who was often befuddled and unable to answer questions during the Q&A that followed the screening), but neither seems to care. Both the film and its director seem satisfied to just be along for the ride.

Grade: B (though I reserve the right to reevaluate in either direction if I get the chance to see the film again upon its wide release)

On the Shore:

Police Captain Michel Matarasso (played well by the expressive French character actor Daniel Duval) is plagued by nightmares and grows weary of his job, and his listless relationship with a stunt coordinator. All of this changes, though, when he discovers the body of a young woman who has committed suicide and begins to involve himself in the lives of her former friends, family and colleagues. Ostensibly, the film aims to examine the need for love and the pain of loneliness, but far too often it becomes a meandering mess, confusing silence for subtlety and muddled writing for evocative mystery. The film feels needlessly, endlessly drawn out at 90 minutes (a fact which was not helped by the stifling heat in the theater, which got so bad I honestly considered walking out, something I have never done before) and seems so confused about what exactly its trying to say that it ends up saying nothing at all. The first fictional film from documentarian Julien Donada, the film is certainly atmospheric. Unfortunately, all the expansive atmospheres and beautiful scenery serve to expose the emptiness at the films center, a hollow core which no amount of beautiful beach front cinematography can fully fill in.

Grade: C

Beginners

By Jordan

There is a fine-line between endearingly quirky and insufferably calculated oddness (some would call this twee, but I detest the word and will myself avoid it), and this is the line on which Beginners, the new film by Mike Mills, tight-rope walks. The film is saved, when it manages to be, by its roots in the autobiographical relationship between Mills and his father. It fails, when it does, by trying too hard to be cute, subtitling a Jack Russell Terrier, creating a meet-cute styled after a silent movie due to laryngitis, and having characters steal rollerskates from a rink to glide around Los Angeles.

The film follows Mills' alter-ego Oliver (Ewan McGregor, as likable as always) as he mourns the death of his father. Through flashbacks we get to see his experiences with his dad (played superbly by Christopher Plummer) in his final years, as the 75-year-old comes out and decides to make up for lost time by being as gay as possible (wrapping himself in rainbow scarves, dancing the night away at gay clubs, writing letters of support for gay politicians and passing out gay pride stickers) and taking a younger lover Andy (a soulful yet playful Goran Visnjic). And in the present, Oliver meets Anna (Melanie Laurent, acquitting herself well in English), an equally commitment-phobic actress with diametrically opposed father issues. As we watch Oliver's relationship with his father grow as his father withers with terminal lung cancer, we also see Oliver fall for, and try to tear himself away from Anna, who may just be perfect for him. Throughout the film, all of these people struggle to decide whether to become who they want to be or to be forever restrained by their fears about the consequences of their actions.

Beginners, like its characters, is troubled because it does not know exactly what to be. Is it a carefree light romantic comedy, a tragedy-laced remembrance of a father, a weighty drama about psychological baggage, or a dramedy about human need for companionship and adaptability to new situations? In parts, it is all of these things, and its impossible not to think it would be more successful if it would simply settle on a tone and stick with it. It is never as funny as it could be, and never quite as tragic as it might be, simply floating in the middle ground between tones and never settling enough to coalesce. Beginners feels like the beginning of something great. Unfortunately that promise of greatness is never fulfilled, and we are left with the desire for a film that doesn't share its characters' flaws, a film that is more self-assured and more confident about the message it imparts.

Grade: B-

The Tree of Life

By Jordan

It took time for me to be able to even think about writing this review. It took time for me to even figure out my feelings on this movie. Those feelings are incredibly complicated, and still only half formed. I've only seen The Tree of Life once so far, though I would really like to see it again, and maybe several more times, before putting my feelings into words. So take this review with a grain of salt; consider it a report from the field, a work in progress that will only be completed in my own mind over the next several months and multiple viewings.

The Tree of Life is not a simple film, nor is it a straightforward one. It is not a perfect film, either. Yet it is a film of such mammoth scale and such startling ambition that it is hard not to see it as a cinematic masterpiece, even as I struggle to reconcile some of its flaws with its larger successes. The movie opens with a quote from the book of Job, and frames itself around a series of questions posed to a nonresponsive and possibly nonexistent God. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does God take people from us? Where is he when all of the horrible things that happen in the world occur?

From there, the film seems to attempt to answer these questions by reaching back to the dawn of time itself in a startling, visually arresting and unforgettable sequence that recalls in style and ambition Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (and was not coincidentally developed by Douglas Trumbull, the special effects supervisor on that earlier film, who had been away from Hollywood for 30 years before returning for this film). Also working alongside the brilliant cinematographer Emmanual Lubeski (who worked on Malick's last film, The New World and on Children of Men), Malick develops a series of exalted images of the creation of the universe, the early days of our planet, and the reign of the dinosaurs before tying all of this creation back to humanity, launching forward into the twentieth century to show us the birth of a child. This portion of the film is hauntingly beautiful, aching with significance and demanding to be rewatched. It is a titanic achievement for Malick, and one the rest of the film tries, and often fails, to live up to.

The middle section of the movie is devoted to watching that child grow in mid-'50s Waco, and observing in a non-narrative, almost dream-like series of recollections the way that child, Jack, (played by the superb Hunter McCracken) is torn between the diametrically opposed philosophies of his parents, the autocratic and borderline abusive Father (Brad Pitt, in one of his best performances) and the saint-like, gently loving Mother (Jessica Chastain, who does much with very little spoken dialogue). As his mother explains in voice over, there are two ways through life: The Way of Nature, and The Way of Grace. Malick's work in archetypes may be viewed by some as simply leaving us with broadly-drawn characters; Pitt and Chastain are not multi-dimensional creations, nor are they meant to be. They represent two sides of a spectrum, with their three children being pulled in both directions simultaneously. Sean Penn appears very briefly (in a role clearly edited into almost nonexistence during post-production) as the grown Jack, who wanders in a melancholy stupor through a modern metropolis, still haunted by the suicide of his brother and by the fallout of his parents' personalities.

Malick cannot possibly top the opening hour of the film, though he often tries through the rest of its run-time. Some will call the material in Waco shapeless and lacking in narrative drive, and this is true, though the dream-like quality lends the segment a realism and a feeling of things remembered that a straightforward bildungsroman would have eschewed. And the final act, in which time itself comes to an end and we are left to contemplate eternity, feels comparatively simplistic and even banal, though it remains as beautifully shot as the rest of the film. There are definitive flaws to The Tree of Life, but there is something magnificent about its scope and ambition, which dwarves that of any other film I've seen in years. It's impossible not to see The Tree of Life as a mammoth achievement in filmmaking, and in spite of its flaws, its hard not to see this as setting the standard that every other movie this year will have to live up to. I'm betting most will fail.

Grade: A

X-Men: First Class

By Jordan

After a decade filled to the brim with comic book movies, origin stories, and reboots, X-Men: First Class has its work cut out for it. Coming after two disappointing installments in the X-Men series (2006's X-Men: The Last Stand and 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine), the movie had to shake things up somehow just to get audiences back in the seats. Fortunately, it does just that, moving back to the early '60's to deliver an engaging, if flawed, look at the formation of mutant-kind's last line of defense.

The film, directed by Matthew Vaughn (Kick Ass), opens just as the first X-Men did, with a young Erik Lensherr being dragged away from his mother in a concentration camp, trying in vain to bend the gate with his newly discovered super powers. He is soon taken to the sadistic Dr. Schmidt, later known as Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon, having fun in the role), who uses rage to unlock the boy's powers. We are then introduced to a young Charles Xavier, who befriends a young shapeshifter named Raven.

From there the film becomes a globe-spanning trek through the early '60s, as an older Xavier (James MacAvoy) gets his doctorate as an older Erik (Michael Fassbender) seeks revenge. The two are soon drawn into the effort to recruit more mutants to counter a plot by Shaw that weaves its way into the Cuban Missile Crisis. The cast is rounded out by an incredibly game Rose Byrne as CIA Agent Moira MacTaggert, a fantastic Jennifer Lawrence as Raven, who becomes known as Mystique, and the downright awful January Jones, who stiffly stumbles through a turn as the iconic Emma Frost.

The movie is not without its flaws. All of the Cuban Missile Crisis material will feel strangely without stakes for anyone who has ever seen a better executed take on the tensions and apocalyptic fears of the period, and the sprinkling in of real life footage does more to undercut the realism than it does to serve it. The film also seems to feel the need to rush into well established moments in X-Men continuity, sacrificing what could have been an incredibly enjoyable jaunt through the early days of the team to get into developments we all know are coming. That Xavier and Lensherr will soon be arch-enemies is known by all; more fun could have been had if the film had dedicated more of its runtime to developing the bond between these two before tearing it asunder. In fact, the film is at its best during an early montage that follows the two as they attempt to recruit mutants from around the world. MacAvoy and Fassbender have an easy, realistic chemistry and crackerjack comic timing that could have been put to better use if the movie would have slowed its propulsive pace for long enough to develop more realistic character beats.

Ultimately, though, First Class achieves its ends. It is fun, fast-paced, and action packed. It keeps the tone light for much of its run time, throws in enough in jokes (and cameos) to keep fans of the series happy, and reminds any wary audience members why X-Men movies used to be so much fun. While I wish the movie hadn't felt such a strong desire to blow through as much continuity as it did, there's at least comfort in knowing that it did so with verve and aplomb. And if nothing else, it accomplished what was surely its behind the scenes goal: It got me excited for the prospect of another X-Men movie.

Grade: B+

My Year in Lists: Week Twenty One

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.

“The big watershed was The Clash album […] Although The Damned and the [Sex] Pistols were great, they were only exciting musically; lyrically, I couldn’t make a lot out of it […] to realize that [The Clash] were actually singing about their own lives in West London was like a bolt out of the blue.”-Jake Burns of Stiff Little Fingers

“See microscopic, see world view, see the future leaking through, see the person who once was you.”-Coil, “Windowpane”

Thousands of words have been spent in this space discussing punk rock, not to mention the millions that have been published elsewhere on the subject. We’ve talked about its genesis, from The Stooges to The Ramones. We’ve talked about its existence as a reaction to the mainstream bands of the time (especially Boston). Most of all, we’ve talked about the after-effects of punk, from the New Wave ushered in by Joy Division and New Order to the hardcore exemplified by bands like Husker Du and a few other we’ll get to in a couple of weeks, to the slow development from post-punk into modern conceptions of alternative rock, starting with bands like REM and The Smiths. But until this week, we haven’t touched on one of the most important punk bands (honestly, just bands would still be accurate) of all time. Until today, we haven’t talked about The Clash.

The Clash debuted alongside The Sex Pistols at the dawn of punk rock, but the reason they remain so relevant is not only that they came in on the ground floor, but that they quickly evolved, continuing punk traditions while also bringing in other outside influences to change up the expected punk sound. By doing so, The Clash didn’t leave punk rock behind; rather, they solidified the genre as one worthy of the same amount of respect doled out to other forms of music. While just a few years after the late-70’s heyday of punk rock many fans would be complaining about and rebelling against what they saw as the tightly drawn rules of the genre, The Clash showed years before other bands seemed to catch on that punk rock shouldn’t and needn’t be as caged in as many other punk bands seemed to imply; rather, just doing whatever you wanted and creating memorable music outside of the mainstream could be seen as “punk rock” too. I’ve talked before about bands being “punk rock” without sounding like what we usually call punk rock (especially in my discussion of The Jesus and Mary Chain), but it’s possible that The Clash invented the idea. No one was ever going to claim The Clash weren’t punk rock, which freed the band to be whatever they wanted. They may not always sound like punk rockers, but that may be the single most punk rock thing about the band.

The Clash’s third album, and Collin’s pick this week, is the undisputed masterpiece London Calling, released in December of 1979 in the UK and the next month, at the dawn of 1980 in the US. After recording their second album Give ‘Em Enough Rope, in the US, the band separated from their manager Bernard Rhodes. This meant that the band had to find a new recording space, and after serttling at Vanilla Studios (which was located at the back of a garage) for a practice space, they quickly wrote and recorded demos, with Mick Jones composing and arranging music and Joe Strummer providing the lyrics.

In August of 1979, the band entered Wessex Studios to begin official recording of London Calling. The band asked Guy Stevens to produce the album, much to the dismay of CBS Records. Stevens had drug and alcohol problems and was known for his “unconventional” techniques. During recording he would swing ladders and throw chairs around the band to keep the tension high. The entire album was recorded in a few weeks, with many of the songs recorded in one or two takes.

The title track was partially influenced by the March 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, as well as the problems of rising unemployment, racial conflict, and drug use in Britain. “Rudie Can’t Fail,” the album’s fifth track, features a horn section and mixes the band’s punk roots with elements of pop, soul, ska, and reggae and tells of a hard-partying young man who is criticized for not acting more responsibly.





"Spanish Bombs" is, unsurprisingly, a song about the Spanish Civil War. What stands out about it is the fact that the band was actually endeavoring to deal with some political ideas within their music, to communicate ideas to their fans. This was not uncommon for bands like Devo and Gang of Four, yet for a British punk band at the time, it was at least a little bit outside the norm. "Lost in the Supermarket" is a slower song, and one of my favorite tracks on the album. The lyrics focus on someones struggling with an increasingly commercialized world and consumerism gone mad.





"The Guns of Brixton" has a strong reggae influence and is one of only two tracks written solely by Paul Simonon to be released on a Clash album. Contrary to popular belief, the song pre-dates the race riots in Brixton (which took place throughout the early '80s) but the lyrics depict the feelings of discontent that were building up due to the recession. "Train in Vain" (which on US releases is usually known as "Train in Vain (Stand By Me)") got it's title to avoid confusion with Ben E. King's "Stand By Me." The song was written in one night and recorded the next day, near the end of the album's recording. The song is sometimes referred to as a hidden track, as it was not included on the original sleeve, yet this only happened because the sleeve was printed before the track was added to the master tape. "Train in Vain" is a love song with country influences, a departure from much of what the band had done to this point, even on this departure of an album.





The Clash was one of the foremost bands in the development of punk rock, but quickly evolved into something more complex, influencing the development of ska, the prevalence of reggae, and the increase of political lyrics and ideas in popular music. London Calling is nothing short of a masterpiece, an album of big ideas, consistent vision, and an eye towards the future. Bono has said of The Clash that they are, "the greatest rock band. They wrote the rule book for U2." [Author's Note: It should be said that while Bono may claim The Clash as an influence, they should not be blamed for Bono's being a giant tool. That one's on him.] Other bands, including LCD Soundsystem, The Wallflowers, The Hives, The White Stripes, The Strokes, The Arctic Monkeys, and even M.I.A. consider The Clash to be a huge influence on their work. A landmark punk band from day one, The Clash became something more as they showed what punk could be and paved the way for numerous musical innovations to come.

Following on the heels of Throbbing Gristle, the Godfathers of industrial music, Coil was an English industrial experimental group formed in 1982 by John Balance (occasionally credited as "Jhonn Balance") and his partner Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson. Balance chose the name Coil because he said the shape was omnipresent in nature. The band's first album, and one of Tab's picks this week, Scatology was released in 1984. The album opens with "Ubu Noir," a decidedly experimental track that plays around with a single musical beat on a loop, feeding in found and industrial sounds around that center. "Tenderness of Wolves" opens with the sound of a child crying and develops an ominous feeling around that background noise.





"The Sewage Worker's Birthday Party" continues this ominous feeling, this time backed by the sounds of running water (let's hope) and industrial noises. The album's closing track, "Cathedral in Flames" is more melodic, but no less dark, maintaining the omnipresent hammering drum and adding vocals into the mix.





The group's third album, Love's Secret Domain is a much more palatable record, at least to my mind, a departure from the brooding melodies and heavy synthesizers of the group's previous work and focusing more on "acid house sampling," a repetitive, trance-like style that uses spoken word more readily than lyrics. The album's opening track "Disco Hospital" provides a perfect example of the acid house style the band experimented with on this release. The album was also intended to be more melodic than its predecessors, with even darker songs like "Windowpane" picking up a stronger beat that creates a dance-y thorough-line for the experimental piece. The title of the song refers to sheets of LSD (which the album's title is also a reference to), and the lyrics describe an acid trip.





"The Snow" has an electronic dance beat opening that is soon backed by heavy breathing and chanting. "Chaostrophy" is a sample-heavy track that ends in a hauntingly beautiful outro that would feel at home in a Kurosawa movie. Coil is often credited as a template of sorts for the development of post-industrial music in the 1990's, with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails calling the band one of his greatest influences and even starting a band (with Mariqueen Maandig and Atticus Ross) called How To Destroy Angels, the name taken from Coil's first single. Coil took what Throbbing Gristle had started and moved it forward for a whole new audience, giving industrial music a dance-y update for a new decade and influencing the movement of the genre into the new millennium.

While we're talking about the 1990's (another champion segue, I think), we can take a look at Depeche Mode, an electronic music outfit that formed in Basildon, Essex, England in 1980. In mid-1989, the band began recording in Milan with producer Francois Kevorkian, and in March of 1990, released their seventh studio album, and Ashley's pick this week, Violator. One of the most well known tracks off the album, "Personal Jesus" became a huge success for the band, spawning multiple covers (the most well known by Marilyn Manson and Johnny Cash). As songwriter Martin Gore describes it, "It's a song about being a Jesus for somebody else, someone to give you hope and care...and how often that happens in love relationships; how everybody's heart is like a God in some way, and that's not a very balanced view of someone is it?" The song is great by any measure; catchy, intelligent, insightful and memorable, it's no wonder "Personal Jesus" has endured.

http://youtu.be/u1xrNaTO1bI

"Waiting For The Night" begins with a slow, repetitive beat before the lyrics enter in, deepening the eerie feeling of the song. If any track on the album is more well known and lauded than "Personal Jesus," it's "Enjoy The Silence," which is often considered the band's signature song. Originally written as a slow tempo ballad, the song was eventually recorded over an upbeat tempo by Alan Wilder, who believed (correctly) that speeding the song up would make it a hit.





Depeche Mode has become one of the most prominent electronic bands of all time and continues to be successful today, three decades after their formation. Many bands, including Pet Shop Boys, The Killers, Deftones, Shakira, Coldplay, and (unfortunately), Linkin Park cite the band as a major influence. They helped to usher in the prominence of electronic music in the ensuing decades, and with Violator delivered several songs that have been burned into the public consciousness ever since.

Each of these three bands holds an important place in the development of their respective genre. The Clash was there at the birth of punk and helped it to move forward. Coil ushered industrial music out of its infancy and into the more commercially popular form that it became in the 1990's. And Depeche Mode made their mark on electronic music and helped to shape what came afterwards. Each formed an important part of the development of modern music, influencing all that came afterwards, and their effect on their genres, and on music in general, can still be felt today.

Read more My Year in Lists here

Next week on My Year in Lists:

Kraftwerk lives in a Computer World, Sham 69 wants them to Tell Us The Truth, and My Bloody Valentine remains Loveless.

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My Year in Lists: Week Nineteen

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.

“It never matters what you like; what matters is why you like it.”-Chuck Klosterman

“Outside there’s a boxcar waiting…”-Pixies, “Here Comes Your Man”

My feelings on the term “guilty pleasure” are incredibly complicated, I’ve found. Ostensibly, I agree with Chuck Klosterman’s thoughts on the term. I don’t think that I should feel guilty for liking the things that I like. I also don’t ascribe to the idea that there is some sort of universal taste that tells me what is good and what is terrible, and forces me to feel shame for enjoying things that have been deemed terrible. In the essay, Klosterman discusses his love of the movie Road House for completely legitimate reasons, and ponders whether the term guilty pleasure implies that “if these same people were not somehow coerced into watching Road House every time it’s on TBS, they’d probably be reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.”

I’ve read James Joyce, and I’ve seen Road House, and I enjoyed both for very different reasons and at very different moments in my life. If I hadn’t watched the entire first season of True Blood in a giant block, I might have been able to finish Pynchon’s Against the Day earlier, but I’m pretty sure doing that instead wouldn’t make me a better person. So as a rule I hate the term “guilty pleasures,” but my problem is that I also think the term has its use. Some things that I enjoy are constantly at war in my pop culture heart. Some things I recognize are terrible, not for universal, provable reason but for personal reasons. Yet I still enjoy some of these things. The easy answer to this would be to claim I enjoy them ironically, but that isn’t always the case. Look, when I watch Batman and Robin, its because that movie is fucking terrible and I find the gross miscalculations that went into its creation fascinating and hilarious. I watch that movie ironically because it provides a great time but in none of the ways it was intended to.

Yet there are some things I enjoy unironically while also being shocked at how terrible they are. When I was trying to put my feelings about Fleetwood Mac, and specifically the song “Go Your Own Way” into some sort of context, I recalled the night last summer when I was returning from a celebratory dinner after taking the LSAT. The song “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler came on the radio in the cab I was in, and my friend and I started belting it out. I went home and bought the song immediately. I hadn’t listened to it since, until this morning when I realized my feelings toward it are nearly identical to my feelings for the Fleetwood Mac song, which we will discuss in a moment. I think “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is pretty terrible: it’s over-the-top, hilariously melodramatic, epic in scope in an exaggerated way that only feels at home in bad ‘80s music videos, and its fucking seven minutes long to boot. But I also think it’s really, really, incredibly catchy, the kind of song I want to listen to, not because it’s really funny how bad it is, but because I find the activity enjoyable. So while I disagree with the term “guilty pleasure” as it is usually applied, I can’t help but feel it’s accurate for this sort of phenomenon where I can simultaneously loathe and love something in nearly equal measures. I don’t feel guilty for listening to “Total Eclipse of the Heart” four times while I wrote this column, nor do I feel guilty about the fact that I’ll probably listen to it again right now. But I wouldn’t hold it up as an example of great music, nor as one of my favorite songs. I would say, in fact, that it is a terrible song that for some reason appeals to me.

http://youtu.be/840B27zYfOk

Now to Fleetwood Mac, a pretty awful band that has turned out a few songs that fit comfortably into the above category. The band was initially formed as a blues outfit in London in 1967 by Peter Green, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. Green enticed McVie to join by naming the band Fleetwood Mac after the drummer and the bassist. During their early years the band was a straight blues outfit that achieved moderate success in England. Over the course of the band’s first three years, Green experimented with LSD, which contributed to the onset of schizophrenia. By early 1970, Green’s mental state had deteriorated and he recommended giving all of the band’s profits to charity. The rest of the band respectfully disagreed, and Green left in May of 1970.

After five years in which the band shuffled through several members, they met guitarist Lindsay Buckingham, who was currently heading American band Buckingham Nicks. The band asked him to join and he agreed, so long as his partner and girlfriend (and, if South Park is to be trusted, professional goat look-alike) Stevie Nicks could come along. This new line-up became the iconic incarnation of the band and released a self-titled album in 1975.

The next year, John and Christine McVie got divorced, Buckingham and Nicks ended their relationship and Fleetwood entered divorce proceedings as well (presumably because everyone in the band was a terrible human being and wanted to keep from being privately associated with one another before they released their next shitshow of an album). All of the emotional turmoil was laid bare (read: sung out over melodies so upbeat they begin to feel almost as soulless as Boston) on the group’s eleventh studio album, and Collin’s pick this week, Rumors. The album is by far the band’s most successful release, selling over 40 million copies and peaking at the top of the charts in the U.S. and the U.K.

“Dreams,” the second track on the album, was written by sentient goat Stevie Nicks as an optimistic look back at the dissolution of her relationship with Buckingham. Nicks bleats through an endless series of clichés (you see, “players only love you when they’re playing”) and less than subtle digs at Buckingham for an interminable four minutes of faux-folk-pop. “Women they will come and they will go,” to be sure, but at times during “Dreams” I wondered when, if ever, the song would follow suit and get the hell out of my ear canal. “Don’t Stop” is a slightly better song, reflecting Christine McVie’s feelings after her separation from John following eight years of marriage. The song is relentlessly optimistic, to the point where it feels more like McVie was putting on a happy face to get at her ex-husband, while secretly taking several trips a day to the ladies room to ball her eyes out. Her pain was probably very real, but none of that makes it into this song, a standard “tomorrow’s another day” ditty that rings completely hollow. At least to my ears. Bill Clinton really likes this song, at least if nearly all of his campaign appearances over the last two decades are to be believed. And we all know that Bill Clinton’s taste in music, like his taste in women, is unimpeachable (couldn’t be helped).

“Go Your Own Way” was written by Lindsay Buckingham and was the first single off the album. Just like every other song on Rumors, it is about a break up, with Buckingham seemingly more pessimistic than Nicks about the future of their relationship. “Go Your Own Way” is definitely the best song on the album by far, which is kind of like calling it the skinniest kid at fat camp. I can’t help but think of the song as a punchline, the “driving off into the sunset” song at the end of a terrible movie, but at the same time, I have to admit that my enjoyment of it isn’t ironic, at least not entirely. Like “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” it is a god damn catchy song, fun to belt out, especially while drinking heavily to mask the fact that the song isn’t particularly good. The less we say about “Songbird,” the better, which brings us to “The Chain,” the only song on the album written by all five members of the band at the time, a song with a basic rock structure and folk influences. In some ways it feels like the most meaningful song on the album, mostly because it is obviously pretty meaningless, a string of “let’s stay together” gobbledygook sung over strumming guitars. By writing a completely meaningless song, Fleetwood Mac was able to find a shred of meaning to throw into an album that, from the circumstances that created it should have been chock full of authentic pain.

Following a discussion of Fleetwood Mac and “guilty pleasures” with a look at Throbbing Gristle and industrial music is like doing a double feature of Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Ichi the Killer, which is to say, the kids should leave at this point unless they want to see a man dangling on hooks. Throbbing Gristle evolved out of the performance art group COUM Transmissions and in fact, the last performance of COUM Transmissions was also the debut of Throbbing Gristle. The band is known for their confrontational live performances using disturbing images including pornography and pictures of concentration camps to rile up the crowd. The group maintained that their mission was to challenge audiences while exploring the darker, more obsessive side of human nature, rather than make attractive music. Basically, Throbbing Gristle is the anti-Fleetwood Mac. They pioneered the use of pre-recorded samples and made extensive use of special effects to produce a distinct, highly distorted background, which was generally accompanied by lyrics or spoken word pieces. Their first album, Second Annual Report, was released in an initial run of 786 copies. When that sold out and demand remained high, the group did a re-release, reversing the track order and playing each track backwards.

The band’s second album, and Tab’s pick this week, D.o.A: The Third and Final Report of Throbbing Gristle was released in 1978, just one year after Rumors and a sonic universe apart. “United,” the album’s third track, is a 16 second version of the song from an earlier EP (which we will look at next week). The original song runs five minutes, and is simply sped up to fit within the time allotted. “Weeping” uses four types of acoustic violin, is played through a space-echo and is a song about crushing defeat.

“Hamburger Lady” was inspired by a letter from Dr. Al Ackerman, the mail artist, and discusses a deeply scarred and mutilated woman. “AB7/A” is by far the most melodic song on the album, a reprieve from all of the darkness and depression that surrounds it. We will discuss several more Throbbing Gristle releases next week, but for now it must be said that the band’s sonic experiments on their second album are largely successful, and that the work exists as a fully realized journey into the dark side of man’s soul.

Jumping forward again, we turn now to the formation of Pixies in Boston, Massachusetts in 1986. The band consists of Black Francis on vocals and rhythm guitar, Joey Santiago on lead guitar, Kim Deal on bass and vocals and David Lovering on drums. Santiago and Francis first met at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Francis eventually dropped out and the two formed a band in January of 1986. Kim Deal joined the band two weeks later in answer to an ad seeking a female bassist who liked Peter, Paul, and Mary and Husker DU. Deal was the only person to respond, but arrived without a bass guitar, as she had never played the instrument before. The band’s name was chosen at random from a dictionary.

As this year winds down we will revisit Pixies and look at several of their other releases, but this week we will examine the band’s second full album, and Ashley’s pick, Doolittle. The album’s working title was Whore, though when the cover art was revealed to be a depiction of a monkey with a halo around it’s head, Francis decided he did not want to be pinned down as anti-Catholic and changed the name to Doolittle from a lyric in “Mr. Grieves.”

“Debaser,” the album’s opening track, is based around the Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali film Un Chien Andalou (known to those who have seen it as the “HOLY SHIT! That woman’s eye just got slit open by a razor!” movie). The song’s title is a reference to the film as a debasement of morality and artistic standards, but also to Amherst film studies professor Don Eric Levine, who screened the film for Black and was known as “the debaser” because he often spoiled the endings of films.

“Here Comes Your Man” is one of those songs that you know is great from the opening riff. By the first lyric, you’re completely in love and by the chorus on a different place of awesome. In other words, it’s a very good song. Originally written by Black Francis when he was a teenager but not included on earlier releases due to his reluctance and fears about its quality, Jon Dolan of Spin magazine called it, “the most accessible song ever by an underground-type band.” While I wouldn’t say I have the authority to make that assertion, “Here Comes Your Man” is an amazing song, catchy without lapsing into bubble gum pop, grungy without losing its upbeat whimsy and imminently listenable, the type of song I imagine will rack up hundreds of plays on my ipod without me ever getting tired of it.

“Monkey Gone to Heaven” references environmentalism and biblical numerology, a song Rolling Stone’s David Fricke called “a corrosive, compelling meditation on God and garbage.” The song simultaneously deals with man’s destruction of the environment and confusion about man’s place in the universe, two potentially heady ideas that should feel at odds packed into less than three minutes of music, and yet somehow work well together, even complementing each other. If you had told me prior to my first listen that a song on the album dealt with the environment, confusion about man’s purpose, and biblical numerology, I would have believed you (you are, after all, a trustworthy source), but I would have expected it to be a total mess. Instead, “Monkey Gone to Heaven” is sonically clean, with a clear message behind each of its several themes, never sacrificing clarity yet always remaining interesting and entertaining. In other words, it’s awesome. “Crackity Jones” describes a crazy roommate, and is a propulsive roller coaster ride of a song, clocking in at 1:24. The song is a rocket powered, punk-ish discourse wish a distinctly Spanish sound.

We will look more into the legacy of Pixies later this year, but the band, and this album in particular, were instrumental to the alt-explosion of the ‘90s and the beginning of the grunge movement. Kurt Cobain was a huge fan and feared that people would criticize “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (which we’ll talk about next month) as derivative of Pixies’ sound. Spoiler alert: they didn’t. The Smashing Pumpkins and PJ Harvey also cite Doolittle as a huge influence on the shape of music as the ‘90s prepared to dawn. The album is a near-perfect collection of songs, pulled together by recurring themes and a consistent sound, and hearkening toward what the alternative movement would become over the next several years, making it an absolutely essential listen for fans of the ‘90s, or of music in general.

Ultimately, Fleetwood Mac, like Boston before them, feels like a band that was more a part of tearing down the old musical system than a force for driving music forward. Where Throbbing Gristle and Pixies both experimented and helped to shape the musical landscape that would follow them, Fleetwood Mac seems mostly to be gnawing on the corpse of “classic rock,” hoping to get a few more bucks before their teeth hits bone. Still, though, there’s a pretty good chance I’ll listen to “Go Your Own Way” again before the day is out. That is, if I can stop listening to “Here Comes Your Man” for long enough to fit it in.

Read more My Year in Lists here

Next week on My Year in Lists:

Elvis Costello and the Attractions display This Year’s Model, we take a crash course in Throbbing Gristle with United/Zyklon B Zombie, We Hate You (Little Girls)/ Five Knuckle Shuffle, Journey Through a Body, Subhuman/Something Came Over Me, Adrenalin/Distant Dreams (Part Two) and 20 Jazz Funk Greats, and close out Ashley’s examination of the ‘80s with Fugazi’s 13 Songs.

Want to keep tabs on all of our updates? follow us on twitter @reviewtobenamed (follow us here).

Jordan's Review: Community, Season 2, Episodes 23-24: A Fistful of Paintballs/For a Few Paintballs More

First off, apologies for missing last week. There were graduation duties to attend to and ultimately, it just couldn’t be helped. Fortunately, last week was just part one of a two parter, so let’s just pretend that I did this on purpose to write about the whole saga as one big piece, shall we? Because I’m sure many of you have digested “A Fistful of Paintballs” pretty completely by this point, I’ll spend less time on it than on “For a Few Paintballs More,” but first, let’s just talk about these episodes in general.

I’ve said before that the idea of going back to the paintball well worried me. Community is a show that often goes to very high concept places for an episode, and while I think “Modern Warfare” was one of the best episodes of the show’s first season (and one of the best episodes on television in that season), I wasn’t exactly giddy about the idea of the show repeating itself, especially after I’ve been disappointed by the back half of this season. Community is one of my favorite shows on television. Not just one of my favorite comedies, mind you, but one of my favorite shows. I hold it up to very high standards because of this, and most of the back half of this season just didn’t live up to those standards. I never flat out hated a single episode, which is two the show’s credit, but I also never loved one of these episodes as much as I loved the first half of this season. So I was worried that the show was going to go out with a glorified re-run.

Fortunately, that was not the case. “A Fistful of Paintballs” had a lot of set up to deal with, mainly in why in god’s name this was all happening AGAIN. Fortunately it has The Dean to take the fall for that in the squealy, terrified and overwhelmed way he does best. Add in an old time-y flashback to the Wild West end of the year picnic and a talking ice cream cone promising $100,000 to the winner (directly after the Dean joked the prize wouldn’t be anything insane like last year’s) and I was in on the premise.

The question of how to top “Modern Warfare” had to be crossing the minds of the writers when they decided to take on their most universally beloved episode (it isn’t my favorite, but I recognize that is the consensus). They did this largely by reminding us why the first half of season two was better than season one (though the season as a whole has been much more uneven and ultimately, I’m not sure which I like better this soon). Where “Modern Warfare” killed off the show’s “supporting cast” pretty quickly (think of how fast Troy and Annie died, a fact that would be insane to consider in an episode of this scope at this point in the series) to tell a story about the show’s ostensible main characters, Jeff and Britta, “A Fistful of Paintballs” let’s us know that this story is about everyone. Annie is at the center of part one as Jeff was in “Modern Warfare,” but really, it’s more of a Pierce story.

While the episode gave the whole cast a lot to do, it played most directly with these two, an important choice in my eyes for the fact that they have had the most problematic arcs this season. With Pierce, the problem is obvious, and addressed head on: after all the man has done to these people, all the truly awful things he’s put them through, he really shouldn’t be in the group. We learn that the group voted on whether to keep him in, and that Annie was the lone hold out that kept him from being expelled. This is an important character beat for Annie, who I think has been most underserved in season two. Most of the time this year, Annie has been brought up as part of a romantic subplot (see the second part, which I’ll get to in a minute) and used sparingly otherwise. She is the character most clearly tied to Greendale-related plotlines (as the one truly dedicated student in the group, and the one who considers leaving the school for greener pastures whenever that’s convenient), and since season two has had fewer of those, there has been less for her to do. Letting her be the lone gunman drawn into this episodes plotline was a smart choice, and seeing her bitterness at the rest of the group’s willingness to splinter makes perfect sense. Part one ending with even Annie deciding it was time for Pierce to go was a pretty dramatic endpoint for the episode, and for Pierce’s arc this season.

Moving into the actual finale, I was pretty happy, if a little disappointed. Look, the show was going to do a Star Wars episode at some point, and as things go, it went off pretty well. There were plenty of well crafted in-jokes, and it was damn exciting, which always impresses me (when the show manages to invest me in the story its telling beyond just the parody elements, I give it extra credit points, just how I like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz more because they are both parodies and work as members of the zombie and buddy cop genres, respectively). But I can’t help feeling like this was a little bit of a letdown, hurting the progress made with Annie’s character last week and playing similar (Though maybe different enough) beats in the Pierce storyline.

I know a lot of you will be upset that the show didn’t do all of that much with Star Wars outside of making Greendale into an Alliance of Rebels and having Abed beat Jeff to being Han Solo (both of which were nice), but personally I don’t mind. Star Wars parodies have been done to death, and I would have been very disappointed if the finale was more interested in being a parody than an investigation of the characters and their dynamics.

Again, I was upset that Annie was reduced here to “romantic interest” for Abed’s Han Solo. I think that just confuses things, especially when she remains interested after he drops the act, and I think it delegitimizes her supposedly real feelings for Jeff. If Annie kisses people whenever there’s a moment of drama and remains interested in them afterward, the thing between her and Jeff feels more like a reaction than an honest development. Plus, at this point she has been interested in every male cast member who isn’t Pierce, and that’s just a bit too sitcom-y for me, especially since we’re only at the end of season two. As for Pierce, this episode ended on the exact same cliffhanger as last week’s, which is kind of cheap, honestly. But I forgive it for the kind-of-obvious-but-still-pretty-affecting reveal that Pierce has been going to Greendale for 12 years, and never hung out with anyone for more than a semester until them. At the end of the episode, Pierce leaves the group of his own accord, and while we all know he’ll be back next season, I hope the show takes its time getting us there and doesn’t rush things in the finale. This is a storyline that needs to play out a bit.

While I did have minor complaints here and there, what I really loved about this episode was its focus not on our core cast members but on Greendale in general as a place for people in need of a second chance to gather. Greendale is a terrible college run by an incompetent Dean and filled with teachers completely unqualified to be teaching their subjects, but that has actually made it into a very special place. Greendale will take anyone, and that means that it accepts everyone for their flaws. The show has very slowly and naturally expanded its supporting cast into a huge band of misfits and miscreants, and many (though not all) of them get an appearance here. We get to see Leonard (who has been in two real wars but thinks this is the scariest thing he’s ever seen), Magnitude (who dies, hilariously, jumping on a paintball grenade, giving Troy maybe my favorite single line of the night), Quendra, Fat Neil, the return of Anthony Michael Hall’s ineffective bully, and several other recurring characters who may or may not actually have names, but who its nice to see rise up to defend their school.

And after two seasons and 49 episodes, that may be my favorite thing about Community. It really cares about all of these characters, and about giving them their second chances to be better people. It wants them to get better, to ultimately succeed over their own weaknesses, but when they fail, it supports them and encourages them to try again. Greendale is a completely insane place to be, but its perfectly understandable why everyone there begrudgingly loves the place and why Pierce gives the money to Greendale when he wins, even though he wasn’t there for the rousing speech that told everyone else to do so. For Pierce, it’s Greendale that will never abandon him, not any particular person at the school, and this strong sense of place gives me hope again that the show can return and deliver a third season that will dwarf the first two.

Grade: A-

Notes:

-These come only from this week’s episode, “For a Few Paintballs More.”

-“Why would someone who gets paid to do things be at Greendale?”

-I loved the City College reveal. It was obvious, yes, but I think City College as the fairly shapeless but obviously superior rival to Greendale is a great recurring gag, sort of on par with Eagleton over in Parks and Rec (though to this point, Eagleton has been handled better).

-“You’re the worst!” “Ok, she’s just saying that to fit in!” Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE kind of hate Britta. Except Troy.

-“Easy, Paradox. We’re all on one side.”

-“I think it’s called a taint.”

-“I’m calling dibs on the Han Solo role before Jeff slouches into it by default.” Which is exactly what would’ve happened.

-“Pop What? Pop what?!?!? What is he trying to say? POP WHAT MAGNITUDE?!?!?” I laughed so hard at this, I hurt. GREAT delivery by Donald Glover, as always.

-Nice callback to Troy’s incredible, Good Will Hunting parodying plumbing skills.

-“CHAAAAR…Well, I’m out.”

-“I had a dream it would end this way…”

-See you guys in season three!