(THIS POST ORIGINALLY APPEARS ON THE TWIN CITIES BLOG NEWEST INDUSTRY)
Night Beds, Adam Green & Binki Shapiro, Thao With The Get Down, Stay Down, Eels, & Aby Wolf...
Well hello again, MP3 junkies!
Welcome to Songs Of The Week #27!
For those of you who remain
unfamiliar with the column, here's how it works. Each week we ask
two of our regular contributors to download the songs given away via
The Current's Song Of The Day podcast. They spend a few days with
the songs and then give us their takes. Each song is then given a
score from 0-5.
As always, we strongly recommend
that you click here and subscribe to the podcast yourself. It's free
music and playing along at home is fun for the whole family!
To that end, we've posted a poll to
the right side of the page. Please vote for whichever was your
favorite song. At the end of the week we tally up the votes and the
winner is rewarded with the sense of validation that can only come
from anonymous internet polls, which his the highest civilian honor
America can give out.
As has been the case for the last
few weeks (and remains the case this week), TCDroogsma will be
tackling these songs solo dolo. Unfortunately we still haven't been
able to find a cohort. If only their were more judgmental music fans
who like seeing their name on the internet out there...
So, now that that's out of the way,
let's get into it. Droogsy, thoughts?
01. Night
Beds – Ramona (from the album Country Sleep)
TCDroogsma:
Remember that Ryan Adams album Gold? Night Beds sure do!
"Ramona" isn't a bad song, but there is absolutely nothing new going on here. If you enjoy alt-country, you will like this song. If you don't, "Ramona" is background music. As someone who likes Ryan Adams and is on speaking terms with alt-country, I can't say this song does anything for me.
Final Score: 2/5
02. Adam Green &
Binki Shapiro – Just To Make Me Feel Good (from the album Adam
Green & Binki Shapiro)
TCDroogsma:
While I'm not (and never was) a Moldy Peaches fan, it was pretty clear with that group that their appeal was rooted in Kimya Dawson's charm and their ramshackle performance/recording style. I don't say that to diminish Adam Green's contributions to the group. For all know he was the brains behind the whole operation. Frankly, I never cared enough to dig deeper.
With "Just To Make Me Feel Good," we find Adam Green returning to the boy/girl format of The Moldy Peaches, but without either of those two calling cards. Green does a pretty fine job of channeling his inner Stephen Merritt, remaining mostly deadpan while Binki Shapiro gives the song color. Still, much like Night Beds up above, the song lacks any trait that stands out.
"Just To Make Me Feel Good" does redeem itself with its lyrics. Green's come a long way from the nursey-rhymed ridiculousness of the Peaches albums, asking Shapiro (or the significant other she represents) to, "Ask me things with no warning." The song lives in the the little moments of relationships that make them worthwhile, not an easy terrain to navigate. They do it admirably here.
Final Score: 3/5
03. Thao With The
Get Down, Stay Down – We The Common (For Valerie Bolden (from the
album We The Common)
TCDroogsma:
Two questions:
Have you ever been sitting at the bar chatting with an oppressively foxy woman and feeling good about your chances, but, as the night presses on, she keeps saying more and more ridiculous and/or insane things that eventually you just say, "Fuck it, she's hot, but I can't do this any longer?"
Remember back in December when I reviewed Thao's "Holy Roller?" I tried to explain that I couldn't accurately judge any Thao & The Get Down, Stay Down song because I was blindingly smitten with Thao herself? It's not that I only liked the songs because Thao is so damn sexy, it's that I couldn't separate the songs from the sexy.
(In case you forgot why I feel that way, watch this video. That song is classic.)
(In case you forgot why I feel that way, watch this video. That song is classic.)
I think you can see where I'm going here. "We The Common" if finally the last call vodka tonic that pushes Thao from the, "OK, she's a little loopy, but she's still sexy" to, "That's enough, I can't do this." It wouldn't matter if the Get Down, Stay Down consisted of Lucy Liu, Natalie Portman, & Ryan Gosling backing Thao, "We The Common" is bad enough that it overwhelms all the charm exuded by the frontwoman.
If I had never heard a song with that stupid guitar style, pointless strings, boot-stomping percussion, and a brutally quirky wordless-hook then maybe this would be tolerable, but The Current's been shoving shit like this down our throat for years. I'm drawing the line right here.
Final Score: 0.5/5
04. Eels – New
Alphabet (from the album Wonderful, Glorious)
TCDroogsma:
"New Alphabet" is not necessarily new ground for Eels. It lives in the same, "I don't feel so good, what the fuck's going on?" world that has made Eels famous. Most of those songs, however, are either living in the moment of not feeling good or looking back on that moment from a time well into the future.
It may just be me, but I really like "New Alphabet" because it lives in that moment between those two points. "I'm in a good mood today, I'm so glad that it's not yesterday" implies that E is still coping with whatever happened and "New Alphabet" finds him squarely in the "Lashing out" phase of coping. As someone who's been know to lash a bit, this song really speaks to me.
What E's done here, is give us his take on the pop music narrative of "I did it my way." Obviously, that's coming from Sinatra, but the line runs through all strains of music. The first time I listened to this song, the fist song that came to mind was P.O.S. "Purexed" (one of the the great songs of my lifetime). There's very little difference, "Yeah, we do our own damn thing, we don't blink at what tomorrow might bring at all," and "When the world stops making sense, I make a new alphabet."
Final Score: 4/5
05. Aby Wolf –
Brave Boy (from the album Wolf Lords)
TCDroogsma:
I'll be honest, I'm kind of losing the plot with Aby Wolf. The first time I saw her she was playing at the 331 Club and had a coffeehouse hippy vibe going. Next I heard from her was the still-brilliant single "What U Waitin' 4?" which was in the hip-hop world, but sported a earworm hook that sound like it was flown over from the world of indie rock. Her contribution to BK-One's Radio Do Canibal album was a low-key highlight, wrapping her pretty voice around some sampled Brazilian guitar work. Outside of her work with Dessa, the last thing I heard was a SOTD track from the A Wolf & Her Claws project, "All This Time," which was a fine song, but found Wolf venturing further from the hooks and leaning on her voice/glitchy noise to prop the song up.
Which brings me to "Brave Boy," a collaboration with Grant Cutler, the man who provided the music for Lookbook. "Brave Boy" features the same warped-instrumentation of A Wolf And Her Claws and Lookbook with one exception: it doesn't go anywhere. Where those projects had the ability get hips shaking, the music of "Brave Boy" doesn't make me want to do anything. That would be OK if Wolf were able to find a hook to propel the song forward. Unfortunately, the progression I detailed above has reached it's obvious end: Wolf relying solely on her voice to carry the song. Frankly, it just doesn't work.
Final Score: 1.5/5
There you have
it, folks! Another week's worth of songs downloaded, pondered upon,
reviewed, and filed away.
As always,
please remember that neither Newest Industry nor its contributors is
in any way affiliated with the artists above, The Current, or MPR.
We're just music fans with word processors and little bit too much
time on our hands.
For more
TCDroogsma, be sure to give him a follow on Twitter (@TCDroogsma).
He can also be found right here on Newest Industry hosting our weekly
podcast, Flatbasset Radio, or ranting like a lunatic on his personal
blog Flatbasset.
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