revisited: musical exhaustion

todays p-fizzle review of OOIOO's new effort begins with a paragraph talking about their previous album.

"Japanese all-female group and Boredoms offshoot OOIOO's fifth album, 2006's Taiga, holds a more than respectable score of 78 on Metacritic, but it split Pitchfork listeners. The percussion heavy, often amelodic beast came off as needlessly difficult and even lazy to some staffers, yet Dominique Leone claimed it to be, in so many words, the easiest entry point in the OOIOO catalogue. I don't begrudge either extreme viewpoint: OOIOO's output is divisive for the simple reason that the band has a unique capacity to both wow and disappoint."

on one side, someone says that Taiga is a good place to start if you're interested in liking OOIOO. the other side finds the album "needlessly difficult". both views are cast as "extreme" and the difference is split, earning the new album a 7.4.

contemporary political journalism usually acts like this: describe two opposing positions as opposed, and treating each as 50/50 true, since there are two ides.

but more relevant to my topic is the idea that any music can be "needlessly difficult." "difficult", we've been over many times around these parts. "needlessly" is a new twist for me. as if the album were a confusing legal document, a student loan collection letter, or a health insurance form.

1) it's music. it has no purpose. it's ALL needless.

2) listening to music is not hard. OOIOO demand nothing more of their listeners than does taylor swift.

3) if you don't like an album, the reason simply is NOT that the album is difficult. because that's like saying you don't like a meal because it's furious.

4) and finally, to call an album "lazy" because YOU find it too "difficult" to sit perfectly motionless and listen to it is a new height of absurd pot-kettle-ism.

Slogged Down By Pesky Talent

Nice, just when I thought Uticas had this area covered, we have a brand new entry into the "difficult music" island of disappointment.

A band named People, who are of course from NYC, have come out with a ridiculously inventive and generally insane album. Unfortunately, Aaron Leitko likes his albums smooth and simple. Let's ponder some of his ridiculous statements.

Dense, informed, and academic, Misbegotten Man, the sophomore record by Brooklyn's People, is sort of the indie-rock equivalent of a senior thesis paper.

Those first three descriptive words should tell you where we're headed: Death From Musical Exhaustion!!! Run for the hills, this music is too ferociously academic for your piddling ear drums!

Also, when summing up a band's sound, using "sort of" does not work. Find another phrase that "is" the sound instead of trying to be clever.

The carefully scripted chaos of guitarist/vocalist Mary Halverson and drummer Kevin Shea might be an excellent representation of accumulated knowledge, originality, and creative thinking, but listening to the album all the way through can be an exercise in patience more arduous than trying to read Jacques Derrida during an earthquake.

HA HA HA! YES! There it is, a blanket statement claiming that music of People is just TOO DARN HARD to listen to. Darn these forward thinking bands and their carefully crafted and challenging music!

As Uticas pointed out, this is just a simple case of a music critic not knowing his ABC's. It's not that the music is too challenging; moreso this review shows the writer's own shortcomings as a student of music. There is nothing wrong with complex music. Granted, not everyone wants to listen to Merzbow, but give the listener some credit. Let's continue.

Each shambling composition squats around the same tempo and follows a similar predictably unpredictable structure.

Translation: Can't they write a song in 3/4 that I can accurately review? Can't the drums sit back on the 2's and 4's?

This is ridiculous. Are you actually complaining about predicting "unpredictability?" So they play to their strength, is that such a bad thing? Sounds like they avoid complacency but stick to what they know. So what's there to complain about?

The lyrics are where People come off at their most textbook-driven and tedious.

Fun. This is the part of the review where one guy contradicts the general consensus. Now to think of all the bands Pitchfork have loved who have questionable lyrics. The Books have terrible preachy eco lyrics, Fiery Furnaces get away with a lot, hell, have you ever tried to decipher Neutral Milk Hotel's words? Sure you have, it's part of the fun! Not according to to this guy, of course.

Based on this review(small sample-size aside), Aaron Leitko believes there are two types of music:

a) simple, easy to consume rock/pop with digestible lyrical sentiments
b) overly complex math-diarrhea with over-the-top-bullshit-crossword-puzzle lyrics

The world is not black and white, Aaron. As crazy as this music is, I'm sure it's not half as fucked up as you have scribed. Oh yeah, and my favorite moment of the review comes up right now!

The critical about-face!!!

The duo's quirks give them a unique and mischievous identity that's more interesting than, say, your average group of eyeliner-sporting three-chord lookers.

Cool. Thanks for your opinion. I mean opinions. I mean, what the fuck are you talking about? You refuse to give props to the band's musicianship, recording technique, sound quality, sequencing, fuck, you reference 3 snippets of lyrics! And then, after bashing the group for their too dense, too complex, too non-sensical sound, you turn around and say, "Well, at least they're not like everyone else?" Follow through with your convictions, don't muddy the waters!

After a few listens you may even find yourself empathizing with People in their plight as intellectual musicians operating in a medium that usually thrives on, well, being kind of dumb.

Here's a thought: Some music critics are like the band People. They show their love of music in their craft.

And some critics are kind of dumb. Like you.

Big Things Cresting

Fun is fun, as they say. Do you know what else is fun? Terrible puns on album titles! Also, really vague language that uses adjectives to prevent any actual analyis! Thankfully, NME supplies us with a wondrous dearth of material to devaluate.

Hot Hot Heat - Happiness Ltd

In 2002, Hot Hot Hot Heat's 'Make Up The Breakdown' bounded into the world's lap like a giddy terrier, but 2005's 'Elevator' stalled.

Woo hoo hoo! Read it again and feel a little more stupid. It's fun, kind of like killing some brain cells when huffing a whippet.

On their fifth album, partly produced by Green Day and MCR Midas-toucher Rob Cavallo, the message is clear: pop is back. Big hooks and cresting balladry are shamelessly in-season ('Outta Heart') and call-and-response choruses are bigger than ever ('Give Up?').

There is a reason this review is short. So far the album is full of cresting balladry, with big call-and-response choruses. Good.

The trademark tempo jiggery remains and it's all threaded together with airy production that underlines rather than overwhelms.

Know what I'm a big fan of? Production that sounds like the air. And we all know that air sounds of sweet cresting balladry, right?

Also, I love to get jiggery. I get jiggery all the time. Me and this guy(you know, the guy on the right), together the jiggery we share.

And while there's nothing here as incendiary as 'Bandages', there remains a sense of flow that previous albums have lacked.

A lot of "critic language" is being flung around today. Airy production, Midas-toucher, and now a "sense of flow."

Awesome, I'm now getting a clearer picture of what this sounds like. A golden Will Smith singing call and response ballads, cresting all the while.

Hot Hot Heat are not the freewheeling scamps they once were.

Chances that members of any band from the dawn of time never experience a life change, ever: Zero.

Thankfully, rather than mature into 'serious' musicians, they've rejuvenated themselves with the elixir of a purer pop.

A quick list of a serious musician's traits:

a) skilled at their chosen profession
b) lacks a sense of humor
c) must write songs concerning only death, life, and the immediate variations on those themes
d) must listen to exhausting music and die from the intense experience

Serious musicians can be interested in pure pop (Bob Mould, Frank Black, David Bowie, Frank Zappa) and are pretty brilliant in their execution of said pop. What the fuck is wrong with someone being 'serious?' Why am I continuing to put that word in quotations?

Anyone in a band is a serious musician. Anyone playing or learning an instrument is a serious musician. Think I'm being a little general in my description? That's because the true technical idea of musicality is no longer discussed in popular music's criticism. Just because a bassist can't play "Donna Lee" straight-up, no swing doesn't mean he's not serious.

The concern, as Uticas pointed out, is not in the words, but how they're arranged. The vague adjectives titillate the mind, and you think, 'Maybe I'll enjoy the Midas-touched sounds.'

Rating from NME: 7 out of 10. Bizarre.

Confused By The Dirty Projectors

"Hi, my name is Mike Powell. I listened to the new Dirty Projectors album, and it was so crazy that it made me look like this:


Yeah, I look like a confused child. I like music, I really do, I just don't know how to express it. You know what, I like this Dirty Projectors album, but the dubious hipster in me tells me not to trust these feelings. Now I'll let J. Temp rip my completely ambiguous review."

Thanks Mike, don't mind if I do.

Hearing the band rip through material from last year's New Attitude EP on a recent Daytrotter session was like watching the glass slipper slide on.

Mike likes the Dirty Projectors. Their recent performance leads him to believe that they have hit their stride.

While Longstreth's initial albums were mostly string-backed folk, he's now given himself up to rhythm-- in his words, his compositions have become more "horizontal" than "vertical." The horizontal's great for dancing-- an opportunity that arises a few times here-- but verticality is still the source of the songs' tensions.

Translated to layman's terms: The music is sometimes more dancey thanks to an emphasis on rhythm. This section of the paragraph is tragically busy. Also, lost in the vernacular is a decent knowledge of music and the way it is shaped. Too bad.

Coffman and Waiche's coos stack harmonies with Longstreth's bleat like little car wrecks, and even though the guitars move like a West African dance band or math rock, the songs seem propelled by the constant resolutions of notes rather than the beats themselves.

When describing group vocals, this is perhaps at the bottom of the totem pole. Little car wrecks. How three people singing sounds like Micro Machine fender-benders is beyond me. Does it sound accidentally good? Is it good at all? The confusion is palpable.
Weaving guitar lines = West African Dance Band OR math rock? Are you saying that the guitar lines are influenced by those two elements, or are we supposed to pick one?
I'm not really sure I can translate this section into something tangible. It's a twisted mess of simile and half-finished thoughts.

Some of this record sounds like Phish and some of it sounds like the Police.

Translation: The album sound neither here nor there. To say that the record sounds like these bands without any sonic context is preposterous. The Police and Phish don't have a single compositional path, both veer off the beaten path quite often. Therefore this sound-a-like comparison has zero weight. Writing a sentence like that is the equivalent to driving an airplane across the country without taking off.

There's a verse in Esperanto.

He must have meant to edit this out. I hope.

When Longstreth strides into the singer-songwriter spotlight, he's so determined to express himself he forgets the idea is to share, instead employing melisma that's so brutal it's almost embarrassing.

Nope. Nope nope nope. Your idea of expressing yourself is to share. Perhaps that's not part of Longstreth's idea of expression. You can't penalize a guy because he doesn't fit into your specific definition of a form of creative expression. And maybe he can't sing very well, but all you have to do is say so. Instead, you used music nerd language to express your feelings. For those of you who don't know (and I guarantee you there is more than a handful):

Melisma \Me*lis"ma\, n.; pl. Melismata. [NL., fr. Gr. me`lisma

     a song.] (Mus.)
  (a) A piece of melody; a song or tune, -- as opposed to
      recitative or musical declamation.
  (b) A grace or embellishment.
      [1913 Webster]

There.

And he sounds like he's having fun! And that's scary.

So you like the album, or you don't? All of this review has been perfectly vague.

But newfound focus from the band brings newfound exhaustion for listeners.

I've always really enjoyed the argument that listening to music can be "exhausting". As if you can break a fucking sweat listening to prog rock. Has anyone actually died from listening to music that is just too busy, too challenging for our feeble ears and minds?

Nope. Never happened. That's why that expression is bullcrap.

For all his supposed messiness, Longstreth is actually really brittle and anal-retentive.

Let me fix this sentence for Mike: For all of his supposed messiness (a myth promulgated by Pitchfork and other uber-indie sitez), Longstreth is actually really brittle and anal-retentive (according to me, Mike, who interviewed the guy once, so I guess I'm just basing this on pure conjecture, seeing as how you can't judge a book by its cover).

That the album has a concept-- a song-by-song "reimagining" of Black Flag's Damaged-- scarcely matters to the listener, although it seems good for Longstreth: It gives the illusion of an anchor.

The illusion of an anchor? Really? I'd say it is a compositional anchor. It's as a real as a theoretical anchor could be and to mention it as an afterthought is laughable.

He recently told me that it was his attempt at making a "New York album: angular, austere, obsessed with authenticity, like New York bands supposedly are." The assumptions seem off, but he probably hit the mark. They're consumed with cultural appropriation and aesthetic polyamory-- a post-pop-art idea of authenticity.

This is just weird. He disagrees with Longstreth's point about New York music, and then provides a clear argument against his disagreement. Why?

Rise Above will drop plenty of jaws, and, like Deerhoof, Dirty Projectors are restructuring rock on a compositional level rather than a sonic one. To murder a cliché, whatever unfurls from Longstreth's brain next isn't anyone's guess-- Rise Above, for all its fastidiousness and minor drawbacks, finally displays the perfect counterargument to the portrait of him as another nutso college dropout: It displays a pattern.

If anyone can tell me what the pattern is, I'll give you a pot of gold. I really don't understand this paragraph. It's completely convoluted, and it ends with that ridiculous pattern statement. He could've just stopped at the first sentence.

The strange thing is, he gives it an 8.1 after all this rambling. For the entire review he seemed to be sitting on the fence, willing to appreciate the Projector's vision and new-found compositional prowess but unwilling to admit that Longstreth and company know what they're doing. I would expect a rating of 5.6 or 6.8 at the most. You can't sow that much doubt without owning up to it.