The Tris McCall Report
2005 Pop Music Abstract
That purple, purp purple, purp purple. It's going down.
50 Cent -- "Candy Shop", "Disco Inferno", "Just A Lil Bit", "Window Shopper", "Hustler's Ambition", "Outta Control (Remix)" (with Mobb Deep)
If I'd gone outside one evening this summer and found that Shady/Aftermath had managed to replace the moon with a picture of 50 Cent's face, I wouldn't have been surprised. A bestselling album, a soundtrack album, two books, a major biopic, a clothing line, and about seven thousand guest appearances ought to have bought Curtis Jackson a genuine, MJ-in-'83-style elvis year. That didn't happen, and we're left to figure out why. He couldn't come up with the immortal radio cut -- or anything half as good as "In Da Club" -- and that hurt. But the bigger problem is that 50 Cent shares with Matthew Sweet a tendency to single his most retardo material. Sweet honestly believed that America was super-stupid, and one shining day he'd be able to dumb down his writing to the point where it would be legible to the LCD. 50 just seems unnecessarily insecure. Twenty million sold ought to free you from your obligation to serve up junk food. He's got a mass audience in place; he doesn't need to tease with "Just A Lil Bit" when he's got "Ryder Music" and "The Ski Mask Way" in the trunk. We're not going to go through all the singles yet -- it's still early, and I want to keep you reading and wait 'til I'm warmed up. I'll run through the whole G-unit shebang when we get to Tony Yayo; lord knows the less said about him, the better.
I just don't like him. He reminds me of the dude who sang the straight-man part on "It Wasn't Me". Only that was a joke, and Akon is serious. We're supposed to pardon his cheesy delivery because it's West African or something. Back in the late Eighties, I tried forcing my way through Youssou N'Dour albums in the name of misplaced progressivism. N'Dour was an actual African pop star. Akon is an expat from New Jersey. Next time out, he should try incorporating some Garden State emo; then, maybe I'll pay more attention.
I understand it cannot be pleasant to be outed on a mainstream rap record. But if you're going to try to duck the entertainment industry and its accompanying irritants, maybe you shouldn't also sing lines like this: "We could act out like Will and Jada/or like Kimora and Russell making paper." And so on. C'mon, Alicia, you're not a E! TV anchorwoman, you're a piano player. And on the day when you really want to make the whole issue moot and shut up the gossip folks, you'll finally decide to make a record commensurate with your talents. Until then, it's your own fault.
Dammit, Batman, that beat is large. When was the last time the drums on a radio pop record sounded so slamming? Mr. Rich Nice, you are clearly out of compliance with the omnibus Puff Daddy Act of 1997. Then there's the stuttering, robotic, hyperprocessed lead vocal… ooh, baby, the great Aaliyah must indeed be chilling on that Caribbean island with Tupac and Biggie. But wait a second, that's not Aaliyah at all -- that's Amerie, best known for her lame-o supporting role on LL Cool J's worst single ever. Thank heavens for second chances, and for singers comfortable enough with modern electronics to allow Richard Harrison to chop their tracks to fuck and back in the name of the funk. Fiyah, straight digital fi-yah.
Annie -- "Chewing Gum", "Heartbeat"
As a rule, the United States of America does not import pop stars from Continental Europe. Therefore, Annie Lila Berge-Strand must settle for the same sort of niche popularity that accrued to Nina Persson way back when. The trouble for Berge-Strand (as Persson found out) is that hipsters cycle through bubblegum faster than they do the rough stuff. '05 was Annie's shot to make some noise stateside. It didn't really happen, so back to the Saab dealership she goes, barely driven, but pre-owned nonetheless.
Antony & The Johnsons -- "Hope There's Someone"
Sometimes a vocal style will come into vogue, and you wonder how the hell it happened, and how we all might try to turn back the clock. I think we all remember when singers were trying to mimic Thom Yorke. That was pretty gruesome, but it still wasn't as unlistenable as the cabaret-warble falsetto currently favored by Devendra Banhart and his many weed-carriers. Antony is a little bit more amusing than the rest of the howlers working this territory, since he's so unashamedly over-the-top, and when he gets his hands on a trad-rocker like "Fistful Of Love", he proves he can throw down with great transvestite conviction. His attempts to be arty are tougher to work with, though. I can get into the minute plus of vocal and piano feedback at the end of "Hope There's Someone", but the lullabye verses are mainly an irritation. It would probably have been better if, instead of trying to impress us with his forty-octave range, he just sang the song: the faux-operatic treatment exposes the thinness of the material. But then nobody ever edited Phoebe Legere, either. The circles Antony runs in aren't exactly known for quality control. I'm not hopeful about future releases.
Aqueduct -- "Growing Up With GNR", "Hardcore Days & Softcore Nights"
I want to make this argument one more time -- pare it down to its essence, and let it stand on the TMR for eternity. There is never a good artistic reason to sell your song to an ad campaign. There may be very good economic reasons: you might want to send aid to the Contras, or your mom might need a kidney transplant, or you might want a lifestyle transplant from your ratty apartment to a condo complex on the waterfront. There might also be good political reasons, too; I genuinely believe that when Bob Seger allowed Ford to use "Makin' Thunderbirds" in a TV spot, he was making a statement very much in keeping with his longtime support of the automobile industry in Detroit. I don't sneeze at any of those reasons, even the greedy ones: Lord knows this is not a cash business, and most of us are never going to manage to recover that initial investment in our amplifiers. But the minute you allow your song to become the backdrop for a corporate branding initiative, it's lost to you forever. That's because no matter how talented, indie-famous, or charismatic you think you are, you are never going to be able to complete with the meaning-making mechanics of the advertising industry. It is hard enough to communicate through a pop song; throw a Nike logo in front of that song and it becomes virtually impossible. Everybody knows Nike, and nobody knows you; what Nike means is straightforward, legible, and blunt, and what you mean is something ambivalent, emotionally conflicted, artistic. The logo will crush all of that subtlety out of your song; it will be reoriented so that it means exactly what the suits want it to mean. You're lost. You're no longer a singer or a writer; you're now a pitchman, a shill, an ad man. David Terry of Aqueduct is a pretty complicated writer -- he has things that he desperately wants to tell us about the nature of romantic entanglements, personal identity, the Great Plains states, male aggression, nostalgia, forced passivity. But I cannot now hear "Hardcore Days & Softcore Nights" without thinking of the values I associate with the Jaguar automobile company. That's not my imaginative failing; that's Terry's. He looked at the balance sheet and decided it would be profitable to pimp out one of his better and more complicated songs to a luxury carmaker. He's got every right to do that, but the song is now lost to me. More importantly, whether he recognizes it or not, the song is now lost to him, too.
Architecture In Helsinki -- "Do The Whirlwind"
There's not much to it: a two-note melody, an ostinato-octave synthesizer figure, a bare-bones horn arrangement, and some toybox percussion. That it works as well as it does suggests, once again, how very little is required to put together a serviceable, emotionally evocative pop song. No wonder everybody wants in. If a bunch of Australian nobodies can do it, what's your excuse?
Decent pop-punk song distinguished from the six million other decent pop-punk songs by the celebrity brand on the label. If this had been recorded by Sahara Hotnights or The Soviettes or somebody like that, critics would be rushing to damn it with faint praise. I really don't understand why Simpson raises such ire, especially since she's obviously about thirty seconds from the Spice Girls pile. In five years, nobody but bored college kids who sit around playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon are going to remember anything about either of the Simpson sisters besides their marketing campaigns. But while Jessica concentrated on making herself the subject of national condescension, Ashlee actually tried to record a few good tunes. Give the kid her moment in the sun; it'll be over soon enough.
Backstreet Boys -- "Incomplete"
For further inspection, consider the Backstreet Boys. At their pinnacle, they did bubblegum pop as well as anybody ever has -- one bright, gorgeous, scintillating radio track after another. But that pinnacle was traversed in a heartbeat, and now they can't do it anymore. It's not simply that they lack the inspiration or the material, it's that they're physically incapable of making their voices pull off the death-defying stunts that they could when they were in their prime. Brian Littrell used to be able to stop your heart in sixteen bars; now he barely registers. Pop music might be joyous, but pop stars are sad. They are constant reminders of the unbearable ephemerality of excellence.
Beanie Sigel -- "Feel It In The Air"
That four-cornered room is getting awfully crowded these days. Beanie hops on the H-Town bandwagon with this earnest tribute to the Geto Boys and their best-known song. It's a pretty good one, too, generating no small fraction of the late-night inner-city paranoia of the original. We rock critics are supposed to sneer at such wholesale borrowing, especially since the closest the Philadelphian Sigel has probably ever come to Houston and Acres Homes is by watching Rockets games on the tube. But really, it's no more imitative than basing your entire album on an obscure Tim Hardin song, and no more opportunistic than spending over an hour trying to convince coastal hipsters that you know thing #1 about Illinois.
Don't fight me on this, please, folks -- this song is as modest as anything on Sea Change, and about as tuneful, too. Back when well-meaning multiculturalists were turning in theses on Beck in the thousands, this dude was as non-sequitous as they come; these days, he's been fleeing from complex metaphor as if it was his own personal Kryptonite. Mr. Hansen is behaving as though he recognizes that he was, in his prime, maybe the most stunningly overrated act in pop music history, and one whose songs were so playfully obtuse that they never made a damned bit of sense. He cleared space and created breathing room for rock-rap followers who went on to record far more interesting music than he ever did, and for that, he deserves his props. But to me, he will always be remembered as the living embodiment of the white guy's misunderstanding of hip-hop. I am a white guy; I oughta know.
Black Eyed Peas -- "Don't Lie", "Don't Phunk With My Heart", "My Humps"
Speaking of white guys misunderstanding rap music, the next time you, Mr. Rock Critic, are inclined to talk up some dewy-eyed bunch of "positivity" charlatans on the grounds of their moral superiority to the gat-toters, I'd like you to back slowly away from that Jurassic 5 album, and spin your copy of Ready To Die instead. I remember when the Black Eyed Peas were the model minority of the moment. Critics who should have known better fed that monster until it gobbled up hit radio, and now we're forced to listen to total crap like "My Humps" in heavy rotation. Never insinuate your middle-class morality into commercial playlists; you'll end up regretting it. The Bare Naked Ladies of hip-hop.
Bloc Party -- "Banquet", "Helicopter"
I love all this stuff, really, I do. We've just got a rocky beginning of the alphabet, just like we had last year; yet another reason to regret the untimely passing of the great Aaliyah Houghton. It doesn't improve very much until we get to the Ds, either, but stay with me. Bloc Party is another rock group that is supposed to be political until you actually listen to them; then, you realize there's no more persuasive ideology here than there is on your average teenager's weblog. The band is tight, and they've got some pop smarts and songwriting hooks, but then so does most everybody else. They like Gang Of Four; so do you. They don't like George W. Bush; you don't, either. "Banquet" is a more compelling single than anything we've heard so far by Franz Ferdinand, but honestly, that's not saying much. There's nothing here you can't live without, or that you haven't heard a thousand times before.
Bloodhound Gang -- "Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo"
There's a school of thought that says Jimmy Pop is a genius ventriloquist, better able to capture the mental state of a rowdy sixth-grader than any songwriter since Rodney Anonymous. The other school of thought, which is admittedly much larger, dismisses the Bloodhound Gang as pre-fraternity asshole music that swerves like a rickety tractor-trailer around anything that looks like genuine wit. This single isn't going to convert any non-believers, but I dig it, and structurally, it's the same joke as the one Nobel Prize-winner Harold Pinter uses in "Trouble In The Works". Hey, I'm just saying.
Bow Wow -- "Like You" (with Ciara), "Let Me Hold You" (with Omarion)
Back when he was Lil Bow Wow, he did what he could to imitate Snoop -- in fact, that was the whole act. Now that he's a Semi-Grown Bow Wow, he's taken to imitating Usher, or at least Usher's role as the non-threatening male component of disposable-pop eye candy duos. Then again, "Let Me Hold You" pairs him with Omarion, who is allegedly a man, and "Like You" with Ciara, who is reportedly a man. Anyway, Bow Wow is the rapper, which almost definitely makes him the boy half, since singing is for girls, and other sissies. Just ask Bow Wow, who is definitely still hard and down for life and Snoop Doggylicious and all the rest. He's gangsta-hard -- so hard that his former mentor has lent him to Jermaine Dupri for good. Right. Somebody inform NAMBLA.
Bright Eyes -- "Easy/Lucky/Free", "First Day Of My Life"
Or, selections from Conor Oberst's continuing attempt to make recordings at a faster pace than anybody can play them back. The physics of this project are complicated, but thanks to iTunes and expanded flash memory, it will soon be possible to download Bright Eyes songs from the Internet at a rate almost as quick as the speed with which Oberst rips the-, er, writes them and waxes them. Yes, portable MP3 players are amazing devices, I have learned in my old age, and perhaps I might even splurge for one someday. But, see, your man has a special device that stores millions and millions of songs. It enables me to create playlists, fast forward and rewind, and jump instantly to any track I choose. It is lightning-fast, and is compatible with every computer in the world. Best of all, it never needs recharging, and I take it with me wherever I go. It is called my fucking brain. With this device, I am able to organize, process, and evaluate all of the music in my collection. I strongly advise all iPod users to consider getting one.
Bruce Springsteen -- "Devils And Dust"
Yet another example of why he's the Boss, and the rest of us are just the Employees: here's the first anti-war song that doesn't feel like it was ghostwritten by MoveOn.org. The creepiest thing about this dark-night-at-an-Iraqi checkpoint isn't the scenario -- though Springsteen inhabits the perspective of the scared-shitless soldier with his usual sensitivity and grace. It isn't even the ghostly illumination of details that slip the minds of workaday protest singers: the smell of the battlefield, the mud and bones. No, it's that this melody is effectively indistinguishable from "All That Heaven Will Allow", one of his few unambivalently happy songs. It's as if he's taking back a gift that he once gave to his country.
Bun B -- "Draped Up"
If you missed out on UGK the first time around, Houston-mania is giving you a second chance. Co-founder Bun B is now an ancient red dragon by rap standards, but he still spits fire, and he's still the curator of the signifiers that make Lone Star hip-hop what it is (and what it do): candy paint, rims, vogues, gleaming grills, wood grain, tricked-out trunks, and that purple, that purple, that purple. Bun is a better pure emcee than any of the younger Texas rappers, and they seem to know it: they all clear prime real estate for him on their cuts, and stay out of his way while he's flowing. On his first proper solo single, he plays it safe -- he stays on top of the beat, rhymes slow, and gives his audience the precise subject matter they'd expect. And just as it seems as if somebody with a checklist is standing over him, enforcing the litany, it dawns on you: Bun B wrote the checklist.
Bryan Adams -- "This Side Of Paradise"
Speaking of OGs, if Cuts Like A Knife came out this year, it would be hailed as an alt-country triumph. Adams doesn't have the pipes he did back in '83, and he doesn't rock with quite the same kick. But his guitar sound has aged well, he still knows his way around a roots-rock number, and he's always a much better lyricist than you'd think he is. His heartland-defiance schtick has weathered two decades and seven Presidential administrations. It still works.
Cam'ron -- "Down & Out", "Get 'Em Girls"
Lazy, stream-of-consciousness rhymes from a veteran rapper who must think he is far too muscular to have to make sense. Now, the Diplomats have cornered the market on gibberish lately, so Cam clearly felt the need to up the ante and teach his protégés a firm lesson in gobbledygook: "Wreckx "N' Effects zoom zoom my poom poom/since the movie Cocoon had my uzi platooned" is about as coherent as it gets. Keep that up, Killa, and you're going to land yourself a gig in the New Pornographers. New York hasn't exactly fallen off, but as long as stuff like this remains industry standard for hip-hop's first city, it's hard to blame listeners for shifting their focus south.
Cassidy -- "B-Boy Stance", "I'm A Hustler"
Rap music is about upward social mobility. People who criticize rap music for being materialistic might as well criticize rap for being rap. There is a name for those who believe that it is gauche to state your intention to become wealthy and to boast about your possessions. We call these people aristocrats. Aristocracies fall, and when they do, it is because people like Cassidy are shaking the foundations. "More money, more problems, it's true/ because the more money I make, the more problems for you". He's talking about conceptual problems, now; the psychological difficulty of watching a young drug dealer -- a hustler -- pass you by on the ladder of success. He's beaten you down, he's dusted you, he never did what the dummies do, he's made a mil since he was 22. He's a hustler, like so many emcees before him: hard rhyming about money, economics and relative deprivation, head down, determined to get rich or die trying.
Chamillionare -- "Turn It Up" (with Lil Flip)
2005 was the year that the rest of America discovered the South. Not the "New" South, either, or the mainframe-designed buppie suburbs of Atlanta. We learned about the Throwed South: the South that exists in a drugged out, slowed-down, screwed and chopped heathaze; a land of low, flat houses that get washed away in gigantic floods; a great American swampland of mosquitoes and trash, fever-dreams and desperation and violence, Cadillac wheels and busted levees, and the slow, slow dripping of purple syrup. Recipes for lean, or sizzurp, or purple, or that purple stuff, or drank, or syrup, or barre, or any number of other euphemisms that are still unknown to the network censors vary, but almost all involve mixing codeine and promethazine with soda. What folks do, see, is mix the syrup and the prometh in a styrofoam cup -- usually filled with crushed ice -- and then add a Jolly Rancher to improve the flavor. Disgusting, sure, but it's no grosser than allowing grapes to rot in a vat. Wine is for drunks, too, but it's the subject of high-class interest and glossy magazine mystification; purple is dark and dangerous, completely disreputable, and still largely unknown to mainstream music listeners. The drink that swamped Houston -- the subject of ten thousand celebratory couplets -- is not something you can get in a liquor store, or at the corner pub. While the Georgians rhyme about their executive suites and their expensive cognac, the Texans boast about daily consumption of a beverage that literally must be looted from pharmacies. Compare also: while cognac and red bull, or "crunk juice", is supposed to make the drinker aggressive, lean is meant to get you totally throwed -- slurred, slowed-down, disoriented. This is not a social drug, and the folks who drink it do not share the upwardly-mobile aspirations of the Atlanta emcees. But like LSD in Haight-Ashbury or ecstasy in abandoned Midlands factories, it has generated a musical subculture devoted to amplifying and enhancing its specific antisocial effects. "Chopped and screwed" mixes take already extant recordings, slows them to molasses-dripping speed, and manipulates the vocal tracks. This is meant to feel incredibly fucked up when you're high on syrup. I'm sure it does, because even stone cold sober, it's some of the trippiest and most mind-melting stuff you'll ever hear this side of the Nuggets collections. DJ Screw, the progenitor of screwed tapes, turned out to be the movement's first martyr: he sipped himself right to an early grave back in 2000. Had he lived, the H-Town explosion might have happened years earlier, and Bun B and Big Pokey might now be megastars. As it is, the emcees who've spearheaded the Houston takeover are second- and third-wave purple-sippers: Run C, Aqualeo, Lil Flip, the "Still Tippin'" trio (Mike Jones, Paul Wall, and Slim Thug), Chamillionaire. Paul Wall is the guardian of the lexicography, and Jones is the good-natured popularizer, but it's Chamillionaire who best embodies the thick, moist, swampy, sun-stroked soul of Houston rap. He sounds high all the time, and it's not a fun buzz -- it's resentful, guarded, private, dangerous, claustrophobic, antediluvian. And when his tracks are chopped and screwed, he's taking you on a tour of territory rarely visited by Northeasterners, even the adventurous ones.
Chris Brown & Juelz Santana -- "Run It"
It's got the Pentagon and Colonial Williamsburg in it, but the Mid-Atlantic is the Throwed South, too. Trey Songs comes from Petersburg, an exurban node on the I-95 spine that's close to 80% African American, and that hasn't seen many of its boats lifted by the rising tide. Fantasia got into hot water for speaking out about her hometown of High Point, North Carolina; she didn't make fans out of the Chamber of Commerce, but her words had the ring of truth. Sixteen-year-old Chris Brown comes from Tappahannock, Virginia, a small tidewater city that got roughed up pretty badly by the infinitely condescending Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11. Brown is too sharp a kid to pretend that his home is anything other than hick central, but he still reps it proudly, and he still has something to say. Those with no vision call this Usher warmed over; my guess is that in Tappahannock, they see something different.
Hi, we're Chromeo! We use vocoders, and we like Prince! Unless you don't like Prince, in which case, we're just making fun of Prince. What we do might suck, but we might be joking. If it does suck, then we're definitely joking. Okay?
Ciara -- "And I", "Oh" (featuring Ludacris)
Meanwhile, back in A-Town, the corporate hip-hop machine rolls forward. "Oh" was the last serviceable song on Goodies that hadn't been singled in 2004; Ludacris, the Director of Goofball Operations for the Dirty South, is on hand to goose it up a little and dangle the carrot in the faces of program directors. Ciara, Executive Vice President for Gumby Dances, actually varies pitch from time to time here, and manages some sweet-sounding harmonies on the chorus. All ground is given back on "And I", a piece of limp balladry released to capitalize on Gumby Dance mania, or perhaps the heightened interest spurred by all those sex-reassignment surgery rumors. Corporate Atlanta works any angle it can; that's life on the grind.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah -- "Is This Love"
This one is supposed to sound different from all of the other lame dance-rock acts polluting stages in tired, tired Manhattan. And, it does, I guess, but mostly because while everybody else Downtown resembles Win Butler doing a Thom Yorke imitation, this singer resembles Win Butler doing a David Byrne imitation. With the hiccups. We are so starved for variation from convention here in NYC that we're willing to call anybody making a 2% departure from expectation a new sonic explorer. I can dig it, though, I can dig it. It's no Fear Of Music, but it's less annoying than watching Régine Chassagne run around stage banging on things.
Chris Martin is a little tougher to dig, and not just because of his intelligence-insulting forays into global economics. The trouble with Martin is that he knows his band makes middlebrow snooze music, and he doesn't like it -- but he's got no idea what to do about it. Since he seems incapable of unburdening himself of his grand romantic obligations, he's probably stuck with that big, sudsy sound. But perhaps he could work a bit on the ole lyrics? "Speed Of Sound" is the usual basketful of rhetorical questions and half-realized metaphors, held together by a million dollars worth of compression and mastering, and a ten-cent melody. If he had ever learned how to rock, he could probably fight his way to an objective correlative; instead, he's just got to depend on crass emotional manipulation. He's too nice a guy not to recognize what he's getting away with -- in fact, if you're ever unlucky enough to watch Coldplay in action, you'll see it firsthand. Acknowledgement of his own mediocrity is written all over his face.
Common -- "The Corner", "Testify", "Faithful" (with Bilal and John Legend), "Go" (with Kanye West and John Mayer)
While we're on the subject of milquetoasts, here's Common, a rapper so agreeable that he's started grading his own albums for us. If he'd only called Electric Circus "Cee Plus", he'd have saved me $14.99. A perennial middle-of-the-pack emcee with an unfortunate tendency to slip into an annoying spoken-word delivery, Common's association with the pre-Katrina Kanye West landed his four singles in unfamiliar territory: heavy rotation. A couple of them even deserved the attention -- "The Corner", an inner-city tearjerker with a catchy chorus, and "Go", an interesting lesbian-panic number featuring what had to be the shortest guest appearance in musical history: a second of John Mayer, sampled and looped. Hey, it's not like anybody was asking for more.
This is what Fannypack was supposed to be, but was too arch and self-reflexive to pull off: girls rapping about shoes, shopping and accessories with the same murderous single-mindedness that non-distaff Southern emcees describe their autos. I particularly like it when color commentator/#2 emcee Diamond throws down and starts threatening club owners with vomit. Her voice is so squeaky that her tough-chick performance teeters on the brink of absurdity, but she's such a wild-eyed believer in the greatness of her own fashion choices that she carries the day. "Who ever thought that these girls would get crunk"? Me, motherfuckers!
Cut Copy -- "Saturdays", "The Future"
Australian techno-funksters with a decent ear for synth textures. These are the guys who picked up the baton when Daft Punk decided they'd rather be a Lionel Richie cover band than electronica's ambassadors to hit radio. I don't blame DP for throwing in the towel; they were probably tired of dealing with the groupies who looked like Peaches' kid sister. Now they're all Cut Copy's to do with as they please.
What do we really know about Cincinnati? Hi-Tek was from Cincy, and during his brief stint on the socio-musico-cultural radar, he was known to rock Reds jerseys. I believe the Isleys were originally a Cincinnati act, but they didn't hit it big until they moved to Motown. The Pure Prairie League, of "Amie, what you wanna do?" fame, were unlikely Queen City rockers, considering there's no prairie within a hundred miles of southern Ohio. There was that great rock radio station that refused to give in and change their format to easy listening, even when Les Nessman went on the air and… oh, yeah, that was just a TV show. Does any major league city -- and by that I mean any city with major league sports team, which is the only true measure of metropolitan significance -- have a crappier rock and roll track record? Don't say Hartford; Kurt Heasley and the Lilys made The Three Way up there. Czar*Nok is not likely to be the act that busts Cincinnati open for American inspection, but they're a good combo with a deacon's feel for the g-rap liturgy. "Pimp Tight" proves they've studied their UGK records, and that's what may have landed them their major-label deal: I see a Capitol executive, totally throwed from sipping that sizzurp, throwing pencils at the drop ceiling and slowly convincing himself that Cincinnati is a distant suburb of H-Town. 5% chance of having any career past 2006, but 25% chance of performing the national anthem at Great American Ballpark; I mean, who else are they going to get?
Da Back Wudz -- "You Gonna Luv Me"
Lovable-stupid Georgia duo; farms the same grubby hick-rap plot as the Field Mob. One of the emcees is named "Sho-Nuff"; need I say more?
D4L -- "Laffy Taffy"
The "Do The Whirlwind" of contemporary hip-hop, "Laffy Taffy" is built on little more than a slinky, straightforward beat, a synth plinking out octaves, and a fistful of serviceable booty rhymes: "Girls call me Jolly Rancher/cuz I stay so hard/you can suck me for a long time/oh my God". Of course it was a gigantic crossover hit, peaking at #7 on the Billboard pop charts. Here's a lesson we can all learn from hit radio: it does not take much to entertain a human being. A little ass, a little backbeat will generally suffice.
Daddy Yankee -- "Gasolina", "Lo Que Paso, Paso"
"Laffy Taffy" en Espanol. Sexual frustration is a transcultural language; you do not have to visit Babelfish.com to decipher what this South of the Border weenie is rapping about. Like other geeks from Mick Jagger to Mark Mothersbough to Kool Moe Dee to Lamar and the Tri-Lams, Daddy Yankee is hoping to compensate for his slight stature with gigantic, relentless riffs. In international politics, this sort of thing might get you exiled to Elba; in pop music, it's always been a formula for greatness. These tracks sound as if they were recorded live at 3AM in the deejay booth at some seedy club with all the VUs pegged to eleven, but that's urgency, baby; cantcha feel it when the drums kick in? Some make a booty call, others head to the studio and record stuff like "Gasolina". Those of us who were hoping that "Oye Mi Canto" would do for reggaeton what "Still Tippin'" did for Houston g-rap will have to settle for this, at least for the time being. It's a hell of a lot better than nothing.
Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley -- "Welcome To Jamrock"
This one is allegedly English, though it's in that Ja-fakin' dialect that they teach would-be Law & Order bit part actors in drama class. In case you can't figure it out, allow me to offer this translation: "Dear Club Med tourist with your digital camera! Treat my country with respect, or I will personally beat the shit out of you and drag your overfed American carcass to Trenchtown, and leave you there for dem rude boys to pick over. Sincerely, Jr. Gong." The Marley pedigree got this number on the radio in the United States, but I'd imagine that down in the islands this isn't an uncommon theme. The music may or may not be authentic, but surely the sentiment is.
As I see it, the two emcees whose public profiles were damaged the worst by Hurricane Katrina were T.I. and David Banner. Before Katrina, T.I. was getting taken seriously as a spokesperson for the Dirty Dirty; afterward, his Atlantan corporate-rap smoothness seemed a little vacuous, and firmly unrepresentative of the region. But T.I. is suffering from a disadvantage that David Banner isn't: he's overrated, and his rep was due to come back to earth sooner or later. Banner's failure is harder to reconcile, especially since he's the only emcee of national stature that Mississippi has ever produced. You'd figure that a guy who named two albums after his home state -- and has written elegantly and passionately about it -- would have something to say on the day it got washed into the Gulf of Mexico. But no, Joe Timing was busy pushing "Play", a brain-dead redux (and not even a particularly good one) of "Wait Til You See My Dick". I recognize that promotional campaigns are big, important company-level decisions that are set months in advance, and thus aren't flexible enough to respond to minor incidents like continent-rending hurricanes. But while Banner was flouncing his weiner around on MTV Jams, he let a guy from fucking Chicago steal the Katrina brand right out from under him. Damn, ColliPark, a marketing opportunity like the Storm of the Century comes around once a century. Homie really screwed up. I know, I know, he was taking care of his family and using his tour bus to ship in supplies. Some guys will never get their priorities straight.
Death Cab For Cutie -- "Soul Meets Body", "Title & Registration"
Boy, those Belle & Sebastian comparisons are looking pretty stupid now, huh? This is anodyne stuff to be sure, but there's usually enough going on in these pop songs to get you through three or four listens before they go in the recycle bin to clear hard drive space for World Of Warcraft. I once called Coldplay the new Toad The Wet Sprocket; that makes these guys the new Tears For Fears -- right down to Ben Gibbard's monkeying about with electronica.
Death From Above 1979 -- "Blood On Our Hands"
Their garage-rock schtick is pretty uncomplicated: one guy plays drums and sings, and the other slams away at an overdriven bass. There's a real grace in their brutality, and they appear to own a nice variety of vintage distortion pedals. I like them, but maybe that's just because they're Exhibit Z in the ongoing campaign to prove the superfluity of electric rhythm guitar to heavy rock. Even Jimmy Page would tell you so, if you got him drunk enough: it's all about that bottom end.
Dem Franchize Boyz -- "I Think They Like Me (Remix)"
Your basic Hotlanta-playa track, "I Think They Like Me" only becomes insidiously great on the remix. There, Dem Franchize Boyz run the hook through some kind of platinum-plated processing that converts it from disposability to indelibility, and bring in Da Brat to gussy up their middling-level lyrics with some of her trademark over-sharing. Don't get me wrong, "Oh I think they like me when they heard me on the other one/ so it's only right that I hit you with another one" is a still a piss-poor excuse for a chorus. But if you were able to get the tag line dislodged from your head this summer, you're a better pop warrior than I am, Gunga Din.
Destiny's Child -- "Cater 2 U", "Girl"
This is not what you'd call going out with a bang. Still, I have to think they'll be missed. Where, I wonder, do they fit in the great taxonomy of recent-vintage all-girl singing groups? They were never as musically adventurous as En Vogue, nor as immediately sympathetic as TLC. They couldn't do a chillout groove with the ease of Changing Faces, they could never be as exciting as Salt 'n Pepa, they were never as soulful as SWV or as cute as Blaque. But none of those acts had a frontwoman with half the superstar wattage of Beyonce Knowles, or a second banana with the poise and patience of Kelly Rowland. Their harmonies started out stock, but by the time they were doing stuff like "Soldier", they'd developed their own bag. Nobody's taking them ahead of the Supremes or the Vandellas, but at their best, they were probably just as good as the Pointer Sisters were, and maybe even a little better.
Devendra Banhart -- "I Heard Somebody Say"
This is some kind of social experiment, right? Already pushing it with some of the dicier songs on Rejoicing In The Hands and Nino Rojo, Banhart really needed to re-establish his credibility with an album that at least waved vaguely in the direction of coherence. Instead, he's come back with sixty-plus minutes about his Chinese children and growing his hair and wiping his nose and what have you. I'm as indulgent of asides and absurd minutia as anybody, but I also know that one day the music stops, and you either have to land a chair or accept that it's game over. Banhart had better get serious, and quick, because the hype isn't going last forever.
Don Omar -- "Reggaeton Latino"
God, I wish I could sing like that. He sounds like he's breathing out an entire nation. The beat is huge, sure, but Don Omar is so commanding on the mic that it might not even matter. Oh, what am I saying; of course it matters.
Eminem -- "Ass Like That", "Mockingbird"
And so it ends as it began: with self-dramatizing kitchen-sink melodrama, tinkle jokes, and rude comments about underage actresses. It might be hard to remember now that he's running on fumes, but there was a time when Eminem was worth paying attention to. It didn't last long, and it wasn't unbroken -- but he had a few valuable points to make about the role of the celebrity emcee and his own popular acceptance among middle Americans who wouldn't ordinarily pay any attention to rap music. Marshall Mathers made his whiteness a non-issue by rapping at least as well as, say, a second-string member of the Wu-Tang Clan. Thus, if he'd wanted to, he could have made us forget about it altogether. But he couldn't forget about it: race categories and expectations became a constant touchstone for him, coloring all of his verses and framing his project as an intervention in national sociopolitics. The logical extension of this was like "Mosh" and "White America": tracks that would have made better weblog entries or term papers than pop songs. You could argue that this was inevitable -- that as a prominent white face in a mainly-black genre, he was bound to end up a study in self-enforced tokenism, hyper-conscious of his mark of difference. But look at Paul Wall -- here's a rapper who, as far as anybody can tell, doesn't even realize he's white. He's so deeply embedded in his Houston milieu of rims, grills, and sizzurp that it would never occur to him that there's any meaningful cultural distinction between himself and Mike Jones. Wall even goes so far as to include, without a shred of irony, an honest-to-goodness "real niggaz" song on The People's Champ. Some might see this as simple naïveté; to me, it's further elaboration of why H-Town is, in the words of Bun B, taking over this rap game and shutting it down. It's also a reminder that Em was, and has always been, a nervous and rootless outsider -- and that has often been to the detriment of his art.
Leave it to Evans to fish this piece of sopping ABC gum out of the mouth of Lenny Kravitz. Everything about it is cheap and artificial: the "snare" sounds like a baseball card stuck in the spokes of a rusty bicycle. This is the fakest Motown you'll ever hear, so it falls to R&B's most plastic cyborg to discharge it. And that she does pretty well, for once -- at least there's no cognitive dissonance between the clumsily artificial cut and the aggressively phony-soul delivery. Like Dave Grohl, Evans has managed to hammer out a workmanlike career in the wake of the death of an inspired partner, calling on reserves of grueling persistence, or perhaps reserves of inherited cash.
Fall Out Boy -- "Sugar, We're Going Down", "Dance, Dance"
See, now you think I'm in a bad mood. I'm not, fellas, I'm in a good mood -- a really, really good mood, a holiday mood. And when I get in a good mood, I'm afraid the real me comes out. Not the smiling sweetheart who gives away free tours of the neighborhood, or even the careful critic, offering constructive advice to local bands; no, I mean the me behind closed doors, who spends days in fits of glee, ungenerously laughing his ass off at the culture industry. Privately, I even mock the records that move me: yes, that means yours, too. Displays of emotion are courageous, of course, but they're also a big joke. You break up with your girlfriend, you get beat up by bullies on the playground, you get fired, your love is unrequited, you feel like you don't fit in with the rest of the world. What do you do, Fall Out Boy? Do you take logical, progressive action to solve your problems? No, you decide to go home, force your feelings into a restrictive meter, teach the results of your labors of your friends, sing it all into a microphone while slamming on big vibrating sticks, and then convince an art bank to spend millions of dollars to digitally preserve and market your fine whine. Yes, it's noble, it's beautiful, it's fun, it's rock and roll. It's also completely absurd, and I will be damned if I'm going to pass up an opportunity to make fun of you clowns.
Fat Joe -- "Get It Poppin'" (with Nelly)
Fat Joe is not known for his wit or his battle skills. But he responded to "Piggy Bank" by landing a precise kick right on 50's crotch, calling him out on his enhanced physique and ridiculing him for his paranoia. Then again, 50 Cent has never minded exposing his insecurities, his ugliness, and his desperation to his mass audience. Certainly no man who does not, on some level, crave a critical beatdown dares to bait Nas. Fat Joe is a little safer bet, sure, but "Piggy Bank" was such an undisciplined spray of verbal machine-gun fire -- pathetic, really -- that it may have been meant to boomerang. Masochism must come reflexively to a guy whose greatest love is his nine bulletholes. Perhaps his selection of Fat Joe as a target was, in a weird sort of way, a compliment.
This is one dumb song. "Laughing gas, these haz-mats, fat cats/ Ladies, homies, at the track/ it's my chocolate attack"; what the hell does that mean? Trugoy has turned in some half-assed guest appearances before -- just check out his phoned-in verses on Uptown Saturday Night for starters. Exposure to Damon Albarn has amplified his natural tendency toward indiscipline. Blur's lyrics always were a bit garbled, but in Gorillaz, without Graham Coxon to look over his shoulder and periodically kick his ass, Albarn uses the cartoon mask to absolve himself of any responsibility to write articulately. He's got his solid track record, and his pop smarts; hopefully one day soon he'll stop baiting Bob Geldof long enough for us to discover if he's got anything left.
Green Day -- "Holiday", "Wake Me Up When September Ends"
Do the French really believe that anybody in the United States thinks their stupid has-been nation is worthy of a genuine international row? A few years ago, when we were cracking wise about the Axis of Weasels and "freedom fries", the joke was on those who didn't realize that France was too innocuous to bother confronting. Still, alarmists like to make believe that the French way of life is directly menaced by a glowering Uncle Sam about to spring a company of Green Berets upon the banlieues. On "Holiday", Billy Joe Armstrong puts it like this: "Bombs away is your punishment/ Pulverize the Eiffel Towers". He's being critical of America and its President Gasman, of course, and protective of the Rue de St. Denis. As I'm sure you know, I don't like the Iraq War any better than Green Day does. But us American anti-war activists are perfectly capable of getting our brains beaten in on own. We don't need the French making things worse by inserting themselves into the discussion and acting victimized. I mean, my God, these people can't even figure out how to air-condition their own country.
This was the first time most of us encountered Young Jeezy, heard here recycling a TP joke that Phife discharged more skillfully fourteen years ago. Still, there's something about the lad that leaves a lingering impression of quality. Lord knows it isn't his integrity; here's a rapper who confesses that he knows nothing about hip-hop, and he only bothers to make records to help move his Snowman t-shirts. But that's Atlanta for you. Gucci Mane is originally from Birmingham, and acts more country; he just wants to floss and show off those princess cuts. This song was an empty-headed '05 summertime favorite of many, including the kids who live downstairs. Our floorboards and our spice rack grew seismically familiar with the kick drum pattern.
Gwen Stefani -- "Cool", "Hollaback Girl", "Luxurious", "Rich Girl"
The best diss/answer track of the year was not "Fuck 50" or "Piggy Bank" or even "Blue Orchid", but Gwen Stefani's wicked rejoinder to Courtney Love, who called her a cheerleader. Hey, you'd be pissed off, too. With the assistance of Pharrell Williams, Stefani cooked up a track that not only grooves harder than anything Hole has ever recorded, but also taunts Love with a full inhabitation of the metaphor; i.e., Stefani becomes the cheerleader of Love's nightmares, terrorizing her with glamour, aggressiveness, and hyperfeminine superiority. Revenge is rarely this sweet, or this funky.
Yobs from Staines, England sing of their distaste for capitalist imperatives. I feel you, guys. Hard-Fi tries to stick some Eighties-inspired electro in there, but this is an old-fashioned Britpop band with solid pop songs and energy to burn. They're a nice alternative to the suave frat-rock now dominating the U.K. charts. The new Jesus Jones.
If I paid attention to movies, I'd be cross, besieged, and irritable, rather than garrulous, and flippant. I'd also probably be able to tell the difference between Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff. I think Duff is the blonde one and Lohan is the brunette, but I might have that reversed. I suppose I could use the power of the Internet to check, but my network connection is giving me fits this morning, and, honestly, if I make a habit of spending more that thirty seconds on stuff like Hilary Duff, I'll never get finished with this thing. Anyway, "Wake Up" is a pretty good starter-rock for pre-teens, and gets right the emotional charge of being young, attractive, and lost in an unfamiliar city. Unlike a certain U.S. Senator, Duff wins points for knowing how to spell her first name. Pay attention, guys, and don't make that mistake again.
Hot Hot Heat -- "Middle Of Nowhere", "Goodnight Goodnight"
For reasons I can't even begin to fathom, the new Internet Rock Critical Establishment suddenly turned on these guys, and trashed Elevator with the same fanatical uniformity that they praised Make Up The Breakdown. The IRCE is not particularly fickle: I have noticed they will make excuses for all manner of slumps and sudden downturns. That makes the savaging of Hot Hot Heat all the more inexplicable. Elevator is supposed to be overproduced, as if the glossy Make Up The Breakdown was lo-fi; it's supposed to be uneven, as if Make Up The Breakdown didn't contain crap like "Hold Me Down Aveda" and "Cairo"; it's supposed to lack cleverness, as if "Bandages on my legs and my arms from you" was a witticism; it is supposed to emphasize DeCaro's guitar over Bays's organ, as if there was more than one inexpertly-played combo lead on Breakdown; it's supposed to lack a killer single, as if "Get In Or Get Out" was "Way You Move". My guess is that the members of the IRCE always felt a little cheap about liking Hot Hot Heat, and now that the tenor of indie rock has changed and we all can do important things like learning the folk history of Illinois while rocking, they are attempting to distance themselves from their misguided Strokesy past. It's too bad, because Bays is still squeezing out the same redux pub rock that he always has, he remains a better singer than almost all of his peers, and his band displays some small but meaningful commitment to musicality. Fake VU is available on the cheap, fake Costello is not.
I Can Make A Mess Like Nobody's Business -- "The Best Happiness Money Can Buy"
You can be a snob about Jersey emo, but you ignore it at your own risk; some of the most interesting rock groups in the country are roaring in obscurity in garages and bedrooms across the Garden State. Okay, that's a total lie, but I had you going there for a second, didn't I? If you're not tapped into the Drive-Thru circuit, Ace Enders is easy to miss: he doesn't look like a rock star, and his band The Early November is sonically indistinguishable from thousands of others. But on his own, in the stripped-down I Can Make A Mess, Enders relaxes sufficiently enough to allow his songs a little breathing room. This is folk-rock, or folk-rock-emo, or just a dude with acoustic guitar and a simple melody. You could do worse.
I Wayne -- "Can't Satisfy Her"
What a jerk. I'll bet one man can't satisfy her, if that one man is I Wayne. It doesn't matter how sweetly-sung it is -- "she needs more wood for the fire" is the nastiest thing anybody recorded about a woman this year. Guys who croon sensitively about the dangerous lives of their female acquaintances can take their faux-concern back to the roadhouse. When I hear stuff like this, I feel the need to throw on some Eazy-E just to get a little emotional honesty.
They're settling into their roles as Verlaine-like NYC elder statesmen, no longer subjects of speculation in the gossip columns (even in the Voice) but still casting that angular shadow over nightclubs, studios, practice spaces, Williamsburg sidewalks. There was a moment not so long ago when bands tried to mimic their approach -- but then they discovered it was too hard, and decided to chase Franz Ferdinand or the Libertines instead. Antics did not set the charts on fire, so "C'mere" might be the last true radio single we get out of these guys. They'll be around.
For the record, Drew Barrymore did not actually talk to space aliens, and Corey Feldman did not really hang out with vampires; those were just movies, see? But they were kids at the time, and perhaps could be pardoned for confusing themselves with their characters. Jamie Foxx is a grown man, and one who has been kicking around the culture industry for years. What's his excuse for thinking that he's really Ray Charles? I know, I know, Kanye made him do it. That's the "dog ate my homework" of the '00s.
Jay-Z (courtesy of Memphis Bleek) -- "Dear Summer"
(Lights up on the Roc-A-Fella HQ. JAY-Z sits at his desk in a big leather chair, smoking a stogie. Enter MEMPHIS BLEEK, in ill-fitting pimp suit. He stands at the desk, wringing his hands.)
MEMPHIS BLEEK
Hov, we gotta talk.JAY-Z
Just the guy I wanted to see. I got big plans for your next album. Big plans.MEMPHIS BLEEK
That's great, you know, because M.A.D.E. didn't really sell as well as -JAY-Z
Never mind about that. Bleek, what if I told you I was going to rap on your next joint?MEMPHIS BLEEK
Great! That sounds hot! I got some good ideas, Hov; there's a jam I'm working on where we could go back and forth on the chorus, like -JAY-Z
No, hold up. I said I was going to rap on it. I didn't say you were going to rap on it.MEMPHIS BLEEK
Huh?JAY-Z
I'm doing a solo cut on your joint.MEMPHIS BLEEK
Oh. Well… I guess that's cool, I mean it might be a little confusing, but we could put it at the end of the album or something, and --JAY-Z
One other thing.MEMPHIS BLEEK
Yeah?JAY-Z
It's going to be the single.MEMPHIS BLEEK
(A beat.) But… (Pause.) Okay, let me get this straight. The single from my new album. You're going to be the emcee. And I'm not going to be on it.JAY-Z
Right.MEMPHIS BLEEK
But that doesn't make any sense! What about my identity? What about my career?JAY-Z
(Mimicking him.) What about my identity? What about my career? Don't I always take care of you? Haven't I always taken you along for the ride, and made you a wealthy man? You don't want to actually call attention to your "rapping", do you?MEMPHIS BLEEK
Uh, but -JAY-Z
Didn't you hear me on the "Diamonds Are Forever" album cut? "Bleek could be one hit away for the rest of his career/ as long as I'm alive, he's a millionaire?"MEMPHIS BLEEK
Chronologically speaking, that hasn't been recorded yet.JAY-Z
You're such a little pissant. Look, man, I am Jay-Z. Time is mine to manipulate as I see fit. I possess the power over life and death for you mortals. That you even exist is due to my magnanimousness. I am the greatest rapper ever. I originated hip-hop, and created entertainment. "Fun" itself is my invention. Thanks to me, life forms can respirate. All of these diamonds you see around you were crushed into their crystallized shape by my bare hands. I am the god of recorded music.MEMPHIS BLEEK
But you're retired now. I'm supposed to step out of your shadow and be my own man! I want to be a cornerstone of the ROC, too! What's my role?JAY-Z
(Thinks.) Bleek, do you know how I like to compare myself to Jordan?MEMPHIS BLEEK
Yeah.JAY-Z
You're the Washington Wizards.(Blackout.)
Jazze Pha & Cee-Lo -- "Happy Hour"
You wouldn't know it from a cursory listen, but this lame lounge-rap number is something of a landmark song. For years, even the most badass A-Town rappers have been using workplace metaphors to legitimate their business-minded aspirations. But Jazze Pha and Cee-Lo manage to evacuate the ambition, casting themselves as mild-mannered clock punchers plying girls with booze like any other junior execs. And in a sense, this is where Atlanta rap was in '05 -- at a buppie bar after a long day of marketing and paper-pushing, satisfied with its progress on the ladder of success, looking forward to the X-mas party and the next incremental salary adjustment. The most comfortable rap song ever recorded, "Happy Hour" marks the exact moment when Atlanta ceded the cutting edge to Houston and Memphis for good. Hip-hop may, at base level, be about getting loot, but without the grind, it's nothing.
It got overshadowed by "1 Thing" -- another killer Rich Harrison production -- but this red-hot cut boasted the most annoying, and therefore greatest, sax loop in R&B history and the first lead vocal by Lopez that doesn't sound like every syllable was flown in from a separate ProTools session. Turns out America wasn't ready for it, and after the initial single release stiffed, Epic rushed out a bowdlerized remix with Fabolous on it, and all the musical weirdness stripped away. (The same thing happened to John Legend's "Ordinary People".) As with all chickenshit moves, it didn't help. If you're going to ask Rich Nice to make your music, you should recognize that you're throwing the dice.
Jim Jones -- "Summer Wit Miami", "What You Been Drankin' On" (with Paul Wall, P. Diddy & Jha Jha)Or the Undisputed King of the Parking Lot shows some Big Apple come-latelies how to make a "Sprite remix" with prescription codeine syrup. Ever the gracious host, Paul Wall cements his reputation as the Brad Lidge of hip-hop with another dynamite closing verse. While it's none too surprising to see an opportunist like Jim Jones jump on the big purple bandwagon, when P. Diddy himself shows up at the syrup-sipping party, you know you've got a national movement on your hands. 2005: the year of sizzurp.
JC heads ask the question every day -- what the hell happened to the Joe Budden album? First it was supposed to drop in midsummer, then it was pushed back to October, then it fell off of the release schedules altogether. Homie has entered that amazingly effective branch of the witness protection program reserved for rappers who run afoul of their labels. "Gangsta Party" sounded to me like one of the few recent g-rap singles smooth enough to deserve its Nate Dogg cameo, but I suppose program directors took Budden at his word when he said "I could give a fuck if they play this on the radio." 'Cuz they didn't, see. And now the official DefJam website hasn't been updated since the single's release in June. Forget tax abatements; this the biggest issue confronting the Healy Administration. When your city has one commercially viable emcee, you can't afford to let him vanish into the ether. Jerramiah, organize a search party.
John Legend -- "Ordinary People"
The jizz-gargling vocal tone turns people off. I can understand that. But when was the last time you heard a real Joni Mitchell-style piano-and-voice ballad -- complete with major-seventh chords -- on mainstream radio? Even the lyrics are passable. And when those strings pour in like butterscotch at the end of the track, you'll forgive all of his irritating mannerisms, and maybe even his jock-sniffing relationship with Kanye West. Hey, I'm like The Game; I can say what the fuck I want. I love this Internet, man, I love this Internet.
Juelz Santana -- "Mic Check", "There It Go (The Whistle Song)"Welcome to the Smart Critics, Foolish Choices seminar at the DoubleTree Hotel in beautiful Downtown Jersey City. My name is Tris McCall, and I… oh, this is so hard to say. But I acknowledge that to beat my demons, I must first be able to name them. So yes, it's true: I like Juelz Santana. (Gasps.) Oh, I know, his flow is abysmal, and his diction is similar to that of the Listen 'N' Learn Farm Animals educational toy. But there's something about him that keeps me coming back for more. Maybe it's the cancer-patient bandana, or that shit-eating grin; I'm even sort of weirdly fascinated when he makes those randy Chihuahua noises. My advice to you: don't start. When he begins to vibe, get both hands on the dial and turn as fast as you can. Go to an easy listening channel, try Sean Hannity, anything but Juelz. Otherwise, you could find yourself rhyming "thang" with "thang", and hunting down obscure and terrible Dipset mixtapes. Don't be like me. Don't be a fool. Thank you all.
Above-average new-wave revival act with a sonic debt to Blur and a love-hate relationship to London not dissimilar to mid-period Madness. Worth checking out.
Kanye West -- "Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)", "Golddigger", "Heard 'Em Say"
Well, what would you have done? Say you had a chance to face the nation, and transmit a message to a country unraveling -- would you have read sanitized words from the script, like the rest of the Hollywood stooges? Or would you have turned to the red light, ignored the teleprompter, and tried to channel some of your frustration, fear, and bewilderment into a statement that might possibly begin to make sense of the senseless? At that moment of truth, we didn't get the Louis Vuitton Don; we saw Kanye West, record producer, would-be social interrogator, and complicated man, scared shitless and doing his best. We saw that storied arrogance for what it is: a coping mechanism and mask for an emotional, uncertain artist, destabilized like the rest of us, groping in the dark, trying to speak for those whose mouths had been filled with mud and silt and dirty rainwater. It wasn't graceful, or articulate. Had it been Ras Kass up there, he would have been succinct, pithy, and vicious; had it been Chuck D, he would have declaimed diagnostically, inarguably, and made every leftist in America even prouder of him than they already are. But we don't get to choose our spokespeople, or our pop stars. West turned out to be the rare mainstream performer beloved enough to get a national podium, and internally conflicted and contentious enough to use it to deliver something other than a soundbite. He showed us he owned a pair. He could have played it safe, done all of the talk shows, made College Dropout II, collected his Grammys and donated money to the Democratic Party and to PETA. Instead, he opened his difficult follow-up album by accusing the United States government of spreading AIDS and peddling crack-induced genocide. Kanye West is hardly the first emcee to make these charges, and when his predecessors -- Ras Kass again, who memorably said "it's not little green monkeys/ it's little white honkies" -- took on the establishment, they often did so with far more poetry. Ras Kass did not, and could not, move platinum numbers. If West really was the bankbook-driven industry whore he claims to be in his songs, he probably would have made a better, smoother sophomore album. Instead, he revealed that there were things that were important enough to him that were worth sacrificing some of his fanbase -- things worth acting the fool on live television to make manifest. It may take away from his spins, which takes away from his ends, but it ought to take away from his sins. In other words, he may not have earned any love at the National Broadcasting Company, or in the White House, or at Roc-A-Fella Records. But he earned my respect.
Kelly Clarkson -- "Behind These Hazel Eyes", "Breakaway", "Since You've Been Gone", "Because Of You"
Kelly Clarkson continues to make the case for the direct election of pop stars. Sneer all you want at hit radio and American Idol, but the only difference between contemporary radio emo and Clarkson's work is that those songs suck and these songs are good. This is what modern rock would sound like if any of those no-talent motherfuckers could sing.
Keyshia Cole -- "I Just Want It To Be Over", "I Should Have Cheated"R&B, on the other hand, is the one genre where a performer absolutely must have a good set of pipes in order to succeed. Cole can sometimes sound squeaky and juvenile, but when she heats up, she leaves the microphone smoking -- to illustrate, check out the sizzling last chorus and outro ad lib from "I Just Want It To Be Over". She's got a catch in her voice that she already knows how to exploit to emotional effect, and her line readings, while overwrought, are nonetheless awfully effective. "I Should Have Cheated" is her first crack at a heartbreak ballad, and while she's not quite as nuanced on the downtempo number as she is when she's shooting the works, she still acquits herself better than Mariah Carey did at her age. We could be hearing from her for a long time.
Somali freedom-fighter sings and raps, reads poetry and declaims; "Soobax" is a message to warlords and armed squads in the African Horn to stop harassing civilians. Now that's a protest song with some teeth. K'Naan is not a good vocalist -- at his best, he delivers his polemics in a strangled croak -- and that, more than any Clear Channel censorship, may have prevented him from getting his single released in the U.S. The video is everything the "Welcome To Jamrock" clip was supposed to be: astonishing footage of Mombasa and the Kenyan countryside that is neither exploitative nor apologetic. You won't find it on MTV, but poke around on the 'Net; it's there.
Laura Cantrell -- "Fourteenth Street"
I cannot understand why the IRCE shovels opprobrium on Liz Phair but gives Laura Cantrell a free ride. "Fourteenth Street" is every bit as transparent a pop move as "Why Can't I" was -- and it's a hell of a lot less enjoyable to listen to. While Cantrell has never worked with the Matrix, she has begun to select material unworthy of her talents but palatable to the Borders Books crowd. When she started out, she was kicking country-death ballads like "The Whiskey Makes You Sweeter"; these days she seems determined to repackage herself as an adult-alternative drone. Phair wants to be a commercially-successful musician, and thus fights stage-fright and the ridicule of ten thousand detractors to tour and record and make videos and appear on sub-moronic variety shows; Cantrell chooses her stages with a curator's discerning eye, but seems every bit as determined to leave a lo-fi, ramen-eating past for a bank-stacking future. I have been a fan since the beginning, but I do not think the double standard is serving anybody's interests.
This one practically ridicules itself: a nappy neo-luddite comparing the state of contemporary radio to the good old days of Marvin and Aretha and Ike Turner's domestic abuse. Every old fogey's favorite song, right? But the more I thought about it, the more I decided that if we're going to acknowledge the petty gynophobia of 50 Cent and T.I. and Kanye West but listen to them anyway, the very least we can do is sit there for three minutes and humor Leela James's critique. Think of her as that hectoring Women's and Gender Studies class you had to sit through before the bell rung and you ran off to the kegger. If the professor put a shred of apprehension or doubt or the fear of God in you, then she did her job. Besides, doesn't C. Dolores Tucker need something to rock to?
Speaking of misogyny and double standards with real-world consequences, where the fuck is my Free Lil Kim movement? G-Unit hollered for the liberty of the incarcerated Yayo until they were blue in the face, C-Murder has half of Gator begging for amnesty, and you can't watch an H-Town video without hearing Bun B stand up for his partner 'til they let him off the lock. While perjury might not be as cool as getting your bodyguard to shoot Mr. Dopeman in the back, the cells in Rikers are just as cold for fibbers as they are for those caught up in the hustle. CaféPress.com can only do so much; Atlantic Records, start printing up those tees.
Not everybody is going to understand this at all, and few are going to understand it completely; Lil Wayne and his g-rap compadres talking about the corner, automatic spitting, killing folks, slanging caine, pimping, showing off his diamonds, pissing wealth. In the early nineties, as suburban white kids jumped on Straight Outta Compton like Hello Kitty on a catnip toy, Michelle Shocked and her husband argued that the gangsta stuff gave white people exactly what they wanted: a caricature of black aggression, menace, and thoughtlessness that excited and ratified the American racist imaginary. This wasn't their argument alone; others made it, too, and lots of well-meaning liberals signed on to it. I remember thinking it made a lot of sense, as I sat there, reading the Village Voice and listening to 187 On The Undercover Cop. What didn't occur to me, or to Michelle Shocked, was that NWA didn't give a damn what we thought -- and that very act of not caring was, in itself, the crucial statement. This wasn't how we came up: we were used to Chuck D writing letters to the editor and threatening Greg Tate, and managing his own critical reception with the fussiness of Auntie May the flower arranger. See, we thought they were les badasses dangerouses, wearing those clocks around their necks; really, all they ever wanted was to engage in a constructive dialogue with whitey and his minions. And mainstream journalists were happy to oblige, as long as they could scold and praise like schoolmarms, and remind emcees constantly of their social obligations. Eighties rappers tried so hard -- every album had its anti-drug song, its positivity song, its stay-in-school song, its African history song -- and got so far, and in the end, it didn't even matter: they still got treated like the naughty kids on the playground. In retrospect, it was apparent that something needed to be done. When Ice Cube asked "do I look like a motherfucking role model?", he was doing more than just standing expectation on its head and providing some oxygen to a genre that had gotten awfully stuffy: he was liberating rap music from its obligation to sit up straight, fold its hands, and speak when spoken to. After NWA, there would no longer be any need to justify anything to authority figures -- rap had broken free from supervision, and from now on, rappers would achieve success on terms established within the culture only. In order for it to achieve its destiny as the world's most important music, hip-hop had to grow up and make this rupture. G-rap was, and is, the terrible mask that black upward social mobility had to wear to inscribe its importance on the globe.
I was right! Lohan is the brunette, and Duff is the blonde. I didn't even need to use the power of the Internet to find out; we just went to the mall, and there she was, biting her fingernails on the cover of a 2006 calendar. She looks a bit like the sort of girl you see in Hoboken on a Friday night, painfully underdressed and shivering in the October chill, running as fast as she can from Bahama Mama's to Drunky McSwiggin's to meet her friends. Of course, those girls are all marketing assistants, accounting students, and future CFOs, and Lohan is a tough-guy rocker. It could happen to you, too, if you make a wrong turn on Washington Street, and end up at the Guitar Bar rather than the Whiskey Bar.
Liz Phair -- "Everything To Me"
Okay, stop it right now. If Liz Phair were a rapper, and she decided to tell America she was going to make money money, make money money money, nobody would think twice about it. But because she began in the privileged world of alt-rock, and she's honest about her ambitions, she has become the whipping-girl for everybody who insists on the vast distinction between the sort of music that ends up on mainstream commercial radio and the sort that ends up on quasi-commercial college radio. There is a difference between professionally recorded rock and that stuff your weird cousin Butch makes in his bedroom, sure. But Atlantic Records is a business, and one motivated by the bottom line. Merge and Matador? They're businesses, and motivated by the bottom line. Phair is no more or less a sarariman than Memphis Bleek or Britt Daniel -- she's just pathologically candid, and calling attention to her own contradictions and perverse compromises has always been part of her project. "Everything To Me" isn't going to be the hit that "Why Can't I?" was, but that's not for lack of trying; it's just not quite as irresistible a tune. It's still very good, and nowhere near the departure from Exile In Guyville that the IRCE wants you to believe it is. There is no better illustration of the self-delusion, moral paralysis and complacency of indie culture than the critical reception of the last two Liz Phair albums.
Louis XIV -- "Finding Out True Love Is Blind"
If we're going to have to take Sarah Silverman seriously as a cultural critic, I guess we've got to put up with this, too. Like Rockstar Games, these guys peddle stuff that's just meant to make joyless Puritans cringe; it's useful for pissing off your parents, but there's no reason for anybody over the age of seventeen to listen to this stuff. If you're under seventeen, and your folks are joyless, go right ahead -- and remember, the first amendment is always the best, baby.
Ludacris -- "Number One Spot", "Pimpin' All Over The World" (with Bobby Valentino)
Sometimes your ace pitcher comes back after a star-caliber season, and there's something missing. The fastball doesn't have the same zip, the curveball doesn't break as sharply, some of that old composure is gone. The doctors check him over, but there's no sign of injury or impaired vision. Then you look at the back of the baseball card, and you see it: he threw 250+ innings last year, had crazy-high pitch counts, and spent far too long on the mound. He's not finished, he's just suffering from overuse. He needs to go on the DL for a little while, re-charge his batteries, get his mechanics together, and give himself a chance to sneak up on the league again.
Maria Taylor -- "Song Beneath The Song"
But Maria, is it a love song? I didn't get that part. The wan half of Azure Ray does her best Suzanne Vega impersonation, whispering into the microphone before stepping aside to share her chorus with Conor Oberst. Exhuming the song beneath the song is a Saddle Creek obsession: these guys wear their subtexts like Gucci Mane rocks bling.
Mariah Carey -- "Shake It Off", "We Belong Together", "Don't Forget About Us"
These are the best singles Carey has recorded since '97 at least, especially the gonzo weeper "We Belong Together". She sings the upbeat R&B numbers with renewed verve, too, as if she'd suddenly come home after a long trip to slumberland. In her youth, she was one of the most aggressively ostentatious singers to ever address a microphone windscreen, coaxing weird coffee percolator and nuclear meltdown noises out of that million-dollar throat of hers. The reborn Carey isn't feeling quite that chipper, but I'll take the '05 version over the morose "diva" who has recently sounded like an advert for Xanax.
Straightforward fuck-me ballad. Thematically indistinguishable from "Strip" by Adam Ant, and about as disposable.
Mates Of State -- "Goods (All In Your Head)"
A wonderful act to watch, the Mates Of State have never exactly been able to capture the exuberance and camaraderie of their live show in the studio. In concert, Kori Gardner's mastery of her gigantic Yamaha combo feels like a triumph of woman over machine; on record, the organ fireworks tend to become an afterthought. Which is weird, because Mates of State is a duo, and there aren't any other instruments besides Jason Hummel's drums. I am sure that Gardner has no interest in calling attention to her talent a la Keith Emerson, but consider this -- MOS songs are, like those of a certain mid-Seventies power trio, a series of smaller musical units stuck together like Lego pieces. See, they're prog and they don't know it. And if the shoe fits…
Metric, on the other hand, had an inkling that they were becoming prog, weren't comfortable with it, and decided instead to flatten their songs under distorted rhythm guitar. Confronted by the B-DARG, Emily Haines tries to squeal like Karen O, but mostly just sounds desperate. Worse yet, the dynamite rhythm section of Joules Scott-Key and Josh Winstead has been effectively buried. There are still good songs here, struggling to poke their angles through the production, and "Monster Hospital" is one of them. But the overall tone of Live It Out is one of grudging acquiescence to somebody else's value system. "I fought the war", Haines sings, "and the war won". Though she's a convicted opponent of the Bush Administration, I don't think she's talking abut Iraq.
I don't know where the members of the IRCE live -- the Chicago suburbs, judging by their patterns of idolatry -- but here in Jersey City, you could walk by any Indian bodega and hear music like this blasting from the store's sound
