Less Real Than Nirvana, Thank Goodness

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This originally ran on Splice Today.
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I’m one of those people who didn’t hear about the Melvins until after Nirvana had explained that they were the shit. As a result, the two bands are linked in my head. Kurt Cobain shot himself a good long time ago, and I overplayed his albums so thoroughly that I can’t even listen to them now. Still, when I think about the Melvin’s, I can’t help but get a little nostalgic for that other band I loved back there in the 90s when I was loving the same thing as everybody else.

None of which is really fair to the Melvins, who were always a much more creative outfit than Nirvana — as Cobain would be the first to acknowledge, I think. It’s also misleading since the Melvins were around well before Nirvana, and have persisted long after. The band was formed in 1983, which means that they’re almost three decades old now.

The Melvins’ latest, Freak Puke, doesn’t exactly break new ground for them — but it also doesn’t sound anything like a nostalgia act. Partially that’s because the Melvins were never big enough that theirmoves became a cliché. Their early albums are amazing, but they don’t show up on best of lists, which means that the band doesn’t have to fight their back catalogue the way indie giants like Sonic Youth or REM have had to. Partially, too, the Melvins have managed to avoid musical calcification because they always had more than one schtick. On Freak Puke, for example, they’re less full-on-doom-sludge, less avant-experimental-weirdness, and more dirty grungy rawk. Indeed, Freak Puke hearkens back to their one major label effort, 1993’s fantastic Houdini.

The main reason that the album doesn’t sound dated, though, is simply because it kicks ass. Longtime members guitarist Buzz Osborne and drummer Dale Crover and sometime bassist Trevor Dunn have put together an amazingly thick sludge of testicle-cleansing hooks. But while the Melvins are definitely riding in on the same brontosaurus as Sabbath or Aersosmith, they still manage to get that Saurian to stumble about to some bizarre bop heads. “Worm Farm Waltz” is Charlie Parker getting buried in cement — until the abstract, spacy bridge, which sounds like the Sun Ra orchestra if the Sun Ra orchestra had employed Dale Crover on drums. And yeah, I tried to think of another metaphor there, but the fact is, that nobody sounds like Dale Crover. Even John Bonham doesn’t pulverize the skins like he does.

Anyway, that’s basically the album; track after track mining the unexpectedly fertile ground between dirty 70s classic rock and avant jazz. “Mr. Rip Off,” the opening track, starts with quiet bowed bass and spooky chalk board squeaks before staggering seamlessly into a distorted trudge, as if Webern was always meant to play arenas. “Let Me Roll It,” on the other hand, is totally, gloriously sold out kitsch — the kind of trashy, self-parodic testosterone swagger that Gene Simmons lived for, complete with stoopid half-failed double entendres. “You gave me something that I understand/you gave me lovin’ in the palm of my hand!” Buzz Osborne bellows while Crover smashes a beat that’s just about two times too slow. When they declaim “Let me roll it to you,” it’s like watching the Hulk dressed as Vegas Elvis thrusting his crotch while he pushes a square boulder towards the massed groupies.

All of which suggests that the Melvins are the band Nirvana might have been if Nirvana was the sort of band that could name itself “The Melvins”. Kurt Cobain certainly had an irreverent sense of humor…but it was irreverent, not absurdist. When Nirvana moved away from its core pop-punk-metal remit, it did so by covering Leadbelly or singing about how Jesus didn’t want them for his sunbeam — a different take on angst and realness, in other words, but still angst, and still realness.

The Melvins, in contrast, were always already sold out —punks who spent all their time pretending to be doom metal or glam rock or some sort of jazz weirdos. They’re a gimmicky band — the cover of Houdini, with its adorable cartoon two-headed puppy, is a nice summation. But being true to your gimmicks can be its own kind of integrity. Thirty years on and you can still hear the Melvins giggling like fifteen year olds when they put “puke” in their title or end their album with a thoroughly annoying beeping sound-effect loop. Grunge came and grunge went, but the Melvins remain, still quietly making the best loud music on the planet.

79 thoughts on “Less Real Than Nirvana, Thank Goodness”

  1. So quotable. I love the Hulk image, for one.

    It’s sad that Nirvana has to be sacrificed for that, since they are indeed the last interesting rock band to get on pop radio. But I take your point- it’s the only way rock can be bearable in the 21st century, is to abandon authenticity.

  3. I mean…Seven Nation Army was certainly on a lot. That’s probably one of the most covered songs in existence (almost all the covers of which are good because the song itself is). Jack White’s other stuff draws too much from folk, blues, and a little jazz for it to ever get on the radio though. He’s all over turn of the 20th century Americana, as far as I can tell, and nobody on the radio seems to care much for it. But then again, I’m just a fan not a critic, so what do I know.

  5. I’m in general in favor of defining rock broadly. If you do that, though, Kanye isn’t the best of anything.

    (Not that I dislike Kanye. Your enthusiasm for him is just a little bizarre…but you know, viva la differance and all that.(I’m sure I misspelled that.))

    Adolescence in art can have downsides, but there are good bits about it too.

  6. It’s a Marilyn Manson rewrite. Doesn’t take a very broad definition to count that as rock.

    With regard to what Kanye’s the best of, it doesn’t matter how broadly you define any genre, because he’s making the best music of any kind right now. (Or he was from 2010-13. We’ll see what he can do whenever he decides to end his current semi-sabbatical.)

  7. Yes, I’m aware you think this. Curious to have Bert weigh in (I think he likes Kanye less than I do at this point.)

    Would you even add the caveat, the best music of any kind right now, as far as music you’ve heard? Or do you maintain it’s impossible for anyone now to be making music better than Kanye anywhere on earth, no matter whether you’ve heard it or not? (This may sound snarky, but that’s not the intent. I’m genuinely not sure how you’d answer.)

  8. “he’s making the best music of any kind right now.”

    In the mainstream, or just out of all music produced today, period (I can swallow the former, not the latter)? And why exactly do you say he’s the best, as in, what are your criteria (if you have any)?

  10. – Did you edit that parenthetical into your 10:33 comment after the fact, or am I just reading with my usual attention span? (I’m guessing the latter.) Anyway, I don’t know how my enthusiasm for him is bizarre – if you polled American popular music critics (probably British too) about who’s the most important artist of the last ten years, he’d win. (Not that that would necessarily make it true – it just also happens to be true.)

    – If you’re actually genuinely unsure whether I have an opinion of music I haven’t heard (I don’t, of course), I’d be interested to know why.

  11. Nah, parenthetical was there before.

    I was genuinely unsure! You’ve said before that you’re not super interested in thinking about non-mainstream/non-praised/under-appreciated music. I wasn’t sure if you felt that obscurities were just automatically going to be not that good (because of wisdom of crowds, or because of the way the canon works, or some other reason.)

  13. Will break my long lurking silence to say “Oh Heck Yes!” Love these guys

    P.S. Let Me Roll It is actually a Wings cover

  14. @Noah

    I don’t remember saying that – though I’ll certainly take any excuse to say that the mainstream is usually (usually) more adventurous than the non-mainstream (especially the non-mainstream of popular music, which is in a double bind: afraid to be as commercial as the mainstream, and afraid to aspire to the methodical rigor of contemporary classical music.)

    @Petar

    So there’s part of your answer above. Re criteria, we’ve discussed part of it already: Artworks, including bad artworks, imply their own criteria. Re Kanye West, his masterful use of “space” and his distinctive approach to sampling have been widely commented on. I would add that from his first album onward he’s had an inclination and talent for making music that comments on the words in a way that changes over the course of the song (common in rock since in the late ’60s, less so in hip hop).

    e.g. in “Jesus Walks,” after “leave you breathless” the beat briefly stops twice while somebody gasps for air; this both emphasizes the word and provides a break in the otherwise relentlessly increasing intensity of the track – more and more layers being added over the half gospel, half military drums (or, in one case, one layer – the squealing synthesizer, being subtracted again, only to be immediately replaced by the solo singer (“I want Jesus…”) – this matters later).

    Also impressive: the way he finally defuses that intensity in the second half of the first chorus (“God show me the way”), when the drums become quieter, then gradually build up back then, joined by synthesized strings playing tremolos. At the same time, the male chorus who have been providing what’s essentially the bass line of the song (“om om”) disappear, but it’s not immediately very noticeable, because at that point the female (or mixed?) chorus (“ooh ooh”) and the solo singer who’ve joined in over the course of the track are singing pretty low too. Then, at the moment when the snare-bass drum combination returns, all the remaining singers disappear, and suddenly all that’s left is the drums and the high synth strings – and you notice, not as a jarring shock but a a retrospective realization, that the bottom – literally and figuratively – has dropped out of the song. And then the strings disappear too, and with one more martial roll we start over from the beginning and are into the second verse.

    Also also impressive: He can’t repeat the trick of the first verse – somehow getting another reference to breathlessness into the lyrics and briefly stopping the music altogether when he gets there – because that would just sound like he was out of ideas. So to give you some relief in the second verse, he makes the drums quieter again at the point where the squealy synthesizer comes in – which also has the effect of somebody who’s been declaiming at the top of his voice for a few minutes suddenly speaking in a hush – implication: “This is the really important part.” Which, in the lyrics, it sort of is. (“I ain’t here to argue about his facial features…”) (Another way of preventing you from thinking that he’s running short on ideas: The first part of the second verse – before the “ooh ooh”s start – is much shorter than the first – just a couple of lines; he knows you’ve got the point already – and for a bit of added variety he throws in the “Jesus walks with them” answering vocals.)

    (Also also also impressive: The squealy synth I mentioned – he kept it separate from the solo singer so that he could bring it back at the very end, finally together with her, at which point you know the track is over.)

    Okay – all of that makes him a master of synthesizing preexisting ideas.

    Where he starts to break through to something more than that is with his treatment of autotune in 808s and Heartbreak. e.g. We know that if you can’t hit a note very well, autotune will correct the pitch but your voice will still sound unpleasantly strained. So you have singers like T-Pain, who can hit the notes and so don’t need autotune for that, but use it for its peculiar color, and singers like Miley Cryus, who can’t hit the notes and do use autotune for that, and more or less just hope that you won’t notice their voices still sound awful. But in, say, “Heartless,” West uses autotune to hit a note he can’t over and over again, often at the end of lines (“how could you be so heart-less“), at a medium tempo and over a soft accompaniment. He draws your attention to the limits of his voice and, more importantly, the limits of autotune – it can make him on pitch, but at the price of making him sound like a robot, and even for that price it still can’t make him sound good. And he further emphasizes it by contrasting it with the second, lower, wordless vocal line that’s going on at the same time – the non-abrasive but emotionally detached sound of autotune when the singer stays comfortably within his middle or lower middle range versus the strangled sound when a singer who wasn’t very good in the first place tries to go too high.

    This is using the characteristic sounds of contemporary pop music to make music – not just words – about contemporary pop music. But of course it’s in My Dark Twisted Fantasy that this goes beyond an interesting experiment and becomes a fully developed style.

    Two examples: The combination of drum machine and what sounds like a real hi hat being played by a real person in “Runaway”; the weird group vocals in “All of the Lights,” where a number of distinctive singers were recorded separately and then combined, and it sounds as though some or all of them were digitally altered as well, so we simultaneously hear how much of the singers’ individuality has been ironed out by technology, and now some of it nevertheless remained ineradicable, and that part of each singer’s voice, deformed by technology, is now clashing with all the others’.

    Except for maybe his use of autotune, neither those effects are fundamentally very new, nor any of the other prominent devices used in the album (suddenly cutting off all sound and/or suddenly starting it; contrasting a singer’s voice with his voice altered by recording technology to sing (or rap) the same thing, at the same speed, an octave lower or higher; double tracking a singer with a distorted version of himself; taking advantage at strategic points of the modern capacity for reproducing sounds at very loud volume with high fidelity; reproducing the breaths of vocalist – when you leave them on the recording at all – with high clarity and fidelity). But deployed as densely as they are, and combined with the particular tone of the melodies and words and the way the melodies and words are rapped or sung, they become something new: Music about a music industry where the amount of money spent on the most expensive recording projects, and the degree of a very narrow kind of technological perfection that has become both possible and expected, have metastasized to grotesque proportions – also evocative, with only a small intuitive leap, of the morbidly top heavy nature of today’s elite society in general and of West’s discomfort at being part of that elite: for the same reasons as any thinking member of the elite, and additionally, in his case, because he’s also a member of the race that the same elite oppresses with such particular brutality (a point that is of course made explicitly in his lyrics).

    (deep breath)

    @Kasper

    I’m glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for the link. (I unfortunately have to confess to slight disappointment when I did a double take and confirmed it was not, in fact, a clip from the Bill Nye show.)

  15. Correction!

    So to give you some relief in the second verse, he makes the drums quieter again at the point where the squealy synthesizer comes in – which also has the effect of somebody who’s been declaiming at the top of his voice for a few minutes suddenly speaking in a hush – implication: “This is the really important part.” Which, in the lyrics, it sort of is. (“I ain’t here to argue about his facial features…”)

    Jesus (ha) – sorry. The lyrics at that point are of course “If this take away from my spins…”

  16. Another correction:

    he finally defuses that intensity in the second half of the first chorus (“God show me the way”), when the drums become quieter, then gradually build up back then, joined by synthesized strings playing tremolos. At the same time, the male chorus who have been providing what’s essentially the bass line of the song (“om om”) disappear, but it’s not immediately very noticeable, because at that point the female (or mixed?) chorus (“ooh ooh”) and the solo singer who’ve joined in over the course of the track are singing pretty low too. Then, at the moment when the snare-bass drum combination returns, all the remaining singers disappear, and suddenly all that’s left is the drums and the high synth strings – and you notice, not as a jarring shock but a a retrospective realization, that the bottom – literally and figuratively – has dropped out of the song.

    Rather, all the remaining singers disappear, except the ones chanting “Jesus walks” disappear

  17. Well that was a, uuuuhhh…satisfying answer. I guess Kanye’s my next big listening project.

    Although, given that I’m such a hipster, I still have to object to the statement that Kanye’s technical mastery makes him the hawtest thing going right now, de facto. I would, instinctively point to classical musicians like Brooklyn Rider, as well as bluegrass groups like Punch Brothers (particularly the frontman, Chris Thile). I’m on the tail end of a CloZee binge, so let’s throw her in there too, since her music is very technically adept and meticulous, and extremely interesting since she started including “world” influences. And I would be remiss to not posit Goran Bregovic out of sheer ethnic pride. At the risk of sounding like a drug dealer at Burning Man, “There’s so much more cool shit out there, dude. Don’t close your mind to the possibilities.”

    Although honestly, I must (begrudgingly) concede your point (for now). I’m a diehard fan of instrumental music, so this’ll take a while to process.

  18. I know there’s, well, other shit out there (a lot of which is in fact shit).

    Two recent (last five years) things that I don’t like, and am not at all convinced are important, but don’t feel I can dismiss off hand:

    http://www.kylegann.com/SnakeDance3.mp3
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cDfgKk-aZ8

    (And before I create another wrong impression, let me be clear that I don’t dislike the aforementioned because they’re ugly. I love this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyl5ilafEiA)

    And four recent things I’m not sure are (or aren’t) important either, but that I do like:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXD0vv-ds8
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWZs5POCp0I
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsGODTySH0E
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFctQMCs3k4

    And you already know my position on Taylor Swift.

    The point being, while I vehemently deny esoteric knowledge about any kind of music whatsoever, and may or may not be right about how good Kanye West is, my opinion on him has been formed with at least some context.

    I had to look up CloZee. I’ve now listened to several of her tracks on SoundCloud and Youtube. I’m not sure I find them very objectively interesting (insofar as it’s possible to evaluate music objectively – settle down, kids), but in any case I’m highly enjoying them (especially before they get loud). Thank you!

  19. Your welcome. I recently discovered her after a friend set me onto them. I enjoy her later stuff more than her earlier work (especially because of those “world” influences that I grew up with), but the Larcin EP is one of her most interesting pieces, and the one I most want to dig into.

  22. Thank you!

    Listening to the track “Larcin” now. The beginning of that one is lovely! (Too bad about the saxophone getting in the way of hearing that lovely accordion later one.)

  23. Yeah, I feel like the two on that EP have the most meat on them, or are the ones I have unpacked the least. What I love about CloZee (and a lot of electronica) is how she so firmly plants you in a place or sensation, and her music displays a pretty clear technical, instrumental mastery, IMO. At least, her work after Larcin does. Haven’t checked out the earlier stuff yet.

  24. I gotta say, out of those four videos, I like the Sufjan Stevens one the most, and I’ve been meaning to watch Kill la Kill forever, but the Flying Lotus/Kendrick Lamar piece is the weirdest and most intriguing by far.

    Thanks for the videos, and the explanation on Kanye!

  25. Flying Lotus is nice (though I think I like the amazing dancing more than the track itself.)I fear I’ve kind of run out of patience with Sufjan Stevens’ schtick. Clozee I’m not sure; it’s not really doing it for me; the world influences aren’t quite winning me over. Provisionally intrigued by the Haas; kind of liked the Snakedance thing. It’s hard for me to be super enthusiastic about musical theater, but the Steven Universe is cute and clever (no Raymond Scott, but those days are gone.)

    Here’s some things I’ve liked this past year for you all to enjoy/sneer at.

    I loooove Sewer Goddess

    https://malignantrecs.bandcamp.com/album/painlust

    Dawn Richard
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TGrh-5Mnjw

    Mastery
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjXnESBAMq4

    Nozinja
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xl_Xu2dEwA

    Courtney Patton
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nASVEK-WeVA

  26. I really love this too, though I’ve been told I shouldn’t

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkTuU6cOkaE

    And there’s this, of course

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AVdHFMK58U

    And Beyonce
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQBMQ_2x8Pc

    I don’t really buy the “mainstream is better” argument. The mainstream can be great, but so can lots of other things. Music has a huge audience; big enough that I think lots of things that aren’t mainstream aren’t necessarily especially anxious about the mainstream, or don’t have to be. Metal is mostly doing its own thing for example; own scene, own history, doesn’t necessarily care that much what Kanye is doing. same with lots of folk and bluegrass things…or electronica or what have you. Big enough pond that there’s room for everybody (especially with the internet which makes finding an audience (even if a small one) relatively easy.)

  27. – The essential fact about Sufjan Stevens is, his work may or may not be any good, but it isn’t schtick at all. He completely means it. The best reason to hate the hipsters is because when Sufjan appeared people mistook him for one of them. (And by “hipsters” I mean Belle and Sebastian, whom I also sometimes like. And by people “people,” I mean me.)

    – They’re very different kinds of artists, of course, but professional whacky guy Raymond Scott can only wish he were as effortlessly stark raving insane as the author of “Giant Woman” and “Stronger Than You.”

    – The top commenter under the Nozinja video, who says it sounds like what would happen if Microsoft Paint were a music program and thinks that’s a negative judgment, is a better critic than he knows.

    – The July Talk song is good! Why aren’t you supposed to like it?

    – This is the first I’ve heard of Valerie June. I like it! (Sort of.) (I have an unpleasant feeling that Appalachian music has become for the hip of today what jazz was for the hip of the ’50s.) But taken by itself, I like it!) Thank you!

  28. Just out of curiosity, I haven’t seen you write about much electronica at all, but is there/has there been any that would win you over to the wub side?

  29. Man this Beyonce song is pretty good…I MEAN, *ahem*, *cough*, Booooooooo! Down with the music hegemon! (just after this song is finished…)

  31. @Petar @Noah I’m a big fan of the Black Angels, particularly their first two albums, and they’ve been used a lot on TV at least. I know they’re not *as* big, but they’re known-of, and post White Stripes.

  32. Electronica … I’m no expert, but on top of my head:

    Stéphane Picq’s soundtrack to that old Dune game is quite good:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-J4EmTy2y8&list=PL8C5ECDBD99CD75A7

    Doop has made some good stuff, like Wan Too and Youghurt:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhevjBvlro4
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwWI2kvUbG0

    Little Fluffy Clouds:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHixChYgGRI

    I also have fond memories of music from a lot of games – Lemmings, Duke Nukem 3D, SSF2T, Starcontrol II, Living Ball, Uplink, ZPC. (Hardly count as electronica, though.)

  33. Also, I suppose I want to articulate publicly, I think it’s really significant that The Melvins are a band of musicians that work with a bunch of other interesting musicians. The Melvins are really communal, in a way.

    Mark Lanegan is like that. He’s this weird guy who’s done a bunch of shit and really should be famous if you look at his discography. But it’s like he just doesn’t care. And, bringing it back to Nirvana, Lanegan covered that Leadbelly song on his first solo album with “Kurdt Kobain” (I think that’s the spelling) back in 1989 or something.

  34. Valerie June is amazing (I think). Just a great singer…I think she comes by her Appalachian influences honestly (I believe she’s from that part of the world.)

    July Talk is maybe too dead center indie rock for it to be totally comfortable—but I really do love them. I think they do a nice back and forth between swaggery classic rock and fey indie stuff.

    I do like a good bit of electronica. Aphex Twin and Squarepusher from back in the day are favorites; I’ve really enjoyed this guy who nobody seems to know; really nice mellow psychedlia

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1nShyWDpXI

    And I really like Akkord

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LOy2bL6ifk

    I sometimes like Belle and Sebastian too…but meaning it is a schtick just like anything else. There’s just a lot of fey folk I like more the Sufjan Stevens (Donovan most notably, Vashti Bunyan…basically the older stuff he loves I like more than him, and so listening to him always makes me wonder why I don’t just listen to that other stuff instead.)

    The Steven Universe thing is more like Brian Wilson than Raymond Scott, seems like. Not as loopy as that, quite, but I don’t dislike it.

  36. Oh, and Petar, the Beyonce is a collaboration with Frank Ocean, who’s kind of the new hipster hope of R&B. I go back and forth on how much I like him, but the collaboration with Beyoncé is great; she often brings out the best in collaborators I think.

  38. Oh cool, now I’m allowed to like the song openly.

    Although in all seriousness, I’m not such a huge R&B (or PBR&B) fan…or a mainstream pop fan for that matter. My taste has been guided by Pandora selections over the past few years, and I already started from a place on the very fringes, or farther out, of the mainstream. The most mainstream thing I really like is the Arctic Monkeys and the Black Keys, and even they have literally dozens of amazing songs out before they hit the radio.

  39. Oh and Nix, thanks for the tip on the Black Angels. I tend to adore anything drawing from Jack White, or at least drawing from the same sources of Americana as Jack White, so I anticipate much more listening. Thanks a bunch!

  40. Well, I don’t want to be misleading… The influences I hear in them are Sabbath, Velvet Underground, Stooges, The Doors, 13th Floor Elevators, and a hint of Joy Division. They’re heavier than both Nirvana and the White Stripes. But they don’t come off as contrived to me. I’m a big fan, I’d count them as borderline pop(ular; they’ve gotten a fair amount of play in the pop media), and they are post White Stripes.

    Mark Lanegan has had a career from the 80s to the present. That’s more impressive.

    But to speak to the question of if there have been interesting, popular rock bands since… the aughts seemed pretty barren to me. But there were the White Stripes and the Black Angels. I like both. Otherwise, kinda barren popular rock-wise, imo.

  41. The white rock band as a popular force is mostly dead; hip hop and R&B pretty much ate pop. Could change, but that’s where we’re at at the moment.

    The one possible exception is country, which is basically where white rock has gone to die. Though even country is more and more hip hoppish these days…

  42. Yes. I finally figured that out, though it took me a sec. But hip hop is sufficiently exciting for me that I’m OK with that. Yay!

  46. I don’t know if the white rock band is entirely dead, but it has had to eat up some explicitly black influences to remain relevant. The Arctic Monkeys draw a LOT from hip hop, and its particularly obvious in Knee Socks:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00bk5E7gecI

    And the Black Keys are obviously drawing everything they can from the blues. Spoon is pulling from hip hop quite a lot. None of these are particularly central to mainstream pop, but they are all relatively influential white rock groups, and that’s not even mentioning Jack White’s perennial omnipresence in rock. I don’t think the white rock band is dead as a popular force so much as it is unrecognizable since its had to pull so much from black musical styles old and new to break anything resembling new ground.

  48. I didn’t think I liked the Arctic Monkeys…and that seems to be the case, unfortunately. Really don’t like the singer, and the beat is front and center in a way that annoys me. (I don’t really like the Black Keys either.)

  51. @Noah

    Odd, the singer is kind of the best part for me. It’s so obvious he’s just yelling into the mic, he doesn’t have any pretension of technical singing ability. It’s like he’s actually singing along to a song some other, better singer already wrote, and he knows that it’s obvious, so he makes it a point of identification for the audience. Their earliest music was mainly party punk rock and a little narrative stuff, like A Certain Romance and Mardy Bum, both of which drew most of their emotional impact from the sensation that some random guy was at the mic, singing about how crappy his week had been. Come to think of it, they’re later stuff draws any impact it has from the same idea.

    @Nix

    Queens of the Stone Age is one of those really interesting bands I wish I was more familiar with, but their repertoire seems a bit intimidating and impenetrable (a bit like Kanye’s). I think I’ll have to carve out a weekend someday soon to catch up on them…

  52. @Noah

    “Strong in the Real Way” isn’t loopy, but some of Rebecca Sugar’s other songs are quietly completely out of their minds (including the two I mentioned) (not purely as music, but as words and in the combination of the two).

    I hear Carole King by way of Marvin Hamlisch and/or early Stephen Schwartz in that particular song, not Brian Wilson. But actually Brian Wilson is relevant here anyway, because more than Donovan or Steve Reich, he is the essential influence on Sufjan Stevens’ sound (though that maybe isn’t the same thing as being the essential influence on Sufjan Stevens) – specifically the Brian Wilson of Smile (this is something that I never noticed on my own, but was blindingly obvious as soon I saw Mark Prindle pointing it out).

    (Vashti Bunyan is of course a goddess.)

    Also: If you (or anybody else reading this) at least somewhat like the pieces by Kyle Gann and Georg Friedrich Haas, I recommend their respective predecessors (and probably betters) Harry Partch and Gérard Grisey (if they’re not already on your radar):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFhtP-OrsWo (1941)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4bOcE_laMs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLATOfDgJLQ, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ScPzfAhsTg (1998)

  53. hip hop and R&B pretty much ate pop

    I don’t know why you keep saying this (well, maybe I do, but let’s say I don’t).

    With regard to hip hop, it’s even the other way around – rappers have become what guitar heroes were in the ’80s; the people pop stars hire to fill out the third quarter of the single.

  54. Well, I guess it depends on what pop is, right? I was thinking of it as just whatever is popular (rather than as a genre in itself.) So, that’s basically the same thing you’re saying. Used to be what was popular was guitar rock, and other popular music would reference it/bow to it in some way. That’s the case with hip hop/R&B now.

  55. But if you mean what’s popular, then a tremendous part of that today is Swedish produced pop that’s maybe never exactly rock, but not exactly r&b or hip hop either, and often at least as close or closer to the former as to the latter. You also leave out EDM, which is now all over everything (except country, come to think of it, where the hot new thing is hip hop references and crossovers – belated as usual).

    Re why pop had token guitar solos in the ’80s, I’d say rather that rock was declining in popularity in the ’80s, but still prestigious, which is where I think rap is now.

  56. Sure, there are other things in there.

    I don’t think hip hop is declining in popularity. Hip hop artists seem to do fine, to the extent they can even be distinguished from R&B performers at this point…

  57. For anyone interested, rock-wise, PJ Harvey got me in to Mark Lanegan, they collaborated together on his album “Bubblegum,” which came out in the early aughts and is just a good, solid, awesome rock album! Also, Duff McKagen and Izzy Stradlin are on that album. And the fact that they’re all together sorta charms me… but that’s me. That entire album is 5 stars, imo. Not groundbreaking, but utterly satisfying.

    From Mark Lanegan, I got into QOTSA — tho all three have worked together on the Desert Sessions. I love collaborations. :)

    Here’s the song, sung by Mark Lanegan, that got me into QOTSA. It’s not the best of either, but it was my entry into the latter (for anyone who cares) => https://youtu.be/r2mybZ3KT2E

  59. Urge Overkill embraced the retro-rock think in some unfortunate ways; I think their drummer had a horrible heroin habit, which ended up destroying the band.

  61. I’m pretty into that last Dawn Richard album, though I run hot and cold on the new R&B in ways that I find surprising, given that I’ve always listened to old R&B and I cut my teeth on the usual indie suspects (Sonic Youth, Pixies,etc.). I keep expecting the new R&B to flip my switch, but it rarely does. I fear I’m just old.
    As for newer indie stuff, I’m with Nix on the Black Angels. I also think that Deerhunter has a lot going for it, and the band’s strengths came together pretty nicely on Halcyon Digest. More recently, I’ve been listening to the new Vince Staples album, and to the newish Perfume Genius.
    It’s funny, I recently learned that Mark Lanegan has a hand in my favorite Beat Happening ablum (Jamboree), and song (Indian Summer). I need to pay more attention to that guy.
    To put a bow on this early morning comment, I’m going to link to a Jazz Butcher cover of that Beat Happening song:
    https://soundcloud.com/adamthegimbel/indian-summer-beat-happening

  62. Dawn Richard is great! And sounds a little different from much of the rest of the critically touted R&B stuff, so it makes sense that you could like her and not some of that (I prefer her, though I like FKA Twigs and Frank Ocean okay too.)

  64. Kind of great that she’s so dressed down there too; she was in Danity Kane for a while so her image is generally very high glam; it’s cool that she feels able to switch it up occasionally if she feels like it.

  65. That is a great video!
    I like Frank Ocean, too, and I’m looking forward to watching him grow. I also like some of Jesse Ware’s stuff, which I think is someone I heard about on this site, or maybe on one of Factual Opinion’s music roundup. I had this song (Robert Glasper w/Jill Scott) on heavy rotation for a good long time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6NjqujEy1o
    The funny thing is, I still don’t think I’ve heard anything that sounds as good as My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless sounded in 1991. If you could create a drug that gave me that same feeling I’d hand over my life’s savings.I’m fairly certain that album rewired my brain in some fundamental ways.

  66. Hah; I like MBV okay, though not my favorite band. A Sunny Day in Glasgow is definitely shoegaze influenced—as is lots of stuff. Timbaland picked up on some shoegaze influence I think, and it’s definitely a part of current R&B/pop radio to some degree.

  67. @Nate I think YOU should check out the K-Holes. Kid Congo recommended them in a recent (last 5 years) interview and man, oh man…. I want to be them! I would be very surprised if you didn’t like them — though it’s totally cool if you don’t.

    I love many things about them… among the many things, they always sound like they’re on the verge of falling apart, and they don’t, which makes every song sound like a miracle. Their videos are super cool, too… which is why I can’t pick just one. Google them. It’s worth your time. (They were off Hardly Art last time I checked.)

    As for boy rock, I have a holy trinity of rock saintliness in my head. These are dudes who have been around forever making awesome music and are rarely discussed despite the fact that anyone who enjoys the genres they work in likes them… a lot… but probably doesn’t even know it.

    1. Mark Lanegan. Ubiquitous as fuck. There’s no Kurt Cobain screaming Leadbelly w/out him. That alone should be discussed. Like, if I was him, I’d probably feel angry and ripped off by Cobain. Never heard any anger from the guy in interviews; he doesn’t seem to care. He’s also done duets w/ Isobel Cambel (from Belle & Sebastian – hey Noah) that are 100 times better than Belle & Sebastian, cuz at least there’s bass. :P JK… sorta. But seriously, the duets are modern odes to Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra, and they are very good. I think he’s done three albums w/ her. His album after “Bubblegum” is an ode to New Order entitled “Blues Funeral.” I mean, this guy’s been making music left and right for several decades with not even one iota of snootiness or how it seems. He doesn’t care. He just makes solid fucking music so that even when you hear a song you don’t like… I assure you, there are at least two from him you will like. And for that, he is a saint.

    2. Kid Congo Powers. The Cramps. The Gun Club. The Bad Seeds. And while I’m not as in to his latest project, he was touring with the K-Holes. Like, his whole life is rock legend. AND he is the ONLY member of The Gun Club that got on well with Jeffrey Lee Pierce. I have a bunch of band interviews and EVERYONE wanted to kill Pierce, meanwhile Kid Congo is just like — Yeah, everyone hated him. And sometimes, for good reason. I never had a problem. Rock saint.

    3. Mike Patton. The most famous of the bunch because of Faith No More, but how long did that last for? And man, Angel Dust is gooooooood! And the Angel Dust interview w/ him (https://youtu.be/3TbM04nxetI)… I probably watch it once a year as a pick me up, cuz I’m that sad person. He’s also the surliest of the bunch but he’s surly in really smart and humane ways, imo. He knows his limits. And he’s a HUGE fan of The Melvins.
    Lately he’s taken to making Metal Super groups w/ his heroes. Las Fantomas w/ King Buzzo and Dave Lombardo. They have a whole album of songs inspired by classic horror movies. I mean… this guy…
    And Tomahawk. I listen to this band ALL the time. I do yoga to this band. Haha. ;) The other members are from The Melvins, Helmet, and Jesus Lizard. (SUPER GROUPS!) Here’s God Hates a Coward live (less polished… but I’d love to see Tomahawk live :) I mean… this guy… https://youtu.be/Jt856_nRxQk

  69. Dude, you’re telling me. The most phone sexy album ever is => https://youtu.be/Od8FfT1U820

    Mike Patton makes me feel heterosexual. He was actually my first adult male TV crush at the age of 10, and I so stand by my 10 year old self I am amazed. He is an amazing musician. His entire ouevre is fabulous.

    And he did back-ups (a waste of his talent, but still) for Mark Lanegan here: https://youtu.be/DS3UmyOA-u4

  70. His lyrics are consistently great, too. He always downplays his lyrics as unimportant cuz he’s more interested in sounds. But that’s a constraint like in poetry. His lyrics are very smart, imo, no matter the project.

  72. PS, cuz I gotta say it — I’m fairly certain Patton knows a great deal about phone sex. He makes a comment in the Angel Dust interviews about sex needing to get away from sex to be healthier/more interesting/vibrant just like music needs to get away from music and man should move towards machine.

    Anyway, I have in my head a loose list of artists that I’m fairly certain — like I’m a gambling woman and I would — knew a great deal about the sex trade, because nowhere else would you be that theatrical about sex. Haha.

    OK. I’m done. :)

  75. Thanks Nix 66! I’d never heard to K-Holes, but they’re definitely my type of thing… I’m going to make them my soundtrack for the week.
    As for your trinity, I lived in the Bay Area through most of the ”90’s, so Patton is never far for mind. Mr. Bungle especially, but also Fantomas. And yeah, Handsome Boy is wonderful. I’m also a sucker for anything Kid Congo touches. He’s like the Kevin Bacon for heroin rock of a certain vintage (6 degrees and all that).

  77. I’m not. I didn’t even know they existed until I saw Svenonius interview them for Vice. Haha. Do you like them or no?

    PS — For anyone who likes the White Stripes, might I suggest Mr. Airplane Man, if you don’t know them already. I’m a fan.

    https://youtu.be/sWH1wKQ2_WQ

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