Straight to Video
Rock Art Rock
See more in the Rock Art Rock gallery.
polls
Loading ...
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
It’s Blitz!
(Interscope, 2009)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ pull is more sonics than lyrics, but the occasional free-floating statement of purpose is oftentimes Karen O’s specialty—see the mega-hit that struck an international chord with a simple “They don’t love you like I love you.” Two of the first ones here are “Shake it like a ladder to the sun” and “Dance ’til you’re dead.” Not that It’s Blitz!, their third full-length, is exactly dance music, but it certainly bodes well if that was their aim. 2006’s Show Your Bones slowed the tempos of a formerly somewhat grrrl-punk band to a crawl, and while it certainly had its moments in retrospect (“Cheated Hearts”, “Mysteries”), the album took ages to parse. With Karen Orzolek’s new game to keep your feet moving, she doesn’t afford her band the spacey indulgence, and this improvement keeps It’s Blitz! from crawling on for too long. Mid-album highlight “Dull Life” starts slow and breaks into an anthem, a trick that was plentiful on their debut and all too missed since.
And if they must be slow, at least let them be digital. It became apparent after only a couple listens that this one’s no Show Your Bones because its dirges have legs: “Soft Shock” pulses hookily on some wavelength between a fuzz bass and Casio, with group artisan Nick Zinner slicing thin, backwards guitar and other atmospheric junk over it. “Skeletons” takes the lead for a fractured synthesizer like a 1980s teen movie theme and somehow makes it Irish, with Brian Chase marching on snares in the distance and a square-wave coda that does its best impression of a pennywhistle. Two near the end are even better, folding TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe (and his band’s own recent art-funk gig) into the forward-stomping “Dragon Queen”, and “Hysteric”, this album’s sweeter, catchier answer to “Maps” (“You suddenly complete me”) and probably its best song. Closer “Little Shadow”, the most dirge-like of all, builds more and drones less than “Modern Romance.”
TV on the Radio
TV on the Radio
Dear Science
(DGC/Interscope, 2008)
By now, you’ve surely either heard TV on the Radio’s newest release, Dear Science, or heard about it. A few weeks ago, it swept the collective mind of fans and critics alike with its sleek, highly evolved sound, garnering rave reviews across the board. A quick search on reviews aggregator Metacritic returns five perfect scores (100 out of 100), with those cascading below pretty much all still in the “excellent” range. It’s a praised record that has seemingly delivered to the expectation, and it’s nearly impossible to ignore such unanimously positive feedback and crushing wave of exposure that a release of this caliber receives. So it’s kinda nice to have let it lie for a few weeks while all the hype simmers down around it.
I first heard TV on the Radio a few years back. I was in a car with a few dozing people in the backseat, manning shotgun, and night was falling around us as speeding cars ticked past us like silent speeding bullets. The car was utterly quiet but for the moody, twilight sounds of the band whose EP, Young Liars, had just been released on Touch and Go. I was immediately struck by how they painted that brooding ambiance through a perfect, experimental marriage of rock and electronic noise, and even in that early studio effort, a forecast of how TV on the Radio could very naturally transcend with the times was immediately discernible. A few full-length releases later, after 2004’s Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes and 2006’s Return to Cookie Mountain, they’ve achieved the ultimate testament to their evolution with the appropriately named capsule, Dear Science.
Weezer: Raditude
by: James Greene Jr.
Raditude
(DGC/Interscope, 2009)
“And when I daydream / We’re eating ice cream!”
- Rivers Cuomo, “Put Me Back Together”
Who would have ever thought that one day we’d look back at the first two Weezer albums and say, “Hey, remember when those guys had some semblance of maturity?” Indeed, there was a time (over a decade ago!) when every corny sitcom and Green Day reference Weezer turned in was tempered with PG-13 subject matter like paternal alcoholism or the futility of the bachelor lifestyle. These days, S-E-X is a four letter word to Rivers Cuomo and his track suit-adorned posse, and they’re just as likely to reference Vitamin Water as booze when discussing a serious party. Any lingering doubts have been completely wiped out now; Raditude cements Weezer (median age 40) as America’s oldest tweens. At this point, even Hilary Duff has moved on past Titanic and Chiclets as lyrical subject matter.
Of course, following tripe like “Beverly Hills” and last year’s mind-bogglingly bad “Troublemaker”, no one expected the big W to suddenly start being adult again. It’s become too much fun, this sick game that goes on between Weezer and music fans—they dress their infectious rock melodies with as much stupid as possible, and the world raises their pitchforks and torches in anger. The court of popular opinion holds the Jonas Brothers-style kiddie rock in contempt? Then that is what Weezer shall aspire to be. Raditude is packed with slick ‘n’ vapid bouncers like “The Girl Got Hot” and “Let It All Hang Out” that sound like demos for the next Disney-sponsored teen sensation, toothless exercises painfully lacking the grunge guitar crunch that once made this band so tasty. Hell, Weezer even penned a song dedicated to the mall this time around, the ultimate setting for disposable pop heroes and heroines. Pinkerton just went from Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret to Apocalypse Now.
That’s not to say Cuomo has totally forgotten how to be supreme alterna-creep numero uno—he is, after all, exiting his 30s occasionally sporting the largest porn ’stache this side of John Holmes. Thus, a song like “I’m Your Daddy” boasting the lines “This ain’t impossible / This ain’t improbable” (wink, wink) should give any right-minded person a good case of the skeevies. “Can’t Stop Partying”, a Lady Gaga stab co-written by Kris Kross perpetrator Jermaine Dupri, is equally unnerving when Rivers desperately declares “I gotta have a lot of pretty girls around me.” “Partying” builds to a guest verse by Lil Wayne that has all the gusto and edge-of-your-seat excitement as your average episode of Two and a Half Men; surprisingly, this is not the most painful moment of Raditude. Nay, that would be the sitar Weezer inexplicably breaks out for “Love Is the Answer.” The sitar officially became the album equivalent of shouting “Free Bird!” at a packed concert years ago. Its presence is practically inexcusable.
There are touching moments on Raditude, such as the lovelorn, emo power ballad “Put Me Back Together” and the softer “I Don’t Want to Let You Go”, but no emotion here is strong enough to save the proceedings from sounding like a four-way collision between the J. Geils Band, Jimmy Eat World, John Oates, and J.C. Penney. Even last year’s sporadic Red Album offered more inspired fare, and that one had a song on it called “Everybody Get Dangerous.” Raditude is not the sound of a band on autopilot so much as it’s the sound of a band asleep at the big wheel, rolling down a steep hill with a warm Mountain Dew in one hand and Pixy Stix in the other. This was probably Weezer’s mission statement when they first hit record; as such, we cannot begrudge them. Irritating America is Weezer’s job. If we didn’t have them to rile us up by acting like brazen fools unaware of their “important musical legacy,” who would get our blood moving? Letters to Cleo? The Spin Doctors? Let’s face it: We’re stuck with Weezer until they’re too old and fat to seem remotely cute to anyone. Let’s just shut up and try to enjoy the ride.
P.S. Yes, I have contacted PETA regarding the cover of Raditude. No animal should ever be allowed to look that stupid in hopes of boosting record sales.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
Like this article? DIGG it and sign up for our RSS feed!
by: James Greene Jr.
published: November 5, 2009
in column: Reviews
5 comments
Tags: