The broad assortment of elements found in this one song are a good indicator of the whole album’s eclectic nature. Start with a sample of the Clash’s “Straight To Hell,” add a beat and some laid-back, sing-speak vocals. Then have a bunch of kids join in for a chorus that mimics “Rump Shaker,” (you know, “All I wanna do is zooma zoom zoom and a boom boom”) except replace the “zooma zoom zooms” with gunfire, and the “boom booms” with a reload and a cash-register cha-ching. That’s…unique. I’ve heard the sound of gunfire used in a song before, I’ve just never heard it used as a singer.
New playlist: songs that use a chorus of kids without specifically being from a children’s album.
The opening recalls a Rolling Stones ballad, and the closing recalls, well, Phish. I was startled by how much the soloing in this song sounded like the work of Trey Anastasio; I even played the section from 3:20 or so through the end for a Phish fan without saying who the artist was, and he assumed it was new Anastasio solo material.
On the other hand, "Side With the Seeds" is the rare track where the new band demonstrates its chops without getting in the way of the song. With a soulful vocal, intertwined piano and organ, and guitar conversations that build to melodic peaks over a loosely swinging Kotche drumbeat, it's way jambandy, but epic and triumphant nonetheless.
Oh, just say it: it’s way Phish. And it’s epic and triumphant despite being Phishy?
Later, in a review of the Beastie Boys The Mix-Up, the same critic again describes his favorite track on an otherwise disappointing album using Phish (OK, “jambands”) as a negative point of reference:
And very occasionally, the band hits upon something new (for them), like the refreshingly bold (if a wee bit jambandy) guitar riffs that slice through the noodle-funk plod of "Off the Grid" and "The Rat Cage".
Now come on, Rob. Why do these songs have to be good despite being “jambandy?” Why can’t they simply be good? Or…you might want to sit down for this…what if those songs are good because they are Phishy?
Apparently if you reference a “jambandy” sound at Pitchfork without explicitly knocking jam bands in the process, you lose all your indie cred and have to sit alone in the cafeteria. And if you type the letters “p-h-i-s-h” in succession, a trap door opens under your chair and you drop into a pit of hungry sharks. With lasers.
This song makes a sneaky transition from stark and somber to lush and hopeful, building to a soaring, layered, Sufjan-like climax (Stevens actually plays piano on a couple of the songs on Boxer). There’s a lot of the slow-build thing on Boxer; if you like this track, you’ll probably like the whole thing.
It’s almost too easy…get a huge stable of talent to cover songs by one of the great songwriters of our era; bam, ship it. There are dozens of great Dylan covers on this soundtrack, and ironically, I can’t find a single one on YouTube, so you'll have to go to the album’s myspace page to hear a sampling if you don’t have Rhapsody.
Dylan covers are interesting because of Dylan’s distinct, defining vocal stylings…every cover falls somewhere on the scale of “not aping Dylan at all” to “totally aping Dylan.” Antony and the Johnsons doing “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and Cat Power’s “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again” show that you can be successful from either end of that scale.
It sounds like James Murphy had an eye-opening experience being an American on the world stage while touring in support of LCD Soundsystem’s debut album, because there hasn’t been a song with such an insightful perspective on being a band from the US since Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re An American Band” (new playlists: Lead-Singing Drummers, and American Pride Rock).
Murphy is torn between being false as an act of diplomacy (“I hate the feeling when you’re looking at me that way/’cause we’re North Americans/but if we act all shy, it’ll make it OK, makes it go away”) and basking openly in the prejudice (see chorus, song title), giving the finger to anyone who would judge him based on his region of origin.
He also gets big bonus points for successful use of the “long verse/surprisingly short verse” trick with the line, “And for those of you who still think we’re from England/we’re not.” A song has to have just the right tone to pull that off.
Pela do the indie-rock thing with clear roots in epic, U2/Springsteen-style classic rock, to the point where it would sound perfectly natural if Bono or the Boss came in with the vocals at 0:45 on “Cavalry” instead of Billy McCarthy (who, incidentally, sounds like a mix ofBrandon Flowers and Alex Kapranos to me).
The YouTube version is live, and it goes into a chaotic collapse at the end that I could live without (maybe you had to be there), but with direct-from-soundboard audio and a high-energy performance, I’m happy to link it.
The video is a sequel to the viral “Keepon” video, a demonstration of some pretty cool rhythm AI to “I Turn My Camera On” from Spoon’s previous album, Gimme Fiction. It makes sense because “Don’t You Evah” definitely feels a bit like a sequel to “I Turn My Camera On.”
OK, New Playlist #43: songs with studio chatter left in the recording (but more than just a count off). “Get Back” from Let It Be, David Bowie on “Andy Warhol,” Led Zeppelin’s “Friends,” and Lenny Kravitz on “Stop Draggin’ Around” come to mind. I’m sure googling “studio chatter” would produce lots of others.
