Ugly Rumors

Finer Feelings #1: Belle & Sebastian – Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003)

E. — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:00:51 +0000

I’m not about to tell you that this is the greatest album of the decade. I’m sure that some other, more popular record made a cultural impact that far eclipsed the splash made by indie faves Belle & Sebastian. What Dear Catastrophe Waitress is, though, is my favorite album of the past 10 years. I hadn’t even heard of Belle & Sebastian until 2006’s The Life Pursuit. By approaching their catalogue backwards, I was quickly rewarded when listening to their stunning fifth LP. From the opening honks of “Step Into My Office, Baby” to the twangy fadeout of “Stay Loose,” the whole record is nothing short of a masterpiece. I’ll leave it up to you to investigate a more detailed account of Belle & Sebastian’s history leading up to Dear Catastrophe Waitress, but I’ll quickly run it for you here: After a pair of rather popular albums, the group fell into a bit of a slump (though I contend that The Boy With The Arab Strap is still really good). Searching for some direction, the band came to sonic whiz Trevor Horn, the mastermind behind the Buggles, Art Of Noise and ZTT Records. Horn rather quickly assigned Stuart Murdoch the role of lead singer, a position that the band had been reluctant to so rigidly define on previous albums. With Horn at the helm, Belle & Sebastian created a disc’s worth of songs that showed off talent and depth that had only been hinted at on previous releases.

At the time, apparently, fans criticized the album’s polished pop sheen. Given Horn’s love for sampling, it’s curious that the end result wasn’t more alienating. At any rate, heart-breaking personal tunes like “Piazza, New York Catcher” and “Lord Anthony” furthered Murdoch’s fey, sexual convention-confronting persona. Non-Stuart compositions are also stellar, with guitarist Stevie Jackson’s “Roy Walker” and violinist Sarah Martin’s “Asleep On A Sunbeam” hearken back to the band’s more democratic albums. In the end, though, it’s the smart, tightly arranged tunes that steal the show. “I’m A Cuckoo” both imitates and evokes Thin Lizzy’s twin guitars, “If You Find Yourself Caught In Love” is either an encouragement or a warning, and “You Don’t Send Me” is the coolest (like, in the jazz sense) break-up song ever. And just because I haven’t specifically mentioned “If She Wants Me,” “Wrapped Up In Books” and the title track hardly means that they’re mere filler. With this record, Belle & Sebastian not only breathed life back into their own career, they also happened to make my favorite album of the ‘00s.

Finer Feelings #2: Sparks – Lil’ Beethoven (2002)

E. — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:00:35 +0000

As I’ve mentioned before, Sparks are the kind of band that no one just ‘likes.’ They’re either your favorite band or you’ve never heard of them. The musical craft of Russell and Ron Mael is unparalleled by any other musicians that have been around as long as they have. You might think that, almost 40 years on, a band whose main fanbase lies outside of their home country would start to fall into a groove. Indeed, Sparks’ albums through the ‘90s and early ‘00s failed to impress even their most devoted acolytes. On those albums, particularly 2000’s Balls, the brothers Mael were particularly infatuated with the high-energy beats of synthpop and big beat (two genres they helped pioneer). Seeing as how those styles weren’t working out, Ron and Russel switched gears in 2002, trading in electronic pulses for sampled orchestras. Lil’ Beethoven was promoted by the band as their “career defining opus,” a description that seemed awfully fitting after only a few listens. Rather than the jittery new wave of their handful of stateside hits, Lil’ Beethoven is a sweeping, densely textured album that is completely engrossing. Each song is structured quite similarly, with repetitive lyrics supporting the repetitive musical phrases, yet the formula never wears thin. The opening track, “The Rhythm Thief,” can be seen as a microcosm of the record itself: lyrics intersect with instrumentation, building and dropping out, creating new textures with each pass. Motifs are established early in the songs, like on “How Do I Get To Carnegie Hall?,” which pays off just as you would expect. The delicate “I Married Myself” and rousing “My Baby’s Taking Me Home” show that Russell and Ron can still vary their approach in such an experimental arrangement. One of Sparks’ most biting songs is here, that being “Suburban Homeboy.” A subversion of the popularity of hip-hop jargon with the affluent types, the song proves that the Maels aren’t afraid to rip into today’s culture, even if the favor isn’t returned. For their next few albums, Sparks would further explore this melding of classical and experimental music, but the grandeur and oddity of Lil’ Beethoven trumps them all.

Finer Feelings #3: DeVotchKa – How It Ends (2004)

E. — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:00:38 +0000

DeVotchKa have so many influences in their music that it can be quiet difficult to pin them down. No other album of theirs better captures their mix of Balkan/Mariachi/Chamber pop like How It Ends, easily one of this decade’s most staggeringly gorgeous records. Frontman Nick Urata’s voice is in top form and plays faultlessly well alongside the other three-quarters of the band’s multi-instrumental juggling act. From simple, lightly-accompanied melodies like “Dearly Departed” and “You Love Me” to the lush and swooning orchestration of the title track, How It Ends plays like one of those global music compilations you’d pick up from the corner café. What those compilations often lack, though, is the cohesion that DeVotchKa somehow conjure to connect all their worldly ideas. Tremolo guitars and lonesome whistles drive the spaghetti western-y “The Enemy Guns,” while drummer Shawn King’s trumpet lines on “We’re Leaving” give the song a south-of-the-border flair. One of DeVotchKa’s most distinctive elements is bassist Jeanie Schroder’s use of the tuba instead of upright bass on several tracks. “Twenty-Six Temptations” gets an ominous mood from the tuba’s bellow, and it creates a freewheeling, bottle-dancing atmosphere on “Such A Lovely Thing.” Violinist/accordionist Tom Hagerman’s staccato plucks on the playful “Too Tired” and wheezing squeezebox on “Viens Avec Moi” and “Charlotte Mittnacht (The Fabulous Destiny of…)” are also strong cornerstones of the band’s (and album’s) sound. The album ends with a pair of instrumentals, the dynamic “Lunnaya Pogonka” and a reprise of the string outro from “How It Ends.” Many records offer deeper gratification upon repeat listens. How It Ends coyly urges you to listen to it over and over, enveloping you in a blissful yet ultimately futile attempt to decode its charms.

Finer Feelings #4: Primal Scream – XTRMNTR (2000)

E. — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:00:16 +0000

I’ve already written about this album, but my admiration for it bears repeating. I was actually only a casual Primal Scream fan before seeing them in concert earlier this year. In a virtually barren Trocadero, Bobby Gillespie and his gang of genre-jumpers played their brains out, delivering a career-spanning set that was as loud and majestic as it was intimate and freewheeling. A good portion of their set was focused on songs from their most recent album, Beautiful Future, but many songs from XTRMNTR crept in. As an album, XTRMNTR is a brutal listen. Between the diabolically catchy mud-funk of “Exterminator” and punishingly maxed-out riff of its counterpart, “Accelerator,” Primal Scream didn’t redefine indie rock so much as they created an indescribable subgenre. Apocalyptic disco (“Swastika Eyes”) and spacey chillout (“Keep Your Dreams”) provide contrast in ways that other experimental albums rarely do. “Pills” provides an early melding of electronica and hip-hop, while “MBV Arkestra (If They Move, Kill ‘Em)” showcases then-member Kevin Shields’ incomparable ear for sonic manipulation as he takes on a track from Vanishing Point. Another rare feat is the inclusion of a remix of a song already on the album. Clearly torn between which mix of “Swastika Eyes” to use, Primal Scream just put them both on there. While The Chemical Brothers’ version is a little more, well, Chemical Brothers-y, its mere presence is important enough. For fans of indie rock at the time, XTRMNTR must’ve sounded like an album from outer space. In 2000, a good amount of people were concerned that the world was going to end. As far as Primal Scream were concerned, it already had, and this was the badass soundtrack. They continue to make great music to this day, but XTRMNTR was a turning point, not only for the band who created it, but for modern indie rock as we know it.

Finer Feelings #5: eels – With Strings: Live At Town Hall (2006)

E. — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:00:45 +0000

You might think it an unusual choice to pick a live album or a compilation to be on my list of favorite albums of the decade. However, given the unique character of eels’ live performances (and, hence, this record), eels With Strings completely deserves its spot so high on my list. As its name implies, the album features Mark Oliver Everett backed by a small string section. Since most eels albums revel in unusual samples and audio tricks, the organic nature of the instrumentation on these tracks reinvents them in a very fresh manner. Though the set focuses mainly on E’s already mid-tempo or ballad songs, it’s the completely rearranged tunes that stand out. Shootennany’s “Dirty Girl” gets turned into a painfully heartbreaking confessional, while “Flyswatter” decays into screeching, col legno shrieks before being twisted into the opening strains of a stripped-down “Novocaine For The Soul.” eels With Strings was recorded while E was touring for Blinking Lights And Other Revelations, so a lot of the set favors that album. “Things The Grandchildren Should Know” and “If You See Natalie,” aside from being two of E’s finest written songs, appear here in rousing, masterful versions. The only thing that could be interpreted as disappointing is the nagging idea that eels are not likely to ever tour like this again. E’s fickle managerial decisions can lead to questionable results sometimes, but eels With Strings is proof that he’s not out of great ideas just yet. Two years after this disc’s release saw a proper eels best-of, Meet The eels. If you ask me, though, I’d say that E himself would rather have this live account serve as a newcomer’s entry point, since it presents a much purer vision of his project: unexpected and unexplainable, but always challenging and creative.

Finer Feelings #6: Lullaby Baxter Trio – Capable Egg (2000)

E. — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:00:50 +0000

I’m willing to bet that Capable Egg isn’t going to be on anyone else’s list of anything, ever. A gifted and unusual songwriter, Lullaby Baxter (real name Angelina Iapaolo) establishes her signature sound within the first few seconds of her debut album’s opening song. “Hopscotch” features Baxter’s smooth, mature alto reciting a series of childish nonsense lyrics to a backing of ukuleles, concertinas and steel guitars. If that doesn’t already set this album apart from anything else released this decade, there are a dozen more tracks that probably will. From that track on, Capable Egg becomes a much darker, more contemplative album. The piano- and cello-driven “The Anyway Song” and clip-clopping “Ding-A-Ling” show Baxter’s tender yet haunting side. This blending of old-timey and subverted children’s music lends itself to waltzes, a trend which Capable Egg is proud to oblige with “Spacegirl,” a particularly woozy oom-pah. What makes Baxter’s music so confounding and enjoyable is the dichotomy between the seemingly kid-friendly lyrics (she curses a few times here and there) and the complex, grown-up music. The eponymous “Trio” isn’t so much a trio as it is a small orchestra, featuring both traditional and toy instruments. A sampled ride cymbal and cooing organ lay the foundation for “Horsey Don’t Snore,” and a part-klezmer part-bluegrass clarinet pierces through the strutting blues of “Mama (Should I Bake A Cherry Pie And Hide You Inside?).” That same clarinet blares atonally through my favorite track, “Rooster In Love,” a tale of unrequited farmyard infatuation. Bands like Cake and Soul Coughing showed that you could write a song about pretty much anything, but Lullaby Baxter and Capable Egg take that manifesto to elegant new heights.

Finer Feelings #7: Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros – Global A Go-Go (2001)

E. — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:00:54 +0000

It’s tough to make a generalization like, “time was not kind to Joe Strummer,” because the former Clash leader certainly had plenty of fans until his death in 2002. A more appropriate assertion would be that “the world was not kind to Joe Strummer.” Anyone who has seeing the agonizing documentary Let’s Rock Again has seen how cruel the world (or at least New Jersey) was to Strummer and his then-band, The Mescaleros. People seemed to have forgotten that this was the singer from The Clash. Like, The Clash. The three albums released with The Mescaleros explored Strummer’s love for fusing world music with punk and rock, but the middle record, Global A Go-Go, realized that vision best. The last Mescaleros album to be released in Strummer’s lifetime, Global A Go-Go is special because it’s hardly punk rock at all. Instead, we’re dealt a healthy dose of folk (“Johnny Appleseed”), middle-eastern drone (“Gamma Ray”) and Strummer’s beloved gritty reggae (“Cool ‘n’ Out”). The defining moment, not only of The Mescaleros’ work but of Strummer’s whole career, comes in a simple line in “Bhindi Bhagee,” in which Strummer is asked what his band’s music is like. Initially, he stammers, trying to come up with a simple answer that will both please his inquisitor without leaving out any musical influence. He then breaks loose, rattling off a series of styles that would seem unrelated in a less-talented musician’s hands. The other lyrics on Global A Go-Go fit in with the folk tradition of being simple but profound: on “Mega Bottle Ride,” Strummer proclaims that “it’s time to be doing something good,” and on the eerie “Shaktar Donetsk,” the message is “you’ll get there in the end.” Though these sentiments seem jarringly upbeat when compared to some of The Clash’s songs, Strummer carries them with the strength of a world of downtrodden. Sure he was a famous rock star, but Joe Strummer was unfortunately forsaken from the public eye by an impatient world. We didn’t deserve him, but he loved us no matter what.

Finer Feelings #8: Dogs Die In Hot Cars – Please Describe Yourself (2004)

E. — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:00:54 +0000

When picking out albums to place on my list of favorites of this decade, my main criteria was how much I listened to the album since it came out. If I had iTunes when I first got Please Describe Yourself, you can be certain that it would rank as one of my most played albums. When Dogs Die In Hot Cars debuted in 2004, I wasn’t really into that much new music. Later that same year I would be turned on to the likes of The Dresden Dolls, Franz Ferdinand and Rilo Kiley, but it was this album that gave me hope that not all new music would suck. Drawing heavily from the energetic pop of late-‘80s XTC, Dogs Die In Hot Cars’ full-length debut hardly left my DiscMan (or whatever primitive mp3 player I had at the time). I remember sitting down with a borrowed radio in high school to listen to their Free At Noon concert on WXPN, then seeing them in concert that evening. They were the coolest thing I’d heard in years, and then they were gone. Until the recent release of Pop Nonsense, a collection of remastered demos that doesn’t sound focused enough to be considered a proper album, Please Describe Yourself was the only record by the Scottish quintet. Songs range from the jittery ska of “Lounger” and signature tune “I Love You ‘Cause I Have To” to more slow-burning numbers like “Somewhat Off The Way” and “Glimpses Of The Good Life.” Lead singer Craig Macintosh’s brogue is a defining characteristic of the band’s sound, as his swallowing of syllables (particularly in “Apples And Oranges” and “Who Shot The Baby”) gives a charming raggedness to the songs. Yelps and howls on “Modern Woman” and “Pastimes And Lifestyles” foreshadow some of later Britpop’s darker tendencies. A year or so later, Dogs Die In Hot Cars would ostensibly be no more, but they had paved the way for bands like the Arctic Monkeys and The Fratellis by showing that pop music could be catchy, fun, silly and masterful all at once.

Finer Feelings #9: Nic Armstrong & The Thieves – The Greatest White Liar (2005)

E. — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:00:37 +0000

There were months at a time where I listened to this album every single day. In fact, I’m already overdue to listen to it again. What initially sounds like just another band of snotty British yobs turns out to be a salute to the iconic rock of the 1960s. What’s impressive here is how, of the album’s 15 tracks, 13 are originals. What’s more impressive is that the originals don’t sound like originals. Call them rip offs, I like to think of songs like “Too Long For Her” and “In Your Arms On My Mind” as being tributes to the acoustic balladry of A Hard Day’s Night. The Greatest White Liar’s strengths are also in its musical depth. “She Changes Like The Weather” seems like a pleasant, lightly brisk ditty until the key and tempo begin to shift into darker, more tumultuous territory (not unlike the titular lady). Rave-ups are very plentiful, the best being the Yardbirds-inflected “On A Promise” (which also has some great time shifts), and the breakout “Broken Mouth Blues,” which sounds like a lost track from Blonde On Blonde. All these musical allusions play like a game of I Spy, yet the originality that all these songs possess keep the band from being too blatantly derivative. The variety of songs keeps things fresh, too: “Scratch The Surface” is a jaunty skiffle number while “Back In That Room” is a fiery stomp. Nic Armstrong later renamed his group IV Thieves, and it was under that name that they released the incredibly bland If We Can’t Escape My Pretty, a disc so devoid of White Liar’s charm that it almost had to come from a band with a different name. Whether you like it or not, we’ll probably never get another album like The Greatest White Liar, though it still stands as recorded proof that Nic Armstrong can be one hell of a songwriter.

Finer Feelings #10: Fujiya & Miyagi – Transparent Things (2006)

E. — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:00:46 +0000

What I love about this album is its simplicity. Yes, all the songs follow pretty much the same formula, but it’s a winning formula that rewards more and more upon repeat listens. A nagging bassline here, a one-note guitar solo there, Fujiya & Miyagi, a trio at the time, know how to make a groove. What sets them apart from other overty Kraftwerkian bands is David Best’s delivery of playfully childish yet chillingly elusive lyrics. At times, it’s hard to tell what he’s even saying, furthering the band’s mysterious nature. Where most artists sing about their feelings by evoking nature, poetry and heartbreak, F&M mechanically break down about shoelaces (“Collarbone”), metabolism (“Photocopier”) and finding a porno mag on the way to school (“Ankle Injuries”). All of this is presented so cooly that it’s hard not to wonder how seriously these guys take themselves. Rather than pondering over that, consider how much fun F&M have on this disc. First of all, any song with a motorik beat is gold to begin with. Secondly, the guys don’t even need to add lyrics to their songs to make them stand out, as the textured instrumental “Cassettesingle” is one of the album’s best songs. Finally, no matter what genre of music you listen to, there are always bands that pad the background by making music that sounds like every other band around. No, Fujiya & Miyagi didn’t invent krautrock (they’re not German, or Japanese for that matter), but they do an impeccable job of appropriating it for a new generation. What too many critics forget is that it’s not always necessary to find a new way of doing things. If you can take something that has already been done and make it even better, then you’re doing a service to everyone. Fujiya & Miyagi’s next album Lightbulbs certainly had its moments, but it lacks the charm and wit of Transparent Things. Just try to hold back a smile whenever Best rolls his R’s. “Professor, do you wear Rrrrreeboks in heaven?” Yeah.