I gravitate towards music that was inspired by angst. All the sublimely magnificent writers, poets, and artists seemed to have it, or did have it. Hell, most classic writers had a drinking problem at one time or another. I’m at the point where I’m thinking of developing a meth problem so the metaphors come easier.
So, when buzz started to build in mid 2008 about Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) and the album he had spit out after three months of solitude in a desolate log cabin following the breakup of his band, getting dumped and battling mono, I thought, “this record is going to be fucking brilliant. How can it not be?”
And it is.
“Skinny Love” and “Flume” are the two most acclaimed songs off of Bon Iver’s solo masterpiece, For Emma, but it is the title song that allows the listener to best understand how overwhelming that angst was for him.
“Go find another lover; / To bring a. … to string along.”
Just typing that hurts.
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A friend recently asked me to post a song of the day by Foo Fighters. I immediately thought, “OK, we’re going to have to get creative here.” I can’t come to the table with a Top 40 hit. That’s what your local wacky FM DJ Fly Guy is for.
But then I remembered that Dave Grohl covered a Creed song a few years ago. OK, fine, so Creed sold millions upon millions of albums and made millions upon millions of dollars. Not sure how to explain that one. Let’s call it the “Nickleback Effect.”
Unfortunately, success does not always equate respect, and frontman Scott Stapp, while worth a ton of money, is unintentional comedy at its best.
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I dislike repetition of lyrics in songs – beyond the chorus of course. People don’t repeat themselves in life. You never overhear someone say, “You want to get lunch today? How about Jimmy John’s? You want to get lunch today? How about Jimmy John’s?” Then again, people also don’t sing in life (aside from annoying coworker Debbie in the cubicle next to you), so I’m not sure I have a point.
Having said that, I do like the haunting repetition of the question “What do you know?” in the Puscifer song “The Mission.” The song itself in its entirety (highlighted by that phrase and a pounding drum) reminds the time I stumbled upon the Michigan State marching band having a seance. Or something like that.
If the voice on this Puscifer track sounds familiar, then you’re a fan of Tool and/or A Perfect Circle, for the lead singer of all three is Maynard James Keenan. Puscifer is a side project.
Keenan describes Puscifer as “simply a playground for the various voices in my head, [...] a space with no clear or discernible goals, [...] where my Id, Ego, and Anima all come together to exchange cookie recipes.”
Ummmm … why don’t we move on and listen to the song.
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While we’re on the subject of bad ass folk rock musicians from the upper midwest like Damon Dotson, we may as well talk about Nick Rallis, or what has emerged recently as the Nick Rallis Band.
Nick Rallis is a singer/song writer from Sioux Falls, SD who has been performing solo for a few years. He started collaborating with Ryan Rickert and Paul Tims six months ago, and soon formed the Nick Rallis Band.
In a few shorts months together, they’ve garnered a good deal of attention. They recently played the Sundance Film Festival on an invite from Chris Breed, owner of The Green Door, the Roxbury, and other venues in LA. His claim to fame is that he discovered Mariah Carey. He’s bringing them out to California to play the Green Door in LA on February 17 and The Viper Room in Hollywood on February 19. The band has also been invited to play the Oscar’s gifting party at Boulevard 3 in LA.
Though the band has yet to produce a CD together (the self-titled Nick Rallis solo CD is available on iTunes), a live demo from the band’s performance at Sundance is in existence. “Is It Love” is this demo’s most capitivating track.
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Calling upper midwest folk rock icon Damon Dotson undiscovered is a relative term, for his legion of followers in Iowa, Nebrasks, Minnesota and South Dakota, armed only with copies of Dotson’s CDs, would win a war against many small third-world nations.
The Des Moines Register wrote that Dotson possesses “a warmly romantic sound that veers between Dave Matthews and Coldplay.” That’s both an enormous compliment and a minor misnomer, for Dotson’s voice is not as grainy as Dave’s, nor as high-pitched as Chris Martin’s. His is a declarative yet soft voice, one that is naturally strong and most importantly, enormously recognizable.
Good singer-songwriters are capable of creating two career-defining songs that they can hang their hat on. Great singer-songwriters create three. With the release of “Atmosphere” and the existence of “Good Night” and “Summer Days,” Damon joins the ranks of the latter.
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Whereas music genre-sharing folks like Jack Johnson and Jason Mraz seem like simple stars who would date Betsy, their high school sweetheart, guitar hero John Mayer rolls with Jennifer Anniston and Cameron Diaz. Mayer just seems more complex. He is not a quick study. It’s hard not to consider him a contradiction of sorts. After all, for a man who’s more tatted up than Allen Iverson, he also drips with charm as thick as creamer.
There’ a scene in Dead Poet’s Society where Knox asks Dalton why women swoon. Well, because they’re listening to “Your Body’s a Wonderland,” that’s why.
Even when he sings about breaking a girl’s heart, as he does when he covers Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin,” you can’t help but think, “Damn, what a voice. Forget the fact that he may have cheated on that girl with her sister. That boy can sing! Geez, move on lady.”
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The list of Norwegian rappers or hip hop acts who have found even modest success is short. There’s Madcon, the Paperboys, and then there’s, well, let’s just move on.
Made up of Tshawe Baqwa (Kapricon) and Yosef Wolde-Mariam (Critical), Madcon has released two albums. The second (2007′s So Dark the Con of Man) was bolstered by a cover of a song originally performed in 1967 by The Four Seasons. I started to characterize the duo’s sound myself, but then thought I simply can’t do any better than how Madcon would classify their own music: “[It's] the kind of shit you wanna hear in your speakers.”
This same track is often misidentitifed as the background music in the Adidas 60th Anniversary commercial (below), but that is actually a different Pilooski re-edit of the same cover song by the Four Tops.
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Despite the lyrics (“Nice fox don’t dance on the oyster shells”), you want to take this song seriously. If I ever have a short film made about my life that recaptures all my poignant moments, “Nice Fox” by The Rosebuds will be the soundtrack. It’s the sort of song you expect to hear in a Zach Braff movie.
I can picture it. Just as the lead character (Zach) fusses over a decision, like kissing a girl, making amends with a drunken, abusive father, or leaving his hometown for good, “Nice Fox” kicks in, and as it fades out minutes later, he makes a bold decision.
Then again, I have an hyper-active imagination.
Though it’s hard to find another Rosebuds tune that sounds anything like “Nice Fox,” (the band could be labeled indie, pop, folk, rock or dance ), the track is a must-have and belongs in your MP3 folder.
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It’s not a stretch to think that if Eminem were Somali, he’d sound exactly like K’NAAN – a Somali-Canadian poet and rapper who learned English as a boy in Mogadishu partially by listening to Nas, Rakim and other soulfoul rappers. But the comparison only goes so far as their frenetic style.
Gangsta rappers often rhyme about life on the streets, sometimes comparing it to war. But K’NAAN lived through it – literally. He grew up during the Somali Civil War in in the district of Wardhiigleey (“The Lake of Blood”), where machine guns, warlords and rock-propelled grenades were as commonplace as blinking.
No wonder K’NAAN spits, “If I rhyme about home and got descriptive /I’d make 50 Cent look like Limp Bizkit.”
K’NAAN will gain mass exposure in 2009 for late 2008′s Troubadour, but “Dusty Foot Philosopher” from the self-titled release in 2005 is the most proper of introductions to this immense talent.
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“Full Moon” by UK dance-punk outfit The Black Ghosts is an eerie, haunting song, most especially when strings are at their loudest. If it is ever licensed for a commercial, it will be for Nike. As the song starts and the lyrics “I am going out to see what I can sow/And I don’t know where I’ll go/And I don’t know what I’ll see” are spoken, I can’t help but picture a runner shutting his or her front door at dawn, casually getting into stride, and disappearing into the shadows still lining the tired streets.
Band member Theo Keating was encouraged by his mother to watch horror movies at a young age. He also lived behind a cemetary. Band member Simon Lord’s grandmother was considered psychic. In total, that’s good enough reason for the both of them to consider The Black Ghosts music “perverse” and “personal.”
Coincidentally, that pretty much sums up what you need to be to run 26.2 miles.
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