New Passion Pit, “The Reeling”
Go to Passion Pit’s MySpace and listen to the magnificent rollerskating jam that is “The Reeling.” Manners comes out May 19.
Random 10 For March 25, 2009
\\\ LA ROUX /// IN FOR THE KILL
1. La Roux, “In For The Kill.” I’m not entirely sold on Elly Jackson’s voice yet — a little too high and histrionic — but digging the New Romantic arrangement and overall aesthetic quite a lot.
2. Pinback, “Offcell.”
3. Death Cab For Cutie, “The Ice Is Getting Thinner.”
4. Herbaliser, “Goldrush.”
5. This Is Ivy League, “Viola.”
6. Peter Murphy, “Cuts You Up.” Two decades ago, it was possible for a sepulchral Goth character to have a hit. I’m not saying more ghouls need to be on the charts, but while it’s possible for left-field albums to debut in the Top 5 (see Neko Case), it’s damn near impossible for singles by those same artists to make it onto the radio. The whole medium is locked down tight, and I mourn the fact that every song that breaks through has the sour whiff of negotiation and payoff wafting from it.
7. Common, “Break My Heart.”
8. The Sounds, “Tony The Beat.”
9. Ween, “So Many People in the Neighborhood.”
10. Cold War Kids, “Hospital Beds.” With the Fray and OneRepublic clogging up the pop arteries with mewly piano ballads, Cold War Kids presents the antidote — the anti-coagulant if you will.
Video of the Day: Lily Allen, “Not Fair”
Lily Allen shows that even English cowgirls get the blues in this witty send-up of mid-’70s country television. Yee-haw!
Random 10 for March 24, 2009
1. Mitch Friedman, “This is a Song.” Thanks to Friedman, who recently released his fourth disc of clever, off-kilter pop songs, Game Show Teeth, we all know how to write a song. This guy has top-flight assistance from Andy Partridge and Dave Gregory of XTC and indie pop cult artist R. Stevie Moore.
2. Dr. Dog, “Old News.”
3. Hindu Love Gods, “Raspberry Beret.”
4. Hot Chip, “Wrestlers.” Here we come — drop kick, full-nelson, half-nelson, Willie Nelson.
5. Beastie Boys, “B-Boy Boullabaisse: A Year and a Day.”
6. Belle & Sebastian, “A Nice Day For a Sulk.”
7. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, “Everything With You.”
8. Evangelicals, “Diving.”
9. Aqueduct, “Living A Lie.”
10. Colourmusic, “Yes!” You are correct — that is three Oklahoma acts in a row. And to celebrate, a perfectly celebratory video.
Video of the Day: Bat For Lashes, “Daniel”
This is the first single from Two Suns, which is getting rave reviews overseas and arrives in U.S. stores April 7. Fans of late-’80s Goth-pop, prepare to be incapacitated.
John Mellencamp’s Articulate Post-Mortem On the Music Industry
It probably goes without saying, but many things do: my appreciation of John Mellencamp’s music is limited to a few great songs he wrote, and like the man in whose shadow he dwells, Bruce Springsteen, his music is frequently misinterpreted (often with nefarious intent rather than misunderstanding) in the service of propagating a particular political or social agenda. He generally means well. But his treatise on the ills of the music industry today at Huffington Post is one of the best things an artist has written about his or her industry since Courtney Love’s now-famous Digital Hollywood speech in 2000.
Try out this paragraph on the effect that SoundScan and BDS had on how hits are tabulated.
During the late 80s and early 90s the industry underwent a transformation and restructured, catalyzed by three distinct factors. Record companies no longer viewed themselves as conduits for music, but as functions of the manipulations of Wall Street. Companies were acquired, conglomerated, bought and sold; public stock offerings ensued, shareholders met. At this very same time, new Nielsen monitoring systems — BDS (Broadcast Data Systems) and SoundScan were employed to document record sales and radio airplay. Prior to 1991, the Billboard charts were done by manual research; radio stations and record stores across the country were polled to determine what was on their playlists and what the big sellers were. Thus, giving Oklahoma City, for example, an equivalent voice to Chicago’s in terms of potential impact on the music scene. BDS keeps track of gross impressions through an encoded system that counts the number of plays or “spins” that a song receives. That number is, thereafter, multiplied by the number of potential listeners. SoundScan was put in place at retail centers to track sales by monitoring scanned barcodes of units crossing the counter. A formula was devised whereby the charts were based 20% on the SoundScan number and 80% on BDS results. The system had changed from one that measured popularity to one that was driven by population.
Read the rest here. In the end, he doesn’t have any real answers, but Mellencamp does a fine job of boiling down the problems, and how those problems in the music business have become so systemic.
Movie Review: “I Love You, Man”
Rating: 80
“I Love You, Man” is that comedic sweet spot where the laugh lines are plentiful and even the supporting characters are unusually developed. As a showcase for the considerable comic skills of Paul Rudd and Jason Segel, “I Love You, Man” hits the right “bromantic” tone and has plenty to offer both men and the women who love and/or tolerate them.
Rudd stars as Peter Klaven, a Los Angeles realtor preparing for his wedding to Zooey (Rashida Jones of “The Office”), but it’s becoming increasingly clear there are no candidates for his best man. Peter always preferred the company of women, never assembled a group of buddies, and his few best male friends fell by the wayside as his girlfriends got closer.
Sent on a series of embarrassing “man dates” by his mother (Jane Curtin), Peter eventually meets Sydney Fife (Segel) at an open house. Sydney is a man-child with vague financial background and a surplus of time to hang out, a free spirit who lives life without restrictions — a perfect counterbalance and good-bad influence for the inhibited Peter, whose attempts at relaxed conversation can be hilariously awkward.
While not technically a Judd Apatow comedy, this John Hamburg-directed comedy orbits within the writer-director-producer’s universe. Not only are the lead actors “Team Apatow” repertory players, all the lowbrow moves are played with his characteristic style and humanity — this isn’t grossout for the sake of grossout. Even the film’s most disgusting scene, a drinking contest gone horribly awry, just illustrates Peter’s undeveloped capacity for competitive suds chugging in a male-bonding environment.
“I Love You, Man” depicts how young adults — men and women — really behave when bosses at home or at work aren’t looking. They’re overly blunt or secretive, act impulsively or with too much restraint, have their sensitive spots and revert to adolescence with chronic regularity. Best of all, “I Love You, Man” is relatable by both genders: the humor is nasty and fun, but it never gets leery, there is no strip-club scene, women are mostly revered rather than objectified, and the film’s view of sexual politics is sometimes disarmingly complex.
Best of all, “I Love You, Man” boast a great supporting cast led by Andy Samberg, Jamie Pressly and Jon Favreau, and the comic chemistry between Rudd and Segel is pure gold. These comedies work because the actors are at ease and can play off their co-stars’ style and humor. Segel and Rudd have well-established onscreen (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Knocked Up”) and offscreen rapport, so “I Love You, Man” is like hanging out with two witty friends, putting it head-and-shoulders above frat-comedy rabble and making it easy to love.
Movie Review: “Knowing”
Rating: 49
With its foreboding sheet full of seemingly random numbers, possessed children and ever-increasing series of fiery disasters, Alex Proyas’ “Knowing” has all the makings of a cinematic apocalypse. But along the way to Earth’s ultimate endgame, “Knowing” gets tripped up by Nicolas Cage’s overwrought performance and the obligatory computer-generated destruction of Manhattan.
In 1959, the students at a new elementary school in Boston bury a time capsule filled with their drawings of what the world will be like in 50 years. One of the children is Lucinda Embry, a disturbed girl who writes a long series of numbers on her sheet. When the capsule is finally unearthed and the pages are distributed to current students, Lucinda’s cryptic message is given to Caleb Koestler (Chandler Canterbury), whose father John (Cage) is an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
John, who has spent most nights drinking alone since Caleb’s mother died, examines Lucinda’s page and discovers that the numbers seem connected to every major disaster of the past half-century, while the last few might foretell future cataclysms. While digging for clues, he connects with Lucinda’s daughter, Diana Wayland (Rose Byrne), who’s been running away from her mother’s visions and predictions her whole life.
Throughout “Knowing,” Cage punctuates his generally somber mood with spontaneous bursts of over-excited anger, as if he’s both overly caffeinated and carbonated. It’s a performance that begs for some subtle middle ground. Byrne fares far better, and the casting of Lara Robinson as both Lucinda and Diana’s daughter Abby was inspired — Robinson looks like she was genetically engineered to play Byrne’s child.
But then “Knowing” gets bogged down in some boilerplate science fiction plot points involving creepy pale people lurking in the shadows and the aforementioned New York skyline wipeout. Granted, it has been over three months since Manhattan got socked in “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” but is it too much to ask for mass-market thrillers to space this cliché out a bit? “Knowing” can be genuinely suspenseful thanks to Proyas’ good pacing and atmospherics. But these days, it seems that when you’ve seen one end of the world, you’ve seen them all.
Random 10 for March 23, 2009
1. Junior Boys, “Hazel.” Great first single from Begone Dull Care, due May 11, it has the sound of the days when P.R. Nelson was setting the R&B and fashion agenda. No video yet, but a good first showing from this disc.
2. Club 8, “Between Waking and Sleeping.”
3. Patrick Wolf, “The Magic Position.”
4. Of Montreal, “I Was a Landscape In Your Dream.”
5. Shapes and Sizes, “The Taste In My Mouth.”
6. Electric Light Orchestra, “Do Ya.” Wow — you can see Jeff Lynne’s eyes in this clip. Didn’t know he had any. You can also see Bev Bevan’s hair, making him the most elaborate simulation of a cocker spaniel ever depicted on late-night television. Not that many are attempted, mind you.
7. Emiliana Torrini, “Heartstopper.”
8. Roy Ayers, “Coffy Sauna.”
9. The Notorious B.I.G., “The What.”
10. She & Him, “Why Do You Let Me Stay?” Yes, amid all that spattering blood, Zooey just winked at you.
Video of the Day: Vetiver, “Everyday”
This piece of breezy modern yacht rock is a accompanied by the kind of high-gloss video karaoke imagery that hasn’t been changed out of the machine since about 1991 or so, but then our Rollerblading hero hits the skids badly. From the band’s first disc for Sub Pop, Tight Knit.
