Torture! Rapture!

Will update this spot with my column when it runs, either tomorrow or sometime next week. May not update again till then.

Anyway, wanted to post some Kelly C musings here from the teenpop thread but clean 'em up a bit.

So I'm doing some playing around with an online keyboard and I realize something interesting: last year we talked a lot about the high E-flat, which was sort of the money note -- usually a bit higher than the crucial note in a given song -- that the performers hit when it's time to crank up a notch. (I forget whether or not Lindsay goes a little higher during the imperceptible key change in "Live for the Day.") The Veronicas hit it twice in "4ever," including demolishing it once toward the end, Ashlee hits it for the first "la" in "La La," Lillix just barely gets to it (or maybe the D or D-flat?) on "Sweet Temptation."

Well, I started checking out some of Kelly Clarkson's new tunes and guess what. First of all, the "money note" is also usually the note hanging on the hook a-hyuk (and there are plenty of hooks on this record, no idea what y'all are talking about). Example: in former Max/Luke tracks, the performer will hit the money note on their WAY to the hook note ("Since U Been Gone" has four money notes above the hook note on "goooooooone") -- this is where the highest note usually happens, on its way to a lower, more comfortable note. By comparison, "Hole" has a chorus with essentially a one-note hook: "There's a hole! Inside of me!" Ditto "Judas," does the same thing with a two-note melody that lets the money note do the heavy lifting: "I didn't KNOW! I didn't KNOW! I couldn't SEE! I couldn't SEE!" and on "Haunted" she does three notes but lands hard on the high D, esp. when it comes time to draw it out: "Wheeeeere aaaaaare yoooou?" The lowest note is still a high B, a half step lower than the "hook note" in "Since U Been Gone" (D-flat is the money note in that one).

Generally, the money note/hook notes on My December are REALLY high. "Hole" is D ("There's a hole!"), "Judas" is D-flat ("I didn't know! I didn't know!"), and "Haunted" is D ("WHERE are you"). This is like writing entire songs consisting of that one climactic part of "4ever" throughout the album -- "Haunted" in particular is kinda punishing, which might be one reason why it stands out to me as the point where I really start to lose it a little. Doesn't help that it's followed by what might be the worst song on the album, "Be Still."

So the hooks are there, but they're also very draining. They aren't as skillfully constructed as a typical Max/Luke hook, which has the tension/release pleasure center-pushers down to a science. Or a math. They're a little clumsy, and they just blow the roof off of every single goddamn song. Whcih, again, is part of what I LIKE about this album, I wish she'd followed it through, but as is there's stuff like "Be Still" and "Yeah" and "How I Feel" trying to weirdly take things down a notch, which doesn't suit the momentum at all. You start to realize that the whole thing's a little exhausting.

EDIT: I totally skipped "Never Again"! Which is also a three-note hook that lands hard on the highest note -- a D, which ties it for highest note along with "Hole" and "Haunted." Except in "Never Again" Kelly does a few fake-outs and goes to the lower D, jumps down an octave semi-ominously, whereas in the other two it's all high D all the time.

EDIT 2: Well shit, might as well just go through the whole damn album...yes, that is a G-FLAT she is hitting in "Sober," the lowest note in the hook melody being a D. She also hits a big G-flat in "Haunted": "starting to FAAAALLLLLL!" Sort of telling to track how grueling the album is by tracking the high notes -- that's hardly all there is to it, just an interesting angle. I still think the real flaw in the album, such as it is, is not knowing how to pad the climaxes. Let me down gently, as the Ark sez. Makes "Can I Have a Kiss" and "Irvine" beautiful one-two finish, but the misfires feel like you're doing a double feature of Raging Bull and...I dunno, maybe a semi-intense latter-day Mamet flick? Lesser and lower-stakes (but similar) punishing energy, a movie trying but failing to sustain the energy. (Yes, I have now compared My December to Raging Bull and The Passion of the Christ.)

Funny, I think OK Computer is actually a little like this (but doesn't stumble as much), doesn't know quite what to do with its second half after an absolutely perfect sequence up to the "Fitter, Happier" interlude. Excellent songs throughout, and none I plain don't like, and a beautiful penultimate/final track combo, but something just...doesn't...quite...click. Why can't I get this Radiohead/Kelly Clarkson pairing outta my head?? Anyway, on this one "Fitter, Happier" would come between "Judas" and "Haunted."

[Media Monopoly] is indier than [Media Monopoly]

FYE enjoys a smooth victory...

Purchases today at the bizarre but exciting USED CD section at FYE:

♥ Debbie Gibson - Electric Youth
♥ Kylie - Fever (my own copy to replace Emily's before she leaves)
♥ Daft Punk - Discovery (Emily's own copy to replace mine before she leaves)
♥ Pharcyde - Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde
♥ TVOTR - Return to Cookie Mountain
[EDIT: listening now, and I can hear this conversation in my head after the Young Liars EP is released to OK-to-good-hypish reviews: "BAND MEETING. Look, we almost wrote a buncha great songs on our EP. Let's avoid doing that in the future. Agreed? Good. *whew* Close call guys, hit the showers." How did anyone get duped into liking this bullshit? Why did I, since I already knew they would refuse to write a good new song having their first album as incontrovertible evidence? And why did I pay nearly FIVE DOLLARS for this when I coulda bought a Boston album or the Nashville OST for six???]
♥ Hole - Celebrity Skin
♥ V/A - Best of the 60's (scattershot 2-CD set)
♥ Eminem - Encore [EDITED] (woops)
♥ Eminem - Encore [UNEDITED]

Purchases yesterday to finish up my Xmas gift card (was: $12 remaining, now: $0 remaining):

♥ Lindsay Lohan - RAW (A Little More Personal) [wiped off my old hard drive :( ]
♥ Hilary Duff - Most Wanted [ditto]
♥ Ying Yang Twins - Me and My Brother
♥ V/A - Cash Money Platinum Hits
♥ Jewel - 0304 [finally caved and just bought it online after much desperate dollar bin searching]

Er, found on the street somewheres, roughly in order of preference:

♥ Digitalism - Idealism
[EDIT: Thoughts after a few listens -- about the closest to a MSTRKRFT walk around in sunglasses album I've gotten this year, might like it better than that one as its variety lets ya discover a few new things about it as you go along, but not as concise or consistent. More techno wonkery and less dance-fuckerness, which I kinda like about it.]
♥ MIA - Bittersuss
[EDIT: Thoughts after like half a listen -- really like it. Not a techno nap album, more like a techno pretend-you're-an-android album. Burpy blurpy!]
♥ White Stripes - Icky Thump
[EDIT: Enjoyable, totally inconsistent. Think it's finding its bearings at "Conquest" and then it just derails completely w/ bagpipes (not THAT hard to use bagpipes in an interesting way, is it?) and noodling. LOTS of noodling, and high-pitched noodling at that. Notice this shit on almost every track, stupid little squiggles that get old in about three seconds, esp. after "Icky Thump" opening track! Jack White needs to just kinda go with it songwritingwise and stop shooting himself in the foot like people with holes in their feet are somehow more legit than people with fully intact feet.]
♥ Bjork - Volta
[EDIT: REALLY not getting into this, and I like Bjork! Really liked Medulla even, which was seen by plenty of people as a sorta exploratory/conceptual mess. But that more accurately describes this one, I think. Plz to make argument for it. At one point I started thinking of Bjork (US) national anthem rendition wherein she did "home of the brave" line with "home" as that stupid sing-four-notes-up-the-scale-but-pause-at-third-note-for-slight-tension move that she does in almost EVERY SONG on this album and I SWEAR then she starts singing, as I'm thinking this, "HO-O-O-O-O-O-OME! H-O-O-O-O-OME!"
♥ Hannah Montana - OST 2 and Meet Miley Cyrus [BOOOOOOOOOOOOO EDIT: no further edits necessarily, this is a truly godawful monstrosity]

FIGHT OF THE DAY: Blippy bloopy vs. burpy blurpy. Emily calls Pantha du Prince the former, MIA (Bittersuss) the latter, gives the edge to MIA because "it sounds like your tummy." (NOTE: I just recovered from a stomach bug.)

EDIT 2: After a couple listening sessions, I'm actually decently satisfied with a half-yearish top 20 list:

01. Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
02. Hilary Duff - Dignity
03. Kelly Clarkson - My December
04. Various - Hyphy Hitz
05. Digitalism - Idealism
06. R. Kelly - Double Up
07. Lucky Soul - The Great Unwanted
08. The Fratellis - Costello Music
09. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
10. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
11. Pantha Du Prince - This Bliss
12. MIA - Bittersuss
13. Pissed Jeans - Hope for Men
14. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
15. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
16. White Stripes - Icky Thump
17. Art Brut - It's a Bit Complicated
18=. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Trip the Light Fantastic
18=. Rihanna - Good Girl Gone Bad
20. !!! - Myth Takes

Would like to knock out w/ better albums: oh, 16-20 or so. Maybe a few others.

Eyeing 20: Ashley Tisdale, Jordan Pruitt, The Horrors

Sorta anticipating: Aly and AJ, Dizzee, Amerie.

What'd I miss? Where'd I go wrong?

MAD AS HELL! #1

"All this INDIGNATION..."

--Simon Reynolds

My politics advisor in college always used to start his freshman lecture courses, which I took myself and also T.A.'ed a few times, by making everyone yell, "I'm mad as hell! And I'm not going to take it...any...mooooooooooore!" with a great rumbling bit at the end. (Large gruff gay Jewish guy from the Bronx who I assumed must be a biker or something when I first saw him! Does a dead-ringer Cheney impression.)

Then all of the OUTRAGED MASSES got a chance to stand up and one by one to articulate (usually in smug, self-righteous fashion) why they were so MAD. Presumably stemming from an article in that day's NY Times, which was required reading.

I'd like to try to start a semi-regular feature here that lets readers air their grievances concerning all articles, essays, conversations, and even just plain bad ideas (their own or someone else's) that have been circulating in the cultcha. Feel free to use the comments or, if you prefer, email them to me and I'll include them in the body of the post: dmoore1 at gmail dot com. Tell yr friends.

So: WHAT MAKES YOU MAD AS HELL today?

I'll start with mine: I'm on episode four of "The Ashlee Simpson Show" and it's obvious, even from the brief glimpses I'm getting, that she is an excellent songwriter and passionate singer who wants to make her record her way (and wants to sound like Hole!). A&R guy: "He said it sounds like Garbage. No, no, not "garbage," the band Garbage." Later, Ashlee: "Ryan [Cabrera] said he was freaked out because Courtney Love tried to kiss him at a show...I was like, why didn't you?? I so would have done it!"

SO WHY THE BUM RAP WHEN SHE HAS DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE OF HER AUTHENTICITY?

GLAD AS HELL EDIT: Feel free to talk about stuff ya like, too, I just want reading ideas. I'll link to Tom Ewing's ABBA piece I mentioned the other day on the INDIGNITY thread. Might need a longer post later.

G-rack means never having to say you're sorry

I deleted my previous post/rant. If I don't draw the line somewhere, I'll end up having an aneurysm. To anyone who read my rant, you probably didn't learn anything ya didn't know already.

I would rather have an aneurysm about this exchange between two young men on an elevator, which I will share with the public in hopes of getting some clarification:

"If you got a little bit of charisma and a g-rack, the world is your oyster."

There is no further context. All interpretations welcome.

Since t.a.t.U. Been Gone

Listened to the new Kelly Clarkson last night and this morning -- yeah, it's probably a winter album. Or a cold fall album (feels like My October, really). Which is strange, because its intensity analogue (in terms of demanding that you think about it on its terms, establishing those terms, confounding those terms, all at the same time) is probably Autobiography, which is the ultimate Walking Around on a Great Summer Day album. If you're me. [EDIT: I am me! Didn't even catch that one somehow...]

Complaints: A couple edges are rounded. This isn't a huge complaint in the scheme o' things, though, because generally this album is rough. I hope that it's mixed well and not as harshly [EDIT: I think what I mean is something more like "hard"?] as Breakaway, which was very much a modern pop album in the mix -- everything up front. I want Kelly's voice to get lost in the fold in this one and I already get a sense that it does, but the nuance is missing because of the poor quality of the rip I have. Does give me a reason to go buy the thing when it comes out, though.

Best songs: So far the big rockers scorch, demolish. "Hole" and "Judas" are incredible; the update of "Maybe" doesn't really do justice to the (rougher) version they could have recorded but still burns decently well. Too much low-key acoustic guitar strummery [Along with the dirty acoustic strum like on first half of "Maybe"] -- I [also] want electric shocks to the brain [but more of them]. "Sober" is gorgeous, reminds me of Radiohead!

All just preliminary commentary because, most important tick in the PRO category is that this is very apparently even on first listen a huge grower. You're supposed to get inside this thing, figure it out. She's forcing you to, and she's not even playful about it like Ashlee (which is potentially a mark against her -- there's no flirting on this album, it's all head-against-the-wall). Combine Miranda Lambert's sharp sense of humor and Kelly's ability to completely, uncompromisingly pulverize you (if you let her) and you'd probably have my artist and album of the decade, but I don't think this person (or album) really exists.

Anyway, also thinking/listening to Dangerous and Moving, dubbed "the most unnecessary album of the year" in 2005 by the Onion but in truth would make my top ten now. There's something so gorgeous and haunting about it. It kind of makes me want to cry. Surprisingly, their first album doesn't do this for me at all. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to the Mischa Barton movie about t.A.T.u.

No PC Blues

My computer's brrrrrroke.

So unless you wanna keep humpin' it up, you should go check out Frank Kogan's new column, Rules of the Game, in the Las Vegas Weekly -- #1 Joining In.

EDIT: My first comment went up yesterday, and instead of comment-bombing the first post, I'd like to artiuclate a few points (so as to maybe guide the responses to something more productive...cut out some of the bullshit).

My main point is that when we discuss "like" and "dislike," we're not talking about a level playing field. We can think of the process as reaction/justification, or reaction/analysis, whereby a reaction "just happens," while analysis/justification must be thought out. So when we SAY we like something, we're not just liking something. (Maybe my problem is with the word "like" itself, since the reactions I have to a song can be more complex than "like" suggests, or maybe we need to think of "like" in a more complex way -- but, e.g., the unconscious kinaesthetic elements of a dance song may cause me to ultimately define my reactions as like, even when I'm not strongly compelled to dance (Pantha du Prince), and a particularly strong compulsion to dance might actually contribute to my ultimate dislike, or not-like-THAT-much (Sophie Ellis Bextor...for now).

"For now" in that last parenthetical is crucial, though, because something else I'm arguing is not that we can be "dishonest" about dislike, as I suggested in my comment (which, looking back, was a little sloppy...well, if "like" is a set of reactions, so is "dislike," so we can never say that the set of reactions was "honest/dishonest," hence I rescind this part of the comment). What I think I'm trying to argue is that we can always change our mind and decide that a reaction-set signals LIKE rather than DISLIKE, but it's extremely difficult to do the reverse. The deck's loaded toward LIKE.

This gets at something Frank brought up once re: the Disco Sucks movement -- to him (the "rock guy") disco was never the enemy -- it was soft rock, a set of social/aesthetic connotations that could be said to be within rock, i.e. as a "rock guy," you cannot ignore soft rock because it invades the radio, friends, social circles that you already associate with.

Disco Sucks, on the other hand, is entirely predicated on ignorance. "Rock guys" don't sit around listening to disco to make a series of comparative judgments; they just don't listen to disco, and argue (essentially) that it's not WORTH listening to. That it sucks.

Similarly, an indie kid doesn't really see, say, Brooke Hogan as a threat unless he/she comes into contact with her. I'm thinking of Pitchfork specifically here, which for the most part simply avoids Fergie, Ashlee, Aly & AJ (unless I'm writing about them), Lindsay, etc. etc. unless, for whatever reason, they are thrust into them, cannot avoid them. In the news section, say, or because they're trying to "expand" the scope of their singles reviews to include some chart pop.

I think there might be a more balanced dichotomy in "like/ignore" than "like/dislike." Aside from certain music critics, I really can't think of anyone who actively listens to dislike a large amount of music -- e.g. a few of the Pfork song reviewers who, back when they paid attention to chart pop, frequently rated it unfairly, including the Brooke Hogan song review by Sam Ubl whose main point was that the song should be worse than it was. Now Pfork has a legitimate excuse to ignore chart pop: they want to offer free downloads, and this is impossible with most major label music of any kind. This is actually fair ignorance, since there's an institutional explanation as to why we shouldn't be paying attention to chart pop -- because we can't download it. I don't agree with this, but it's a principle Pitchfork does stand for, and it's not really one that can be disputed.

For the most part, we pick what we like and define ourselves in relation to it, but the "dislike" is precisely where we're socially/aesthetically etc. prone to change our minds, and change who we are. Because if I dislike something without knowing much about it, what I'm really saying is that I've chosen to ignore it. And if someone comes along and tells me how much he or she LIKES this music that I know so little about, I'm more likely to try it and like or dislike it -- but more importantly, I might finally LISTEN to it at all, on terms that I was previously unfamiliar with, and my taste will have been altered.

And this is where taste gets interesting, because again, I can never let go of my previous likes, I can only redefine myself in relation to them (and possibly try to hide my old likes from my new friends). I've discovered this new music, say Italo disco or freestyle or teenpop, and all the old layers remain intact; I carry them with me and in any moment can reference them when I (if I'm Frank) listen to "Yummy Yummy Yummy" and can imagine or understand liking and disliking it simultaneously, while in the present I like it a little, but not as much as when I was 12 (or again at 18). Or if I'm me, I listen to Britney Spears and I hear no fewer than three stages of "like/dislike": the initial listen when it was on the radio (hm, catchy tune, not really my thing but my girlfriend really loves it and it's fun to dance to it all goofy-like with her friends), the "sophisticated" listen in the indie phase (hm, catchy tune, but think of the harmful effects on all those poor 12-year-old girls), and my listen now (hm, catchy tune, I like to dance all goofy to it MYSELF, what was I talking about with that "poor 12-year-old girl" bullshit, anyhow?).