mgmt - oracular spectacular

(Missed my Friday post because of that Blogger login bug that was going around. My apologies.)

I'm not completely opposed to the use of deception in music. I listen to plenty of rappers whose stories of drug deals and careless murder are almost certainly fake. I love all those mean-spirited punk records by bands like the Sex Pistols, even though the guys themselves were practically teddy bears. Kanye West isn't even really a person anymore, but I like him just fine too.

But for some reason, MGMT just rubs me the wrong way.

I've always loved "Time to Pretend," but beyond that, I was always weary of jumping on the MGMT bandwagon. Oracular Spectacular was absolutely everywhere in 2007, sucking fans from all corners of the musical spectrum into their void, even sparking fashion movements based on their pseudo-hippie attire. But somewhere along the way, the fact that they were just fucking with us all got lost in the noise.

Andrew and Ben make no attempt to hide their beginnings: they started out playing music to piss off their friends, and somehow they ended up getting signed to Columbia. And aside from "Time to Pretend," the music itself reflects that fact.

These guys piss and shit great pop songs. That much is undeniable at this point. But the end results still reek of the piss and shit they came from, almost like they aren't trying to hide it--which they aren't. To the untrained ear, "Weekend Wars" and "Kids" are just solid little synthpop singles. They're fun to dance and sing to, la la la, who gives a shit beyond that. But in truth, they're fucking unbearable.

"Kids" is the biggest offender of them all, and I have to admit I fell for their sick ways the first five or six times through. But in reality it's just a terrible, terrible song, written in ways that only fans of terrible, terrible songs can enjoy.

By my count, the following stanza is repeated twelve times at the end of this song:

"Control yourself

Take only what you need from it

A family of trees wanted to be haunted"

What in the ever-living fuck does that mean? Being haunted sucks, why would anybody bring that upon themselves? Are these trees being haunted by tree ghosts, or human ghosts? How are MGMT speaking to trees? Assuming they're addressing the "Kids," why do they need to control themselves? They're fucking kids, let them be. Aren't you hippies supposed to be all about that shit?

To make things ever more confusing, the Internet can't seem to decided whether MGMT uses the word "wanted," "wanting," or "wantin'"--all of which present an entirely different meaning to the line, which makes no fucking sense to begin with.

Yet you'll find this song played at a hundred million parties around the world at any given second, with people ages enjoying the tune to an outright delightful extent.

I'll be honest, even I add "Kids" to party playlists when I need to please the masses and make sure no one unplugs my iPod (it tends to buy me an Oblivians song or two), because the masses fucking eat this shit up. There are probably millions of people who wish this song repeated that chorus a few more times, because they love it and the line about trees wanting to be haunted serves as a perfect metaphor for the pseudo-problems that haunt their made-up lives.

The worst part? MGMT completely did this on purpose. They write these songs with such bullshit finesse and a perfect sense of how much watered-down avant-garde the public can tolerate that it makes me sick. (Lady Gaga upped that ante a year later, but that's a whole different story.) The whole album sounds like two slightly-stoned pretentious college kids dressed like hippies flipping me off and fucking with some old Flaming Lips keyboards while a gang of 15 year-olds dance around them and shower them with money.

They're evil fucking geniuses and they know it. I feel like deleting this album would be a personal victory for them, so I'm keeping it around to listen to another day. Somehow I feel like I'm still losing.

the replacements - let it be

(My farewell column for my college newspaper.)

I always imagined my last few weeks of college would be different.

In my mind, my remaining days would pass by in an introspective blur, my thoughts reaching back to all the memories I've made around campus in my four years here. In truth, the exact opposite is happening. I can't wait to get out of here, and I cringe thinking about all the embarrassing things I've said and done on all those regrettable weekend nights.

In that same vein, I feel no real desire to do this grandiose final column to sum up my time here or cement my legacy within the paper. (If the Rebecca Black column doesn't do that, nothing will.) Instead, I'm just going to write about my favorite album in the world and call it a day.

---

Fun fact: “Let It Be” by the Beatles is the second best rock album entitled “Let It Be.” By a significant margin.

Aside from the fact that the Beatles' version is an incredibly mediocre effort, a Minneapolis punk band called the Replacements put out a record in 1984 that completely dwarfs it, along with pretty much everything else the Beatles ever did.

The Replacements were the last true “drugs, sex, and rock 'n roll” band, and they have the scars to prove it. The Replacements would play a song called “Beer For Breakfast,” then start their day out with vodka. They lived the life every rock band in the 1980s claimed to live, only they did it for real.

The quartet battled drug and alcohol addictions throughout the 1980s, and guitarist Bob Stinson died in 1995 by simply wearing his body out through drug use. This album catches the band between their early punk immaturity and the more grown-up college sound that would characterize their later albums, with both playing styles deeply affected by the substance abuse that permeated the band.

“Let It Be” is almost directly split between these two sounds. Childish songs like “Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out” and “Gary Got a Boner” are heavily contrasted by the emotional outpouring in “I Will Dare” and “Sixteen Blue,” effectively documenting those adolescent moments where you're not quite done being a kid, definitely not ready to be an adult, and desperately searching to make sense of everything around you.

For an album that will turn twenty-seven in October, this teenage concept holds up incredibly well. The inherent duality of adolescence rings true for any generation. Paul Westerberg's angst-ridden vocals, the best in rock 'n roll (save for the Boss), turn even the most lackluster lyrics into anthems. Every song is seemingly fueled by the very frustration and confusion Westerberg sings about, based off the same treacherous experiences that color everyone's teenage years, resulting in an album that anyone over the age of sixteen can relate to.

Given that I haven't matured that much since high school, this is clearly the album for me. I'd like to say my relationship dynamics have changed since I was sixteen, but they really haven't. The same old crap rears it's ugly head time after time, and luckily I'll always have “Let It Be” to make some sense of it.

- 4/26/11

warm-weather recommendations

As my work really started to pile up in the last few months, even my newspaper column started to take a dive. This one was completely phoned in, but I still stand by my recommendations, so here it is.

Just when you think the warm days are here for good, the cruel mistress that is Maryland weather gives us another stretch of rainy days. One gorgeous 85-degree day, then the same old gloomy cloudy awful days. Well, at least the snow's over with. (Probably).

In memory of that one delightful day of sunny awesomeness we got on Monday, I've decided to present of that warm-weather music I promised to write about way back in September. So without further ado, my spring recommendations:

Vivian Girls – Vivian Girls

This is the album I was personally blasting all day on Monday. Vivian Girls play delightful bubble gum pop at a blistering pace through a wall of feedback, resulting in what you could ultimately call “noise pop,” in the purest sense. It's nice, simple music at its core, but you can still rock out uncontrollably to it at any given time. Perfect music for those long, windows-down drives on the backroads off 140.

Yo La Tengo – And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out

Seemingly-depressing album title aside, this is perfect music for just lounging around and enjoying a nice afternoon after class. There are a few upbeat tracks to pique your attention from time to time, but most of it is simply lush guitar melodies over perfect instrumentation, music to drift off and get lost to. One of my favorite albums from a band that's been making incredible music for twenty-five years.

Das Racist – Shut Up, Dude

Das Racist is frat-house hip-hop with brains. “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell,” their most well-known song,” is an addictive slacker anthem that you'll be reciting in your mind for days on end the first time you hear it, and the album is chocked-full of similar hook-laden tracks. The lyrics have a Lil Wayne-esque random of quality—only they're actually really funny. I keep waiting for these guys to blow up, and it's bound to happen at some point.

The Beta Band – The Three E.P.'s

The Beta Band gained some notoriety from the movie High Fidelity, which used their song “Dry the Rain” in a classic record store scene, and this album is that song times twelve. Laid-back, trippy, hypnotic, funky—there's no way to properly describe the amount of sounds the Beta Band packed into this collection, and yet it's all still immediately accessible and instantly enjoyable. For my money, the best chill-out record ever made.

The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy

I'm well aware that I might be alone on this one, but hear me out. These guys invented the whole “playing doo-wop songs really loud with ridiculous amounts of feedback” that's become a genre in itself over the last decade. (Hell, Vivian Girls are a part of that very genre.) They aren't a Christian band, despite the title—they're more likely to sing about staying up all night on drugs than mentioning Jesus—but the music is so mind-meltingly loud that you can't tell anyway. There's something about spring that makes me want to here intolerable screeches of noise in my music. Maybe I'm just crazy.

Bunnygrunt – Jen-Fi

Yes, there is really a band called Bunnygrunt. And yes, they are as adorable as their name suggests. Allmusic famously dubbed them “the world's cutest band,” and numerous other publications have called their brand of music “cuddlecore.” The band hates the label (as they should), and besides, I wouldn't really call them the cutest band in the world. (That would have to go to The Boy Least Likely To.) In any case, these guys are a big ol' bundle of loveable fun, playing their sloppy brand of twee pop that's designed to make you go “aww.” Who could resist a song called “I Just Had Broken-Heart Surgery, Love Won't Bypass Me Again”?

- 4/12/11

hello all

Quick update: As of roughly 1:15 pm today, I am a college graduate. Hurray and such.

As the whole college thing has been winding down, life has been getting more and more hectic, so I've had to cut down on pretty much all of my non-college-related activities--this blog included. I tried to post my college newspaper columns semi-regularly, but my usual schedule was all but lost in the chaos.

Now that college is over and I'm unemployed, the blog will resume the normal schedule I had been running in the months prior. I have a few more college columns to dump here, but for the most part it should be a lot of new stuff. From here on out, I'll be using this place as a means of keeping my writing skills sharp, because ultimately, I want to be able to do this for a living.

So enjoy. If you read something you like, tell your friends. If you have an opinion or a question or any significant emotional reaction to a post, by all means share it as a comment. Feel free to hide behind the veil of anonymity, I won't judge.

Thanks for reading!

- Matt

the shaggs - philosophy of the world

Rock music is an endless parade of recycled riffs and stolen images that has been trudging on for nearly sixty years.  Everyone rips off everyone else.  The only real key to success is ripping off the right people, a fact that's been true since the birth of rock 'n roll itself.

Elvis Presley covered all the right delta blues singers, the Beatles copied the right Chuck Berry licks, Brian Wilson stole the right Phil Spector techniques—it's a time-honored, reliable tradition that has resulted in some of the greatest music ever made.

True originality, however, is incredibly rare, so much so that it can arguably be traced back to only a few dozen artists. While it's impossible to create art without being at least partially influenced by outside forces, this elite group of artists managed to contribute unique ideas to an art form so firmly rooted in its own past that it often seems to oppose progress of any kind.

Chuck Berry, Kraftwerk, Black Sabbath, James Brown, the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, Run-D.M.C., the Ramones, Bob Dylan—without artists like these, modern music as we know it would cease to exist.

Yet this accepted canon of legends is almost always missing one of the greatest bands in history, a group so monumentally groundbreaking that they were declared “Better Than the Beatles,” a group that rewrote the very rules of pop music and inspired legions of followers to demolish every possible musical boundary available.

The Shaggs.

Their story is truly mythic in its sweep.

Three sisters, Dot, Helen, and Betty Wiggin, created a rock band in New Hampshire at the urging of their father, Austin. Austin's mother had made three palmreading predictions when he was a teenager, claiming that he would marry a strawberry blonde woman, have two sons after her death, and start a band with his daughters. After he indeed married a strawberry blonde and had two sons, he decided to continue on and make the third premonition come true as well.

Austin promptly took his daughters out of school in 1968 and signed them up for music lessons, effectively making music their top priority without their consent. The daughters dutifully practiced their instruments, naming their band “The Shaggs” after both the “shag” hairstyle and shaggy dogs. After less than a year, Austin booked his daughters studio time, and Philosophy of the World was released to an unsuspecting world.

There has truly never been an album quite like Philosophy of the World, and there likely never will be again.

It is impossible to overstate how wonderful this album is. Every preconceived notion of rock music, everything that had been taken for granted by artists for decades, was thrown out the window on this record. A steady beat, in-tune guitars, proper harmony, established melodies—all concepts completely overthrown by a schoolgirl trio.

The Shaggs are at once horrifically dissonant and primitively beautiful. Their music is unlistenable by modern standards, lacking any of the comforts that simple song structure provides, yet their lyrics are wonderfully innocent, juxtaposed violently against the tense amusical noise spewing behind it.

“My Pal Foot Foot” ostensibly follows the tale of a missing dog named “Foot Foot,” who is found by the protagonist at the end of the song. (Or the dog died, depending on how you interpret the piece.) “Philosophy of the World” is a shockingly honest depiction of class warfare and the enormous social pressures we face every day, ending with the most honest line in the history of music: “You can never please anybody in this world.”

The album bounces between childish themes and surprisingly mature treatises on existence in an effortless fashion, effectively bringing us into the chaotic world of a Christian schoolgirl growing up in the 60s.Philosophy of the World is a snapshot in time, a perfect depiction of musical innocence created rather forcefully by Austin Wiggin.

In many respects, the Shaggs are simply the vehicle of Austin, much like Malcom McLaren took a bunch of scummy London kids off the street and formed the Sex Pistols to fulfill his punk fantasies. But just as the Sex Pistols grew into a monster even Malcom couldn't contain, the Shaggs have ceased to become a “rock band” in the image Austin wanted them to be.

Over time, they've become an embodiment of the otherness of rock 'n roll, the true freedom rock 'n roll always offered yet nobody quite took advantage of. It's more avant-garde than the Velvet Underground, more punk than the Ramones, and more poetic than Bob Dylan, on a level none of them could even fathom reaching.

Thankfully, numerous artists have taken up the challenge posed by the Wiggin sisters, including Frank Zappa, Kurt Cobain, Ida, Deerhoof, R. Stevie Moore, and countless other musicians working to further push the limits of this whole “rock music” that continues to exist in the Shaggs' shadow.

For the more daring among you, the “Better Than the Beatles” tag will ring loud and clear throughoutPhilosophy of the World. For others, this column will amount to nothing more than rock journalism at its worst. Which is sad, but understandable.

In time, however, you'll come to know the truth: “Yesterday” and “A Day in the Life” are good songs and all, but they really can't compare to “My Pal Foot Foot.”

- 4/5/11

sebadoh - live at the black cat, 3/26/11

I've been sympathetically described by my friends as “excruciatingly awkward.” I've been told I walk around like I'm completely lost, staring at the ground to avoid all possible eye-contact. I often daydream about building a teleportation device that would send me straight from my room to anywhere on campus, completely eliminating all unnecessary social interaction.

Naturally, I'm also a huge Lou Barlow fan.

Lou Barlow got his start playing in hardcore punk bands in the early 80s before joining the seminal alternative rock band Dinosaur Jr. with childhood friend J Mascis. After playing bass in Dinosaur Jr. for five years, the two had a legendary fallout, leading to Lou being fired in 1989. From there, Lou decided to focus on his solo career, recording noisy tracks under the name Sentridoh and reconnecting with an earlier side-project, entitled Sebadoh.

Barlow is a legend in the world of “lo-fi,” a genre characterized by rudimentary recording techniques and the use of four-track recorders. His songwriting is startling introspective, marked by deeply personal confessions and the stark display of his emotions and weaknesses. It's the kind of music you don't particularly want to be able to relate to, but once you can, it's an experience unlike any other.

This is loner music, through-and-through, made by a loner for loners. This is music for people who daydream about not having to talk to other people, like myself. So in proper fashion, I went to a Sebadoh concert on Friday alone, where I stood amongst other loners and sang songs with them about lost love and an increasingly fractured sense of self. An interesting experience, to the say the least.

Lou Barlow is exactly what I hope to be in twenty years. Who wouldn't want to be in their mid-forties playing loud, noisy, fun music for a living? Best of all, he's apparently managed to deal very well with his own personal awkwardness, something I struggle with constantly.

It was still there, noticeably apparent every time he pushed his bangs out of his face after songs and let them hang like a veil every time he launched into a brutally honest song about past relationships, but it was different. He had accepted it, made it a part of him, and even turned against his audience at times. (One interaction in particular stands out in my mind: “I love you Lou!” “Yes.”)

After playing thirty songs in incredibly frantic fashion, the band lumbered off the stage at the Black Cat, and I slowly made my back to the merch table to see what they had to offer. Lo and behold, none other than Lou Barlow was standing behind the ramshackle table selling t-shirts.

As I waited in line for my t-shirt, watching person and after person shake his hand and share some kind words, I was surprisingly calm. When I got to the table, I grabbed the t-shirt I wanted, gave him my money, shook his hand, and said the first thing that came to mind, which was probably the stupidest thing I could've possibly said:

“I've been a fan for a long time. Thank you.”

Two things to note there.

First, Sebadoh formed three years before I was born. Also, the albums they were touring to promote, Bakesale and Harmacy, came out when I was five and seven years old, respectively, and I didn't actually listen to them until I was almost out of high school. So the sight of a kid who must be like 16 years old telling him he'd “been a fan for a long time” must've been hilarious beyond words.

Second, I somehow managed to make that brief little exchange the most awkward experience of my entire life. I picked up a t-shirt, held out a twenty-dollar bill out in-front of me, and Lou stared at me like I was a crazy person. When he finally took the money, I reached out my hand to shake his, and he looked down at it like he had never shook anyone's hand in his entire life. When I spoke those unfortunate words, he smiled, nodded, and thanked me for thanking him. And then I walked away. It couldn't have been any worse.

It was only on my way home that I realized everything I should've said: “Bakesale and Harmacy and Sentridoh and your solo album all changed my life, your work with Dinosaur Jr. made we want to be a better bass player, and your bass line on 'In a Jar' is the absolute pinnacle of all recorded music.”

Oh well. Maybe next time.

- 3/29/11

rebecca black - friday

Being the Internet man-about-town I am has a number of advantages, including the ability to learn about the many monstrosities spawned by the Internet before they seep into mainstream culture. I've managed to avoid some of the worst evils the Internet has to offer, from Rickrolling to 2Girls1Cup, and I can now add “Friday” by Rebecca Black to that prestigious list.

The first time I heard about Rebecca Black, I was convinced she was just some sick joke cooked up as the feminine counterpart to Justin Beiber. Accompanying the generic picture of some 13 year-old brunette, I found some of the most inane lyrics ever formed with the English language, like something Ke$ha would freestyle from the inside of a toilet bowl after a three-day bender:

“Partyin’, partyin’ (Yeah) / Fun, fun, fun, fun / Lookin’ forward to the weekend.”

I had a laugh, looked at the endless stream of comments describing how unbelievably terrible it was, and went on with my life, never expecting to hear about it again.

That was Saturday, March 12^th, a day after a Tosh.0 blog post opened up the song up to an unknowing audience across the Internet. The video only had a few thousand views, and Internet was still at peace.

As of Monday night, Rebecca Black's official music video has over 30 million views.

Somehow, this cheesy pop song, autotuned to hell and back, written by a tiny L.A. record label and recorded for $2,000, has become a phenomenon that threatened to overshadow one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.

That's the Internet for you.

Honestly, I've yet to listen to this song. I've been fighting against it for weeks—especially since last Friday, when the fervor surrounding the song reached truly unbearable levels.

As endless links of the song and its many covers blanketed Facebook news feeds worldwide, I stuck to my guns, refusing to listen to a song Yahoo! Music actually declared “the worst song ever.” But I fear my time has finally come.

I've made similar stands against obnoxious pop songs in the past—including “Whip My Hair,” Justin Beiber's “Baby,” and everything Ke$ha's ever done—but I eventually ended up listening to them all, somehow. (I heard “Baby” for the first time at a family barbeque last summer. I laughed until I cried, and then debated its artistic merits with by 10 year-old cousin for hours.)

As a (technical) member of the music press, I feel that it would be downright irresponsible of me not to listen to a song so culturally significant. So here goes: my immediate reaction to hearing “Friday” by Rebecca Black for the first time.

(Three minutes and forty-eight seconds later.)

Not gonna lie... I'm a little disappointed.

It was only slightly less grotesque than 2Girls1Cup (though just as hilarious), but honestly, my musical palette is more offended by the average Glee episode.

Maybe I'm just turning into a grumpy old man, but this just sounds like pop music to me. The vocals are worse than usual, and the video is a whole other level of bad I'm not comfortable with addressing in this forum, but the song itself is simplistic, fun, and almost catchy for a few brief seconds at a time.

Leave the kid alone. There is much, much worse music out there. “Friday” is easily better than “TiK-ToK,” and judging by her unplugged performance on ABC News, she's already infinitely more talented than Ke$ha is.

If you really have that much personal hate for a 13 year-old singing a song about “lookin' forward to the weekend,” then you have a blackness to your soul that even I cannot begin to comprehend.

Let's be clear here: this is a terrible, terrible song, without a doubt. But it's inherently terrible.

To call it “the worst song ever” is completely missing its true nature. This is art circumventing the very definitions of art itself, vaulting itself into a level of intellectual brilliance so lofty that only the most truly unhinged fans of music, people completely free of all artistic, critical, and musical limitations, can appreciate it.

Critics around the world are tearing this song to pieces, just as they once ravaged Bitches Brew, Led Zeppelin, The Velvet Underground & Nico, and countless other works that were ahead of their time. No surprise there. But unlike my aging brethren, I'm not in the business of prematurely rejecting art I simply can't comprehend.

“Friday” will be hailed for generations to come as the breakout song of the “post-good” artistic movement, which will be carried on by the likes of Lil B, BrokeNCYDE, and the Black Eyed Peas in complete and unrelenting opposition to all critical forces that renounce them.

They will one day be recognized as the triumphant new carriers of the Dada torch, using it to burn everything in their path and build a new creative landscape where the old world once stood, enshrining their limitless musical forms as a model to wave after wave of bright young talent eager to break barriers where no previous barriers stood.

And I will be right beside them, championing them until my last breath.

“I don't want this weekend to end...”

- 5/1/11