January 21, 2008
more albums of the year
M.I.A.'s album and vibe had such a mindshare among our pals that more than one person suggested to us that they heard it underneath Blackout, especially in the song "Toy Soldier." One could certainly imagine that as an an Arular title, though the track sounded far more like Betty Boo, and Britney could do a lot worse. Either way it's a fine song, one of five or six on the darkly rollicking gallop, ending with the fine r'n'b slogroove "Why Should I Be Sad?"; whoever sings those little Princesque asides ("Britney let's go," "hey baby, what's your name?") is sort of a genius. Miss American Dream herself has a narrow but weirdly fascinating vocal talent: a sort of aggravated coo that slips as easily into talk as song. It's a style perfectly confabulated for an album whose emotional content is I fucking hate K-Fed and the paparazzi, all of whom I feel responsible for. Except that the style has more or less been with her from the jumpoff oh baby baby how was I supposed to know that something wasn't right here? a passive-aggressive purr so extreme it tilts immediately into sado-masochism. As a style, it's better suited to the production gifts of Monsieurs Bloodshy & Avant than to that of Se๑or Danja; he makes her sound too cold. Justin actually does a better job with such chilled precision, while Christina's vocal style is hot (but not le jazz hot, please), and Fergie has herself a louche cool. Whichever way, it's interesting to see the Western world's great producers and its former Mouseketeers circling each other looking for a fit, a hit, a meeting of the minds. This has been the core activity of pop music for almost a decade now, it's going away less than you think, and when things break right, you want a piece of it.
This should have been the year when hyphy took over; instead it couldn't find a direction. This allowed certain facts to come clear most notably, that hyphy doesn't quite have the sudden explosion of talents that often appears around such energetic new movements. There are quite a few entrancing microphone stylists beyond E-40 but, alas, no genius producers beyond RickRock, and that sets limits on how far things can go. RR can get hectic or roll slow, and he finally delivered the Federation's album, Whateva, which suffered from incoherence and skits but still had some of the best loops and hooks hip-hop could come up with this year, including the perplexing "From the Bay," which is about something or other or it isn't about anything but what the title sez, but has one of the few tracks to have the stones to model itself on "Ante Up."
Our local music clerk was discussing Tupac's productivity of late: "once you're dead, you can really shut out the bullshit and focus more on the music." Elliot Smith is dead, and Neil Young hasn't done much of interest in about 18 years, and both released great records this year. New Moon tosses up 24 unreleased tracks recorded between 1994-97, most of which are appealing and a couple of which are beyond bittersweet: "See You Later" and "All Cleaned Out." "Got a choke chain," begins the former, instantly recalling "Rose Parade" but the rhyme comes quicker. "Got a choke chain, made out of Night Train," and that's a nine syllable couplet snapping back on you quickly and painfully as the aforementioned choke chain, so that later when he slows things down, it's all the more attenuated: "See you later...see you later...if I see you at all."
Meanwhile, Neil Young released a set from some joint in Toronto, Live at Massey Hall 1971, and seriously, pretty much any 68 minutes he recorded between 1969-75 could be released now and be an album of the year. In this case it's an acoustic set and he strums "Cowgirl in the Sand" down to about four-plus minutes and it seems just right, which is some kind of magic trick. Remember when he was going to release, like, a 100-cd set from his crazy collection of masters and you started setting a few scrubby bills aside every month like a Christmas account so you could gaffle the barn-sized box when it came out, you waited and you saved, and then the months became years and you spent the Neil's Fucking Archives Stash on three and a half hours of cocaine, and that was maybe six years ago? Meanwhile we're still waiting.
In the last 18 years, most of Neil Young's best music has been made by Uncle Tupelo and its offshoots less so Tweedy's Wilco and more so Jay Farrar, under his own flag and that of Son Volt. So it's fascinating that The Search, Son Volt's best album since their debut, spends the least time yet in Young country. It even visits Williamsburg, for the (gulp) haunting "L Train," which is almost as violet-mooded as "Methamphetamine," the song that precedes it. These two lulling tragedies answer the early ravers, "The PIcture," and "Action," which ends somewhere closer to Road Warrior territory: "Gasoline junkies, feral diesel fiends, looking for action on the mercy wide road." Seriously, if someone from Uncle T has to be publishing books of poetry, maybe we could arrange a little switch.