Can: Ege Bamyasi

If Can's Tago Mago hadn't completely blown me away, I wouldn't have given Ege Bamyasi a second listen. That's how much I hated it the first time I heard it. But I did listen again, and then I gave it a third listen, and a fourth... and I still hated it.

Eventually, I listened on some great headphones. I heard some nice production tricks and experimental ideas buried in the background. Nice production tricks do not make a great album.

After my sixth listen, I gave up and wrote this review. Needless to say, I'm unimpressed.

Music:
Tago Mago is a complicated and challenging album that undeniably rocks. It is one of the best CDs I've checked out from EPFL.

Ege Bamyasi sounds like its dumb little brother.

I'm surprised, because every review I've read says Ege Bamyasi is a great album, 5 stars, perfect introduction to Can, yada yada yada. I don't hear it, though. The band sounds disengaged and uninterested. The songs don't do anything or go anywhere. The improvisation is dull, and the composition is uninspired. It sounds as if Can couldn't decide between being accessible or experimental, so they compromised at some boring point in the middle.

"Sing Swan Song" has the same introspective naval-gazing blandness that characterizes too much of Radiohead's music from the past decade. "One More Night" sounds like a Fela Kuti jam with no fire or passion. "Soup" starts with another dull jam, then inexplicably disintegrates into five minutes of noise that has nothing to do with the first five minutes of the song. (For what it's worth, those five minutes of noise are the most interesting thing on the album, but even they devolve into the kind of generic free-form improvisation that marked the third-rate followers of people like Ornette Coleman and... well... Can.)

The last two songs, "Spoon" and "I'm So Green," are the best on the album. Both are very short and very poppy ("Spoon" was a top 40 hit in Germany), but what's really interesting is hearing how those two songs laid the foundation for the Madchester scene that popped up about 15 years later. It's easy to listen to "I'm So Green" and imagine the Stone Roses or Primal Scream playing it.

Packaging:
Great. Another essay by David Stubbs. This one is filled with gems like, "It was all part of Can's flight from occidental hegemony in rock music." Yeah, man... rock's occidental hegemony really pisses me off.

(For those of you who don't possess a Stubbsian vocabulary, an "occidental hegemony in rock music" basically means that all the rock bands of Europe and America were oppressing the poor, struggling rock bands from the rest of the world. Apparently, when Ege Bamyasi was recorded back in '72, Can was pissed off about the way the IFWR [the International Foundation of Western Rock] was secretly conspiring to crush all of the great Asian, African, and Eastern European rock bands that were on the verge of stripping the evil patriarchal Western Rock Gods of their power.)

Hey Stubbs: how's about I plant my foot in your occidental ass, motherfucker?

Anyway, the liner notes contain Stubbs' essay and a bunch of pictures of the band. The pictures are mildly interesting. The essay isn't. End of story.

Listen if you like: Radiohead's Kid A and/or Amnesiac, early Pink Floyd, Boris, experimental music that's not too experimental.

If it were food, it'd be: canned vegetables

Black Lips: Good Bad Not Evil

When I lived in LA back in '91, there was a band called Life Sex Death (Get it? LSD. Clever, clever, clever!) who were supposed to save the quickly dying hair metal scene. The crazy quirk with LSD was the fact that their singer didn't have long, pretty hair! The dude was some filthy guy who was rumored to be homeless. It didn't matter that the band sucked: Seattle was turning heads with all their homeless-looking bands, so LSD was LA's ticket to the future.

I'm certain that Black Lips sound nothing like LSD, but the first couple songs on Good Bad Not Evil sound like my memory of LSD's extremely stupid (but memorable) song, "Jawohl Asshole." Kinda energetic, kinda dirty, kinda funny, kinda catchy, yet ultimately not worth thinking about more than once every couple of decades.

Music:
If Good Bad Not Evil had come out in 1965, it probably would've been mind-blowing. Then again, The Who and The Beatles and The Stones were already blowing people's minds, and Black Lips can't compare to those groups. This is psychedelic garage rock filtered through everything that's happened since the Velvet Underground. To its credit, it's much more raw than most of the garage revivalists of the '00s.

I can't imagine not liking this record if you're into garage or psych. For those of us who aren't, though, there's nothing here worth hearing.

Packaging:
With all the cut-out eyeballs and ironic moustaches and clever nicknames, it's obvious that Black Lips have a sense of humor. The little comments before the lyrics of each song are kind of charming, but I don't understand the point of including only part of each songs' words. The package is entertaining the first time you look at it, but there's not much need to look at it more than once.

Listen if you like: Mudhoney, Thee Headcoats, The Rolling Stones. Ween fans might dig the humor, even though the two bands sound nothing alike.

If it were food, it'd be: a cheap pizza from a take-out joint in a small college town that's filled with pretentious liberal arts students who think they're the most witty and insightful people to ever walk the face of the Earth.

Robyn Hitchcock: Spooked

There's a place in Arkansas called Crater of Diamonds State Park where, for a small admission fee, you can search for diamonds and keep those that you find. I've never been to the place, but my guess is that most people don't walk away with enough diamonds to make up for the $6.50 they drop to get inside.

Robyn Hitchcock's Spooked is kind of like the Crater of Diamonds State Park. There are some treasures sprinkled throughout the album, but they're few and far between, and you probably won't find enough of them to make up for the time and/or money you spent on the record.

Music:
I bought Robyn Hitchcock's Eye album many years ago, because "Beautiful Girl" is an awesome song, but the CD ended up in a used bin somewhere in Jersey because I needed rent money after the dot-com bust. Listening to Spooked reminds me of all the songs I'd forgotten off of Eye -- awful songs that I'm completely happy to have forgotten.

"Tryin' to Get to Heaven Before They Close the Door" is easily the best song on Spooked, and it's a perfect fit for a sad scene in an indie hipster movie. The rest of the album is lame. "Television" is one corny rhyme away from being an Adam Sandler song, and it's one of the better songs on the disc. Fortunately, there are little diamonds scattered throughout the album. Sometimes they come in the form of a lyrical phrase, and at others they appear as a short series of notes on the guitar or a vocal harmony. They're probably not worth the admission price, but they take away the sting if you've already shelled out your money.

Packaging: n/a
Normally I whine whenever the EPFL destroys a package to fit it into a jewel box, but not this time. I don't know what the deal was with the original packaging; maybe it was too weird to cut up and fit in a box, or maybe it got stolen or destroyed. Whatever the case may be, someone at the EPFL printed/photocopied the front and back covers and stuck them in a jewel box. That's really nice that they went through that much effort, just so I could read song titles while I'm driving.

Listen if you like: Violent Femmes, Leonard Cohen, sitting around and bragging about your eclectic taste in music

If it were food, it'd be: A dry, organic muffin that yields the very occasional treat of a juicy berry

Radiohead: In Rainbows

Since I've never heard In Rainbows, I'm going to try something: I'm going to listen to this album and pretend I don't know anything about Radiohead. I'm going to imagine that I've never heard OK Computer or The Bends. I'm going to ignore the rather clever marketing strategy that made In Rainbows get write-ups in countless publications when it came out. I'm going to listen to the record as if it's some random CD that I just happened to pick up at the EPFL because the cover looked interesting.

Why am I doing this? Because I want to see if I can separate the music from the mystique. I want to see if the critical acclaim is warranted, or if we're all simply complimenting Emperor Thom on his pretty new clothes.

Music:
The record starts off strong. The 5/4 time signature on "15 Step" is interesting and driving without sounding too much like math- and/or prog-rock. The bassline grooves, the guitar and synths are like shiny threads that wind through the music, and Thom Yorke's voice is strong. It's a promising start, and it makes me excited to hear the rest of the album.

Unfortunately, the rest of the album is disappointing. "Bodysnatchers" sounds like a Smashing Pumpkins throwaway with less energy and smaller hooks. "Nude" is stiffer than a Hopkins engineering student at Club Choices on a Saturday night. (This is a Baltimore blog, people. If you don't get the reference, just move here already.) "All I Need" is like a Blue Nile song without the warmth (and if there are any Blue Nile fans out there, you know that Paul Buchanan's warmth was the only thing that made them special). The lowest point of all, though, has to be the faux-folk "House of Cards," whose lyrics made me laugh out loud the first time I heard the song.

So. The emperor is modeling his fantastic new songs, and his subjects are all praising them. I'm a bit disappointed in myself for being too stupid to hear anything other than third-rate art rock.

Packaging:
The actual package was altered by the EPFL, but it looks like it was nice in its original form. The text is incredibly hard to read, but as with most Radiohead albums, it fits with the overarching aesthetics. I don't know enough about art to say whether these are brilliant paint splotches or generic paint splotches, but it looks to me like there's a lot of energy and movement in the artwork. I particularly like the yellow, fetus-like image on the front of the booklet.

Listen if you like: Radiohead, Radiohead, Radiohead, or Radiohead. Radiohead fans might find something they like, and anyone who likes Radiohead should certainly give it a listen.

If it were food, it'd be: A gourmet meal from an overhyped chef whose food is wildly inconsistent.

Pinback: Autumn of the Seraphs

Sometimes an album is just good enough to make you realize it's not very good. Autumn of the Seraphs is one of those albums. Pinback has some genuinely interesting ideas, but they're mired in mediocre songwriting, weak lyrics, and bad production.

Autumn of the Seraphs reminds me of early Death Cab for Cutie. Sure, there were some good ideas on those first few Death Cab CDs, but they were mired in mediocre songwriting, weak lyrics, and bad production. Things clicked for DCfC somewhere around their third album. Pinback has already released more than three albums, but something tells me this is as "clicked" as they're going to get. It's a shame, because they come close to making some special music. They just never figure out how to get past the mediocrity and let the greatness shine.

Music:
Not to harp on Death Cab comparisons, but Pinback reminds me of a half-baked Postal Service. While Jimmy Tamborello's electronic layers bring a warmth and humanity to the Postal Service, Zach Smith and Rob Crow's synths and drum machines are as cold as the worst 80s new wave bands. It's not the kind of coldness that Kraftwerk or Depeche Mode mastered, for both of those bands succeeded in finding the hearts that lived within the machine; no, Pinback's music is cold in the way Human League was cold -- they're cold because they're not good enough to be anything else. The best thing I can say about Autumn of the Seraphs -- and it truly is a good thing -- is that the layers of instrumentation and vocals occasionally create some wonderful melodies and counter-melodies.

Packaging:
Like the music, the artwork is a one-dimensional portrayal of a scene that should have some depth. The cover art reminds me of Narnia, if it had been created by a writer who lacked the humanity to find the warmth hidden amidst its frigid landscapes.

Listen if you like: early Death Cab for Cutie, Matt Pond PA, slightly better-than-average indie rock. If you liked the jaggedness of the first few Police albums but find the warmth and soul of that band offputting, this should be right up your alley.

If it were food, it'd be: A processed milkshake from a fast-food joint.

Danielson: Ships

I'm glad Danielson exists, and I'm glad they're trying to push the limits of quirky underground music. It gives isolated, twenty-something indie fans something to feel smug about ("Who am I listening to on my iPod? Oh, it's a band you wouldn't know.") without forcing them to take on the challenges of truly difficult music like Mahavishnu Orchestra or Captain Beefheart. I only hope that either Daniel C. Smith's (the Daniel behind Danielson) talent catches up with his ambitions, or another group of musicians hears Ships and is inspired to do the same thing. But better. Much, much better.

Music:
The music is ambitious. The lyrics are intelligent and clever. The performers are a hipster's who's-who (Sufjan Stevens, members of Ladytron and Deerhoof, Steve Albini, etc). The performances are somewhat energetic. And the songs are boring. They sound as if Smith had a bunch of wacky ideas, but couldn't turn them into cohesive musical creations.

On a Baltimore note, "Bloodbook on the Halfshell" reminds me of how I felt the first time I stepped into the Book Thing. "These lovely bloody books, arms full of lovely books, freely collecting books, we're getting funny looks, while we are stacking organizing filing piling way up high and rising Dewey dusty decimalizing sorting tracking systemizing, can't believe we found this vintage, we now have such great advantage, great they'll look in our library." The song made me smile, but I was smiling because of my own life and my own memories. Without those, this song would have been as empty for me as the rest of the album.

Packaging:
The booklet is aesthetically beautiful. Unfortunately, it's functionally useless. On one side of the insert, the lyrics are printed down the length of the full six pages, which looks neat but is annoying to read. The other side is filled with words that end with "-ship," and is even more annoying to read. Perhaps the worst example of form over function is the album credits: the names of everyone who worked on the album are written in tiny and nearly illegible print along the masts of the sailboat on the cover. Smith obviously loves words, but his booklet doesn't give them the respect they deserve.

Listen if you like: Flaming Lips, Sufjan Stevens, quirky and overhyped underground rock that's big on presentation on short on substance.

If it were food, it'd be: Tomatoes from an urban community garden where flavorless vegetables are grown by hipsters in soil rich with smug self-righteousness.

The Sleepy Jackson: Lovers

Some artists are all over the musical map. They take a bit from The Beatles and the Stones and Bowie and Prince and Robyn Hitchcock and the Flaming Lips and Uncle Tupelo, and they mix it all together with something special and unique that could only come from them.

The Sleepy Jackson is like that, but without the special and unique part.

The songs on Lovers are all over the place. Normally, diversity is an exciting thing, but this sounds as if the band decided to make one song that sounds like the Stones, and one song that sounds like old Bowie, and a couple of alt-country songs. This is kind of like musical name-dropping. The Sleepy Jackson makes up for its own lack of personality by telling you how many cool bands they know.

Music:
The sad and charming "Morning Bird" is the highlight of Lovers, even if it is a bit sappy. Otherwise, the production is thin, the performances are dull, and the writing is largely devoid of personality. "Come to This" is like a bad Dylan impersonation, "Miniskirt" is like a bad Uncle Tupelo impersonation, and "Fill Me with Apples" is like Bender from Futurama doing a bad Leonard Cohen impersonation. What's weird is the songs are all decent. It's like a musical cubic zirconia.

Packaging:
The cover is intriguing. There is a man holding some sort of fuzzy animal that desperately needs to be groomed, while a couple of sexy women hang on to him as they fade into a line drawing. The liner notes are nearly impossible to read; prioritizing form over function is fine if there's a visually compelling reason, but this has "mediocre graphic designer" written all over it. A guilt-ridden dedication to Michael takes a quarter of the space, and is heartfelt but ultimately pointless.

The worst thing, though, is the blurb on the tray card. Please remember that this recording and artwork are protected by copyright law. Since you don't own the copyright, it's not yours to distribute. Please don't use Internet services that yada yada yada, applicable laws provide blah blah blah, to find legal downloads visit the web site of a record company that is panicking in the face of change. Or something like that. Yes, stealing music is wrong, and if I believed for a moment that buying this CD directly supported The Sleepy Jackson rather than the expense account of some coke-sniffing A&R guy, I would fully endorse this statement. As it is, it's as derivative as everything else on the album.

Listen if you like: The Sleepy Jackson were 'inspired' by so many people, there's something here for everyone.

If it were food, it'd be: an ice cooler filled with generic soda, like "Mr. Peppy" and "Barker's Root Beer" and "Cola."

Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass: Whipped Cream & Other Delights Re-Whipped

I can't imagine defending Herb Alpert's Whipped Cream & Other Delights as being anything more than, well, whipped cream. The original album from 1965 is light, Latin-jazz that was accessible in a world of bizarre artists who were pushing every musical boundary they could find. It sold a zillion copies, and the album cover has to be one of the most famous in the history of recorded music. It was safe music for a chaotic time.

As Whipped Cream & Other Delights Re-Whipped proves, it's tough to make a good remix album when the source material is full of empty calories and sugary-sweet safety. There's nothing with any substance here. This is dessert without a meal, and it's not even a good dessert.

Music:
Mocean Worker's version of "Bittersweet Samba" is probably the best track on the disc, but that's not saying much. Ozomatli, Medeski Martin & Wood, and Thievery Corporation are the only artists who bring their unique sounds to the remixes, on "Love Potion #9," "El Garbanzo," and "Lemon Tree," respectively. DJ Foosh's take on "Tangerine" isn't awful (but it's certainly not good), John King's nifty production tricks on "A Taste of Honey" can't save it from being dull, and with the exception of "Butterball," executive producer Anthony Marinelli's multiple mixes aspire to mediocrity.

Packaging: (Altered by EPFL.)
The photo is sexy, but it doesn't capture the vibe of the original. It's a cute update on a classic image, but the inside photo would've made a much better cover. The woman's body wrapping around the spine to the back cover is a nice design touch.

Listen if you like: Generic chill-out/lounge compilations.

If it were food, it'd be: Reddi Wip. It wants to be whipped cream, but it's a paltry imitation of the real thing.

Amy Winehouse: Back to Black

They say you can't polish a turd. You can, however, take something good and smear shit all over it, which is exactly what Amy Winehouse did to Back to Black. Rather than finding a unique and creative way to share her experiences with her listeners, she insults us by beating us over the head with lyrics that scream, "I'm an insecure child trapped in a woman's body, PAY ATTENTION TO ME."

The words that she's smeared all over these songs are horrible, which is a shame because the sound is a really good throwback to vocal jazz and soul of the '60s. At times, the music and Winehouse's voice are reminiscent of Nina Simone, but Simone never vomited out inane bullshit like "They tried to make me go to rehab I won't go go go," or "He left no time to regret / kept his dick wet." A good singer learns how to convey complex and difficult messages to her listeners. A good singer trusts her listeners to listen. Winehouse is not a good singer. Like Marilyn Manson and Fred Durst, Winehouse seems to thrive on the idea that listeners will be shocked -- SHOCKED, I tell you -- by her tales of addiction and unrequited sex.

I kind of feel sorry for Amy Winehouse, because she's gotten wrapped up in some bad shit. I feel more sorry for all the schmucks who bought into the piece of crap that is Back to Black, though. Just say no, my friends. Just say no.

Music:
Everything about the music -- including the vocal melodies and Winehouse's voice -- is decent, but Winehouse's attempt to write lyrics is a miserable failure. There are moments when she shows that, somewhere deep in the echoing chamber of her skull, she understands what it means to be a good lyricist. "Wake Up Alone" demonstrates her potential with words better than anything on the album, but it's an island in a sea of clichéd rhymes and wasted metaphors. If Winehouse can figure out how to tell her stories in a compelling and unique way, she will be a force to reckon with. It'll be interesting to see how she grows as an artist.

Packaging:
It's a bunch of pictures of a woman trying to look sexy. It would be much more exciting if it were a bunch of pictures of a woman succeeding at looking sexy. As the cover stands now, it's awkward and uncomfortable and completely unattractive. Which actually (albeit unintentionally) fits the lyrical tone of the album perfectly.

Listen if you like: shocking your parents with adolescent lyrics about drug abuse and sex. If you are actually interested in this kind of music, go out and find copies of Nina Simone's Wild is the Wind or The Supremes' I Hear a Symphony or even The Propellorheads duet with Shirley Bassey on "History Repeating."

If it were food, it'd be: a moist and delicious cake with a strange, smelly, brown frosting.

Keane: Under the Iron Sea

Wow. I just can't get enough Coldplay  Travis  Every other wimpy britpop band who tries to channel Radiohead's introspective darkness and U2's pop brilliance Keane. This is derivative  boring  crap  derivative boring crap really great. Listening to this is like repeatedly driving a screwdriver into my ears  more fun than having a total hip replacement  lobotomatastic really great. The hour I spent with Under the Iron Sea was absolute torture  cruel and unusual  the reason I'm now in therapy really great.

Music:
It's perfect music for people who hate the thorns on roses, the rainstorms in summer, and the dogshit from dogs. It's like the Britpop version of new age; it pretends to go to dark and dangerous places, but ultimately it never ventures beyond the safe, secure hopes and dreams of the privileged class.

Packaging:
Hot damn! The jacket is the best part of the album! And it's still not very good!

Listen if you like: bands who possess absolutely no originality or creativity.

If it were food, it'd be: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese with canned peas. There's nothing wrong with it, and sometimes it's even pretty tasty. But if you've tried the real thing, it just doesn't compare.