Second Thoughts on Chinese Democracy

After last night's post, I came in to work thinking about Chinese Democracy, whose release is just about imminent.

I am not a Guns N' Roses fan; I like Appetite for Destruction well enough, and about six songs (maybe) between the Use Your Illusion albums, but over all, they always seemed overrated to me. Appetite's solos always seemed to lose a little bit because of Axl's wailing over them, and a number of the songs seemed to drag with endless codas with more noodling and yelping. Don't get me wrong: it's a damned good album; just not my cup of tea. I also certainly respect Axl Rose's talent, but I have to recognize that he can reach too far sometimes.

So I approach Chinese Democracy as less a GnR fanatic and more as a pop culture connoiseur. I've made more than my share of jokes at Axl Rose's expense, doubting every release date until the finished thing was available for listening. Because of that, it certainly is a must-listen, and on my first listen, all I heard was the bloated instrumentation, the overcooked production and the strange defensiveness with which Rose sings much of the time. Perhaps, too, there are too many songs (or just the album is too long) - lots of them feature long introductions that don't do much for the song. A shorter, leaner album might have been more ground-breaking or impressive.

But you don't spend nearly 15 years making an album and come out with 40 minutes of "Welcome to the Jungle," either.

Every song on Chinese Democracy is immense, and the album must be respected for Rose's willingness to stick to his guns. Rock history is plagued with albums whose ambition was too much to handle (Townshend's Lifehouse, Brian Wilsons's Smile) or cases where an artist lost interest (Weezer's Songs from the Black Hole). Rose deserves a large amount of respect for sticking to these songs for all these years. You can hear, in every arrangement, how these songs sound pieced together from multiple sessions, multiple players, multiple arrangements and takes and attempts. I am reminded of the scene in Walk Hard during Dewey Cox's LSD/Brian Wilson phase: endless takes with an army of musicians. "I'm seeing... more didjeridoos... an army of didjeridoos... 500,000 didjeridoos!"

Yet at the same time, it probably required an army of musicians to get this right according to Rose's vision. So much of Chinese Democracy is large-scale, requiring so many players with different skills on different instruments. This ambition also clouds some of the intent, as some of the album strikes a "what was he trying to do here?" kind of chord. The collage of speech samples in "Madagascar" exemplifies this (why is Axl quoting "I Have a Dream?" I really honestly don't get it).

On my my second listen, the hooks and appeared more clearly, and the ambition dulled down a little to see the album more clearly. Will it make my top 10 list for the year? Regrettably, no. The songs still sound a teensy bit like a mess, albeit a deeply sculpted, molded mess that took about 14 years to complete. The Pro Tools age has let obsessive-compulsive artists like Rose play with their songs until everything is perfect, which can unfortunately hinder any sense of spontaniety.

The joys in this album are not in catharsis, or necessarily relating to the songs (though I bet it's certainly possible). The joys in this album are found in its sheer craftsmanship. It is damned impressive in that sense: what other band (man) can pull off music of this size and scope? Certainly not, say, Weezer. Or The Killers. Or Fall Out Boy. All the reviews that say that Axl Rose is the last of his kind are absolutely right, for better or worse. Honestly... I think it's for worse, but one can always hope that he inspires some other megalomaniac with deep ambitions and a far reach (Hey, has anybody been keeping tabs on Incubus?).

One must also wonder what's next for Rose after this. Will he cut another Guns N' Roses album? Retire? Would he live long enough to cut a new album, starting from scratch? All I know is that this album definitely makes me want to dig Appetite and throw it on the turntable...

Chinese Democracy preview (via Myspace)

Some Random Thoughts for the Week...

I haven't been able to be at this blog so much this week, but here are some random thoughts:

• Chinese Democracy
I have heard Chinese Democracy!

...But I am not a Guns N' Roses fan. It strikes me as a set of songs that would have been a let down in '98, let alone '08. However, non of it is offensively bad -- but just about all over it is over-produced. The New York Times had a pretty good summary of it.


• New Release Tuesday
No New Music Tuesday this week; I picked up Beyonce's first album because it was $4 used and Belle and Sebastian's BBC Sessions, which aren't really new music and therefore were not given a post. I need to pick up more Belle and Sebastian is my main thought on that situation -- the BBC Sessions are quite good with some interesting (if not drastically different) versions of a lot of their older songs.


• So what have you been listening to?
Last week, I got The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968. I've listened to 4 of the 9 discs - all of it, excellent soul music. Today, Nuggets came in the mail, which is probably another 4 CDs of 60s excellence. I've got a lot of music to sort through this weekend!

Here's a classic Otis Redding performance for y'all. It's a Youtube vid that a creative writing teacher had my class watch as his example of "Going out into the crazy." Best homework ever!

Otis Redding - Try a Little Tenderness

Bond Themes

Just saw Quantum of Solace. I liked a number of touches, but if they copied the Bourne-style directing for even a minute longer, I might have gotten dizzy. Overall, a respectable entry in the series. I'd like to see Camille come back as sort of a Moneypenny-esque character Bond flirts with but doesn't sleep with, but obviously I'd come back to the next one in any case.

Oh, this is a music blog, yeah? Well, as far as Jack White/Alicia Keys' collaboration goes, I don't know. As a song, it's okay, and as a Bond theme, it's okay. It sounds an awful lot like a rejected Raconteurs song, though, with Alicia Keys' (wonderful) voice being fed through some effects. It almost sounds like Jack White singing duet with Brendan Benson after a bike riding accident. Not awful, by any means, and the title sequence was quite good.

To part, here's a couple Bond themes:
Paul McCartney - Live and Let Die
Duran Duran - A View to a Kill
Tom Jones - Thunderball

And, my favorite:
From Russia with Love title sequence

CMA's: Really? Fourth in Five Years?

...the title is my reaction to finding out that Kenny Chesney won his fourth Country Music Awards Entertainer of the Year award in five years. And, skimming the list and comparing them to repeats from past years, it's no wonder people tend to think of country music as an old and stagnant form of music for Republican devotees. It isn't, but this isn't helping.

That said, I will readily admit that the most recent thing to get me excited for modern country music are is that one Carrie Underwood song where she's smashing up a car in the video. Oh, and I guess Hank Williams III's theme for Monday Night Football... But I think that has more to do with me relating to being ready for some football (!!!!!!) than actually liking the song. That is to say, I know little about country music after Willie Nelson* and Waylon Jennings' prime.

I almost wonder if it's possible that this comes down to a lack of choices; perhaps the genre has slowed down. I have to believe that there are more up and coming and worthy artists out there - and I also refuse to believe that the same artists came out with masterpieces in consective years. For any award show, it cheapens the award when this happens. Imagine if, I don't know, The Beatles** won a Grammy "Album of the Year" every year that they were together and the Rolling Stones won "Song of the Year" from 1964-1972. Makes things seem kind of cheap and predictable, I think. Also, c'mon, no one new has risen up over the past few years?

*Willie Nelson still puts out music seemingly annually (if not more). Is he disqualified from the Country Music Awards for being Willie f'n Nelson?

**Yes, you could make an argument that every Beatles album from A Hard Day's Night onward potentially deserves it. I really don't think that's true, but the argument's there.

New Release Tuesday: Butch Walker - Sycamore Meadows

On Tuesdays, I'm going to try to post a review of at least one new release out that week. This week, Butch Walker is releasing yet another album (this would be his third release this year, including the live album/DVD Leavin the Game on Luckie St.), and it's by far his best. One might even argue, perhaps, that it is his best record ever.

Of course, I'm a Walker stalker (c), so take my opinion with a grain of salt. For what it's worth, though, I never felt quite this way about 1969's Maya (though "Wreck Me" is still a tremendous song). While that album sounded a bit like a Echo & the Bunnymen tribute, Sycamore Meadows feels like Walker consolidating his strengths and bringing a personal touch that has lurked underneath his work without ever showing itself overtly.

This could especially be true about his previous album, The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and the Let's Go Out Tonites. That album was a party record, but its personal touch was all in perspective: it was simultaneously Walker's ode to and critique of the party life and Hollywood, but its observations rarely ventured inward. It was a party record for the moment that stays vague enough to outlast the trends it decries, crafted to be an impulsive listen.

Sycamore Meadows, too, is an impulsive listen, but as a quiet record. One could argue that this is his Sea Change, maybe, in its naked emotion. A fire destroyed everything he owned last year, and that event hangs over the proceedings like a ghost, as songs dictate Walker's life in LA ("The Weight of Her"), Atlanta (The absolutely breathtaking "ATL) and New York ("3 Kids from Brooklyn"). This adds a sense of personal catharsis that was missing from the craftsmanship of his previous work, despite their resonance. Yet, Walker avoids being insular on much of the album by doing what he does best: writing a damned good breakup song. Much of the album, from the jumpy "Going Back/Going Home" to the pensive "Passed Your Place, Saw Your Car, Thought of You," reflect on feelings of loss.

And yet he manages not to lose his sense of humor. "Ponce De Leon Ave" and "3 Kids from Brooklyn" brim with jokes and puns. In the same way, each song manages to be distinctly catchy and memorable - perhaps more diverse and comfortable than any work he'd done before. In these ways, the solid craftsmanship of his production work meets a more singer/songwriter-ly sense or his music-as-art, making Sycamore Meadows a real winner.

Butch Walker's Myspace

The Desert Island: An Intro

Long story short: Anyone know of a media player that will play Apple Lossless files without hogging my system resources like iTunes?

I keep my files in Apple Lossless to preserve them at at least CD quality, since iTunes doesn’t read FLAC (and having an iPod is sometimes like being in an arranged marriage to iTunes). Last night, I tried to get Songbird to play my audio files, but I’m guessing it (like www.lala.com before it*) couldn’t read my Apple Lossless audio files. Once the experiment failed, I quit Songbird and went back to iTunes and found that it had no clue where all my music was. Somehow, every file was pointing to my windows/system32 directory. I’ve gotten all the songs back, so I just have to remove the dead links.

Anyway, that means that my playlists were deleted. I keep one called The Desert Island that is really a running list of my all-time favorite I'd-sooner-die-than-be-without-this! albums. On this site, I'm going to probably write about these albums whenever I feel it is appropriate. Or when I have nothing else to write about. There are 280 albums on the list (and it's a running tally), so theoretically I'm set over over half a year.

Anyway, as a preview of a couple of albums on that list, here are the Amazon preview pages for the album containing the song after which this blog was named:
Notorious BIG - Life After Death

and my post-election "This just feels so right for so many reasons" album-of-the-moment:
Sam Cooke - One Night Stand! Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club 1963

Maybe later I'll try to get some involvement with my last.fm page.

*Y’all should seriously try www.lala.com out. I’m rooting for their business model right now, though my rap songs appear to be the edited versions.

Hank Williams - The Unreleased Recordings

I was getting through a rainy day last week listening to the new Hank Williams Unreleased Recordings boxed set. It’s all so excellent, excellent country music (as should be expected from Hank Williams) culled from radio shows in 1951 brimming with energy and in high fidelity. I haven’t had time to double-check what unreleased songs popped up on this set, and I haven’t honestly delved obsessively-deeply through the 10-CD The Complete Hank Williams to know off the top of my head. (I’ve listened to each CD in that set a few times, but it’s 10 CDs from the era where 4 minutes might be considered a long song). The original versions on here are spirited, at least (and maybe occasionally feel a little better than the single versions).

I'm also happy to report that it doesn't focus on the doom-and-gloom of some of his recordings, which is an angle that had grown somewhat fashionable since alt-country boom and Johnny Cash's American Recordings (I see Hank's The Ultimate Collection as an example of that). Sure, there's plenty of sad songs ("I Can't Tell My Heart That"), but this is also a treasure trove of some joyous country-gospel songs. I wouldn't say I'm an expert on the matter, but I have to say that this might be one of the best examples of that side of his work. His voice comes in clearly and the recordings mostly seem to have held up well, aside from some expected (but less-harsh-than-expected) tape his on a couple tracks. The music itself, though, is top-notch in showing Hank Williams as a vocalist and interpreter.

Plus, there are takes on standards such as "On Top of Old Smokey" and "When the Saints Go Marching In." How can you go wrong?

Listen to samples from Hank Williams' The Unreleased Recordings (Warning: Not for the country un-friendly!)

The Preface

Good evening!

I am starting this music blog because I think that the time when the minutiae of day-to-day living has become mundane. I'm a technical writer fresh out of college, and as I've started that job, what I've done each day has grown even less interesting than it was back when I was a frequent LJ'er.

That said, I don't quite know what will go on this blog. I'm thinking, perhaps I will try to review a lot of music, give opinions, link to things that interest me, etc.

For example: Ponce De Leon Ave by Butch Walker is probably the song I'm streaming most online these days, off one of the fall releases I'm most eagerly anticipating (others: Kanye West, Rivers Cuomo's Alone II, Q-Tip, Los Campesinos!).

I guess this blog will be my excuse to nerd out a bit about music. We'll see when it happens.