Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Fever To Tell

You don't hear much about Fever To Tell anymore. In fact, the last time I can remember talking about it to someone was the fall of '06, when a short lived relationship found me in a then-girlfriend's car with, oddly, her pet bird hanging out on her shoulder. The song 'Maps' came on the radio and she quickly turned it to something else, insisting that she couldn't stand that song because it was played too much. I tried to argue its case, saying that you couldn't hold popularity against a song if it was good, but it did get me to thinking how much 'Maps', and to a lesser extent 'Y Control', had become these generational touchstones. During the latter half of my college life, circa '04 to '06, I could swear I heard one (or both) of those songs at every party I went to.

Allow me, then, to present my case against Fever To Tell. My thesis is that it's the most overrated album in recent memory, and its reputation is built entirely on the last three songs which are all anyone remembers from it. Now, don't mistake my meaning: I don't dislike Fever To Tell. It's the kind of fun nostalgic album I can throw on while drinking and remind myself of the good times I had in college, shrieking along to the tracks. But therein lies the problem...you see, most of Fever To Tell is made up of very repetitive, simplistic, and short songs that fail to make any sort of impression. Certainly they sound cool, and have a visceral, punk rock rush to them which is fun to try to sing along to while drunk. But they aren't songs, and definitely aren't good songs. They're like sketches for songs, with only a few ideas barely held together before collapsing into the next song-ette. Short songs, and by extension, short albums aren't a bad thing, but the true meat of Fever To Tell only shows up in the last three songs.

If you disagree, try this exercise: name me one song from the album that isn't 'Maps', 'Y Control', or 'Modern Romance.'

Had to really think about it, didn't you??

You may or may not recall that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' reputation was almost entirely built on two EPs. I've only heard their first, self-titled EP, released two years before Fever To Tell, and I think it's emblematic of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs as a creative unit. They work great in 20ish minute EP doses, but don't have enough good material for a full album. This isn't an entirely original criticism, I'll admit, because I remember seeing this issue brought up in some reviews at the time. Yet Fever To Tell was the New York Times' album of the year for 2003, and while opinion is ultimately subjective, it does give one pause to consider, just how goes an album that's half or mostly forgettable earn such top marks??

Well, as I keep eluding to, the last three songs on Fever To Tell are incredible. After the way-too-long 'No No No' evaporates, the unbeatable 'Maps' soon begins, with its radio signal flutter giving way to anthemic drums and guitar chording. Once you get to Karen O.'s restrained, yearning chorus, it's hard not to fall absolutely in love with the band. Then we get the "everybody on the dance floor!!" throwdown of 'Y Control', all skittery drums and that noisy keyboard/guitar slide sound that keeps popping up. The song could be the cap to a great night or a mid-evening energy boost, but either way, it's definitely one of the best songs of the decade. Finally, the plaintive comedown of 'Modern Romance', which bums us out by assuring us that love is dead...then, after some silence, a hidden track comes in and convinces us that, no, no matter how badly we've been treated, true love is real. All in all, it's a stunning conclusion, and kind of proves that if an ending is good enough people are likely to forget the stuff they didn't like from the beginning...and the middle.

What it all comes down to is that Fever To Tell is an incredibly uneven and overpraised album. Give a cursory glance to other, better albums that came out that year and it's hard to justify the love this one gets. But, as I've established, the love it gets is built almost entirely on the last three songs--which, again, are really good. And while I'm hesitant to break an album down mathematically and say "I only like 8 of the 12 songs, so it gets 4 out of 5 stars" or some such formula, that's got to be the case with Fever To Tell. As an EP it would've been a borderline masterpiece (like Young Liars by TV on the Radio), but as an album it's just average.

Not To Be Confused With...

Developing an encyclopedic knowledge of music is a tricky business, requiring one to memorize all sorts of names, album titles, release dates, and arcana. More often than not, though, it's the names that trip people up. As time goes on, there are just so many bands to keep track of that it becomes a maddening process to keep it all straight. Allow me to present some easily confused bands and artists and how to distinguish them for everyday, music nerd conversation.


The Rapture, Not To Be Confused With Rapture
The Rapture are an indie rock dance/punk band. Rapture are a metal band from Finland. 'Rapture' is also a hit song by Blondie which featured semi-embarrassing rapping from Debbie Harry. But that's neither here nor there. How to keep them straight in your head?? Repeat this sentence to yourself: "Rapture would rupture my ear drums, but The Rapture covering 'Rapture' by Blondie would be either the best thing ever or completely terrible."

The Sea and Cake, Not To Be Confused With Cake
While this one may not be quite as tricky, it's worth going over just in case. The Sea and Cake is a breezy, jazzy indie pop band from Chicago. Cake is a vaguely Beck-ish alt. rock band mostly known for the singles 'The Distance', 'Never There', and 'Short Skirt/Long Jacket.' Music nerd fact: The Sea and Cake's name came from a song by Chicago-scene-legends Gastr Del Sol entitled 'The C In Cake', on which a future member of The Sea and Cake played. Anyway, repeat this sentence to yourself: "I like Cake because they helped me realize that I, too, like vaguely Beck-ish songs about girls in short skirts and long jackets; however, I like The Sea and Cake more because they helped me realize that, as with eating cake every day, I like hearing what amounts to mostly the same album recorded in different ways over and over."

Wolf Parade, Not To Be Confused With Wolf Eyes, Not To Be Confused With Frog Eyes, Not To Be Confused With The Frogs
This one's a pretty tangled web, so I'll dig right in. Wolf Parade is an indie rock band who've recorded two really great albums so far. Wolf Eyes is an experimental noise band who I can't stand to listen to because it hurts and I'm a coward. Frog Eyes, sometimes featuring a member of Wolf Parade on keyboards, is a skewed indie rock band with a crazed, energetic frontman and remind me of the mania of Pere Ubu despite sounding very little like them. The Frogs are a jokey lo-fi indie pop band active from the late 80s to now, who kind of remind me of Beat Happening only they write songs about being gay (despite not being gay) and other ironic things. So, how do you keep these four bands straight?? Repeat this sentence: "I would march in the Wolf Parade because they record great indie rock, unlike Wolf Eyes, who produce painful noise, though I'm torn on Frog Eyes and The Frogs because the frontman of Frog Eyes scares me and I think The Frogs are just a jokier, not-as-good Beat Happening."

Soft Machine, Not To Be Confused With The Secret Machines or The Soft Boys, The Latter Of Which Should Not Be Confused With The Dead Boys
Since I've never listened to any of these bands, I find it hard to keep them straight. However, they're all very different so putting them down on paper helps a bit. So, then: Soft Machine are a prog rock band from the 70s who eventually became quite jazzy and introduced Robert Wyatt to the world before he left the band, became paralyzed, and made a career out of pretty great music (from what I'm told). The Secret Machines are a sort-of-proggy trio from Texas who record music which begs the question "what if Pink Floyd or Rush grew up in the 90s and sucked??" The Soft Boys can best be summarized, from a cursory listen of YouTube clips, as the missing link between Syd Barrett and punk rock. Finally, the Dead Boys were one orthodox product of the break-up of proto-punk legend Rocket From The Tombs, the other product being the post-punk/new wave/Captain Beefheart-worshipping Pere Ubu. Repeat this sentence to yourself: "I like Soft Machine because they recorded good prog rock, unlike the crappy modern day Secret Machines; at the same time, I much prefer the Soft Boys to the Dead Boys because the Soft Boys were weird and psychedelic and the Dead Boys were, well, just a decent punk rock band."

The Silver Apples, Not To Be Confused With Silver Jews
Well, this one's pretty straightforward, and for the record, both bands are awesome (even if the new Silver Jews album is crap). The Silver Apples were one of those "way ahead of their time" late 60s/early 70s bands that were influential and revolutionary in retrospect. In this case, they were an early electronic music duo who expertly blended experimental keyboard/synthesizer textures and psychedelic melodies with funky/jazzy drumming, recalling German contemporaries like Can and Neu!, only more catchy. Meanwhile, Silver Jews is the country tinged indie rock project of singer/songwriter David Berman, originally (and mistakenly) thought of as a Pavement side project. Fun fact: 'silver jew' is a term for Jewish people with blond hair. Keeping them straight is easy, but I still sometimes flub up. Repeat this sentence: "The Silver Apples were way ahead of their time, with funky electro-psychedelic grooves, and equally timeless as the Silver Jews, who, despite being an indie rock band from modern times, could easily have fit into the singer/songwriter craze of the early to mid 70s."

Gang Of Four, Not To Be Confused With Gang Gang Dance
This one's a bit tricky because not only are their names kind of similar, but their sound is, too. Gang of Four were an ahead-of-their-time punk band from late 70s England who mixed funk and reggae into their sound, later inspiring a whole scene of American indie rockers like The Rapture and Liars to pick up this 'dance punk' thread. Gang Gang Dance is among many modern bands--like Liars, Animal Collective, TV on the Radio, and others--who combine primitive, hypnotic drumming, noise, pop, effects pedals, and unique vocals in such a way as to sound totally distinct and yet sounding of a similar movement. Repeat this sentence to yourself: "Gang of Four were a funky punk band from the late 70s which inspired modern bands like Gang Gang Dance, who combine hypnotic drumming with experimental rock kind of like Liars."

Album of the Week: Danielson- Ships

If there's one thread running through indie rock, it's the constant struggle between authenticity and sincerity vs. irony and sarcasm. Not that bands can't tap into both, but many indie rockers end up going so far into the overly clever realm, piling on so much irony and sarcasm into their act that you can't believe a word that comes out of their mouth. At the same time, because of the proliferation of overly coy indie rock bands, it's hard to tell if the other ones mean it or not. Such is the case in point with Danielson, an overtly or understatedly Christian band made up of an actual family (hence why they sometimes perform under the name Danielson Family). For years people questioned the sincerity of the act, suggesting that someone so odd and quirky couldn't really mean what he was singing, dressing his band in nurse uniforms to symbolize the spiritual healing the audience was undertaking, and donning a tree costume himself to reference the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

People forget, of course, that indie rock has never been a terribly successful genre. To suggest that Danielson was using Christianity to gain publicity and pretend to be a weird band misses the point, since the band couldn't hope to gain much in the process. No, indie rock has always been the place where the freaks and oddities go to make their music free of outside influence. Danielson are simply too strange and not overtly Christian enough to fit on those modern Christian music compilations you see advertised on TV. Moreover, they're too good for it. For, with the release of Ships in 2006, the indie rock world came to realize the truth: whether or not you're Christian doesn't matter, because this album was some of the best music of that year.

Ironically, the only caveat emptor I can make about this music has nothing to do with its spirituality. I've never detected enough Christian-ness about the album to consider it fully sacred, and I doubt if anyone listening to it who didn't know about the band's story could hear it. No, the problem is Daniel Smith (aka Brother Daniel, the band's leader) and his voice. As is typical with most great indie rock bands, he has a very distinctive set of vocal cords--in this case, very high pitched, squeaky, and sometimes borderline shrill. It's not that he can't sing, it's that the way he sings is destined to turn people away from the music. I've come to love his voice, but there is a 'getting used to' period you'll go through with Ships. Think of it as the final litmus test to enjoying this incredible music.

Every song on Ships bursts from the speakers with melodies, sounds, and inventive songwriting. You don't come across such unique indie rock/pop very often, and the whole package has the same uplifting, borderline-orchestral majesty that the Flaming Lips's The Soft Bulletin does. Where that album came to life affirming music through space-pop and psychedelia, Danielson arrives at it via shining Brian Wilson-esque pop and spiky, skewed indie rock. Corralling a list of collaborators and band members about two dozen strong, Daniel Smith managed to craft eleven songs of both immediate satisfaction and lasting flavor. Like the Everlasting Gobstoppber of Willy Wonka film fame, it tastes good right away and never stops revealing new facets of flavor.

At the center of every song lies Smith, and the arrangements, ever malleable, turn around his every dip and turn. Even simpler songs like the closing 'Five Stars And Two Thumps Up' follow his straightforward delivery--watch the way new instruments and background vocals are added and subtracted as he moves through the song. Along with impossibly catchy gems like 'Did I Step On Your Trumpet' come the more complicated and rewarding songs like 'Bloodbook On The Halfshell' and the epic 'Kids Pushing Kids', which keeps bobbing up and down for more than six minutes but never runs out of steam or ideas. Speaking of which, though the album is a hair over 42 minutes, it contains enough meat for a recording twice its length. This isn't a case of "too many things packed, schizophrenically, into a small amount of time" like some Fiery Furnaces albums can be, but more that lesser bands would stretch these ideas out into an album far longer and thus far weaker.

Regardless of what you think of Danielson the band, there's no denying Ships as an album. It's been scarcely two years since its release and I'm afraid it's destined to be forgotten in the endless pile of indie rock best-new-bands that come out every few months. Not to say that the bands that have arrived unto the scene since Ships aren't good, but it's easy to get lost in the discovery of new, exciting things and forget about the true masterpieces of yesteryears. Ships is--I'm going to say it--a true masterpiece, and one of the greatest, most unique indie rock albums of this decade-so-far.

Video: Fleet Foxes- White Winter Hymnal

I developed a cold over the weekend and have spent the better part of today, off work, and convalescing. Since some kind of cold medication or cough syrup has been in my system for the better part of 24 hours, I feel pretty out of it and generally odd, especially after watching movies for hours on end.

So, here's the video for 'White Winter Hymnal' off the Fleet Foxes' self titled debut. I'll get around to reviewing the album itself one of these days, since it is unbelievably good and keeps getting better the more I listen to it (or maybe that was just the NyQuil last night...). Anyway, this video goes with the daring choice of claymation. I think it works for this song, though the obvious symbolism of the men becoming young when 'time' is 'wound backwards' so it's daytime and spring, instead of nighttime and winter, is sort of weak. Especially since the old men become young again, and dead plants become alive again. I'm not sure what, if anything, they're trying to say with all of that, but it sure is a cool thing to look at, now, isn't it children??

Primer: Tortoise Part 6- A Lazarus Taxon

There are many roles that a boxset can fulfill in a group's discography. It can collect hard to find and/or unreleased material, giving a glimpse into a band's other facets. It can give the fan an idea of how the band operates when the cameras are off, so to speak, with fly-on-the-wall studio outtakes and demos. It can be a best-of or chronological review of a band's development via cherry picked material from various albums and live performances. And probably a few other things I'm forgetting.

Tortoise, in their typical fashion, have chosen to go their own route with the boxset format, giving the listener a lot of material to wade through, but with precious little context or explanation. Granted, my copy of A Lazarus Taxon didn't come with the booklet for some reason, so it's possible I'm missing out. But since Tortoise's modus operandi is to be as mysterious and monolithic as possible, and thereby putting the emphasis on the music as much as possible, I suppose it's inessential.

The main thing that strikes me about this 3 CD and 1 DVD set is how little regard Tortoise have for their songs. By this I mean they don't see songs as singular, set-in-stone, precious things, but rather as small clusters of sections, melodies, textures, and concepts that combine in a certain way to make up larger albums. Given the scatter shot nature of the 3 CDs contained in A Lazarus Taxon which bring together B-sides, obscure singles, covers, remixes (both by Tortoise and of Tortoise), and other detritus, it's odd how familiar it all seems. But familiar in a good way. This is one boxset that satisfies the listener with a wealth of material but leaves you wanting more even if you're a hardcore fan who's heard their albums. Unfortunately, the DVD is a pretty big letdown because the live material isn't as revelatory as it should have been and only gives you vertical slices of Tortoise's live stuff; even the seven song set from a Toronto show in 1996 feels like a waste because of the poor video quality. The miming performance of 'Seneca' in animal costumes does finally let us know that the band have a sense of humor, but otherwise we learn nothing about Tortoise, in terms of the people behind the band, or Tortoise, in terms of the band's music, song titles, influences, etc. Even the stuff from the jazz festival, which does provide a legitimate connection to Tortoise's jazz influences, isn't as good as it sounds on paper. In the end, it's not so much “Tortoise, remixing--so to speak--their music for a jazz context” as it is “Tortoise with some jazz musicians playing slightly jazzier music than usual.” Call it a missed opportunity. Luckily, the non-DVD/non-live stuff is endlessly satisfying.

When I said just now that it was “odd how familiar it all seems”, “but in a good way”, well, we need look no further than the first two tracks of the first CD. True, they're hard-to-find songs from an obscure single or EP circa 1995, but 'Gamera' has the exact same guitar melody as 'His Second Story Island' off their first album. Similarly, 'The Source of Uncertainty' shares a section with either 'Djed' from Millions Now Living Will Never Die or 'Cliff Dweller Society' from the second CD. I'm not sure, and honestly I'm too lazy to go find out. Anyway, these obvious cases of recycling aren't a bad thing. It just demonstrates how Tortoise functions. Not to repeat myself yet again, but as I said earlier, Tortoise don't view their songs as precious things. They freely borrow ideas and sections from songs to use elsewhere, or, while recording albums, use studio equipment to rip and reorganize improvised material. This belief goes well with the interesting remixes spread across the three discs, particularly Tortoise's infamous take on Yo La Tengo's 'Autumn Sweater' and Nobukazu Takemura's remix of 'TNT.' More than anything else, the remixes of Tortoise's work reveal just how modular and malleable the band's music is. The third CD, a re-issue of a limited edition mini-album which featured different artists remixing tracks from the band's debut, pushes this point even further, becoming a companion piece to the album itself. This is the kind of thing Beck was going for with Guero and the subsequent Guerolito remix album, as well as the "do it yourself" approach to the deluxe edition of The Information.

Though the first two CDs offer much for the hardcore fan to savor, and serve as a reminder after the lukewarm It's All Around You that you still like this band, the third CD will reignite your appreciation for their first album and the band in general, offering enough of a hint of the songs you vaguely recognize as being from said debut album but completely re-configuring their DNA. This is the remix song form not as "futz with the chorus and add incessant drum beats to make this a club anthem" but as "let's completely reassemble the song from the ground up and make it something new and interesting." However, the heretofore unreleased Mike Watt remix is very dull, and more or less sounds like him playing along to the song rather than doing anything clever with it.

While I can complain that the DVD is a wash and it isn't the vault-clearing boxset it could have been, this is just nitpicking. In the end, returning to this boxset has revealed what the best boxsets do: give a fan something to spend an afternoon with. A Lazarus Taxon--despite its faults--manages to pull this off, and is a must-have for fans.

Video: Tortoise- Salt The Skies

What, did you think I was done with Tortoise?? Don't be absurd. I've still got the boxset to dig through. Meanwhile, I won't be updating tomorrow due to my work schedule, so this'll have to tide you over.

You may remember from my It's All Around You review that I don't like this song. This video is pretty interesting, visually, but since it's the only "official" Tortoise video, I guess I have to use it. No, the ones on YouTube you can find aren't "official", posted by Thrill Jockey records or not.

Album of the Week: Television- Marquee Moon

Punk rock and I don't get along too well. Our incompatibility stems from the opinion I hold about it, which is that it was a musical movement that was important and influential but produced nothing, music-wise, I find brilliant. Allow me to clarify before I am garroted: I think the Sex Pistols are a disgustingly overrated band who are interesting for every reason except their music, which sucks. Similarly, the only straight up, traditional punk album you need is the first Ramones album. Then, you more or less know exactly what every other punk band will sound like.

See, punk rock is great because of what it spawned and the bands it influenced, not for punk itself. It wasn't important for the people who saw the Ramones or Sex Pistols in '75-'77 and thought "wow, they aren't very good at their instruments, and they can't sing, but I find this very riveting. The people are taking back rock and making it dangerous again. Maybe I'll start a band who sound like this"; rather, it was important for the bands who were inspired to try out their own crazy ideas on stage because they felt liberated by punk rock. It was the post-punks, the art-punks, the New Wavers, and the myriad of later rock strains (indie rock, alternative rock, noise-pop, riot grrl, anti-folk, alt-country, etc.) that, retroactively, made punk bands important.

Bands like Television, Wire, and the Talking Heads, who simultaneously existed with punk and went beyond it, are the ones that I feel are the true innovators. After all, you can trace the Sex Pistols and the Ramones back to 60s/early-to-mid 70s garage rock without much effort. But the unique sounds of those three bands showed how far this new punk "anybody can be a rocker no matter how strange they are" ideal could go. Where the Talking Heads brought funk, pop, and world music to punk, and Wire brought psychedelia, prog-rock (arguably), and art-rock to punk, Television brought jazz to punk via their complex, interlocking guitars and clean, lean guitar solos. The result is one of the best albums ever made, and a touchstone that many musicians are still inspired by. In fact, invoking Television when describing a new band's sound has become music critic shorthand in the years since Marquee Moon's release, denoting a rock band with long guitar solos and/or deft, complex interplay. See: Sleater-Kinney, Wilco's last few releases, etc.

Though Tom Verlaine's lead vocals, full of untrained yelping, compelling in their nervous way, are in line with punk's "the less you know about music, the less trained you are, the better you're off" dogma, the rest of the band's sound flies in the face of this while remaining inside the punk sphere. Yet Marquee Moon sounds nothing like most punk rock, and it remains hard to classify--all the more reason why it is so often invoked to describe other bands, as I said above. Since punk orthodoxy is all about short, simple songs with no flashy guitar solos, Marquee Moon sticks out as quite possibly the most paradoxical of '77 punk albums. The title track, a ten minute epic that has long since passed into the land of absolutely classic band defining tracks, reminds one of other startlingly original songs that are standing between genres and don't truly belong to anything.

Marquee Moon's genius was in overturning the prevailing trends of punk rock just as the movement was taking shape. The band's guitarists used relatively clean/distortion-free guitars, and stuck to linear, melodic lead/rhythm guitar interplay instead of the dirty tones and chord bashing/riffing of most punk. Songs like 'Venus' and 'Prove It' could have easily been simple punk songs, but Television injected them with a playfulness missing in the angry, overly serious punk scene. At the same time, they actually tried to be good at their instruments, and borrowed heavily from jazz in inventing a rock guitar style that went beyond power chords and Jimi Hendrix's face melting solos. Though derided as 'the Jerry Garcia of punk' in the past, Tom Verlaine, and foil Richard Lloyd, crafted a guitar based, improvisational style that pops with inventive ideas, melodies, and complex interplay. Listening to hard-to-find 'official' bootlegs, it quickly becomes obvious that Marquee Moon was more restrained than their live shows, which allowed the full band's collective might full flight. Within the focus of a studio album, however, this greater length and immediacy was traded for tight playing and near-perfect music--witness the surprising poetic delicacy the band allows on 'Guiding Light', a yin to the title track's atomic bomb yang of flawless, free flowing solos that never get tiring.

Marquee Moon stands alongside the great masterpieces of 20th century pop music. It sounds completely timeless, and, even to this day, when so many have taken inspiration from it, it sounds startlingly fresh and original. I first heard it while in high school and had no idea it was from 1977 until I saw the back cover. Truly, this is the sort of album that is so exciting and original that it makes you fall in love with listening to music all over again.