Hockey, Quentin Tarantino, and Things that Bother Me

If you’re a little confused, let me clear it up: Bollocks! has not become a sports blog (that won’t happen until hurling invective becomes an Olympic event). Hockey is a band from Portland (!) that might remind astute listeners (or even not-that-astute listeners) of LCD Soundsystem or the last Yeah Yeah Yeahs record. By itself, that’s not an entirely bad thing – Hockey’s debut album, Mind Chaos is an enjoyable enough listen that doesn’t take itself too seriously. I rate it about on the level of the Killers’ first album, except the dudes in Hockey are far better musicians than the Killers.

No, Mind Chaos is not really a problem for me except that, when I listen to it, I get this feeling – a feeling a get when I watch Quentin Tarantino movies now, by the way -  well, it’s hard to explain. Let me try, by way of meandering analogy.

When I watch Tarantino movies, I sense two things: 1) Quentin Tarantino has a vast knowledge of cinematic history and is able to cobble together a usually-interesting pastiche out of that and 2) Quentin Tarantino clearly thinks that Quentin Tarantino is the coolest motherfucker who ever lived. I watched Inglourious Basterds the other night and it was filmed well, and fine as far as it goes, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Tarantino probably jerked off while watching the dailies from this thing. Tarantino’s ego is obscuring his art for me at this point, and I’m no longer compelled to reward him for it. You might think that’s a terrible reason to stop watching Tarantino movies, but cultural preference being entirely subjective, I’ll offer you my usual follow-up reason for why I do or don’t like something: Fuck you, I don’t need to justify my likes or dislikes to anyone (and neither do you).

Now, Ben Grubin (whose voice is actually pretty awesome) and company may not believe themselves to be geniuses – in fact, the lyrics on much of Mind Chaos suggest that they think quite the opposite. They’re just out for a dance-rocky good time, and I’m  not gonna dump on them for that. But Hockey’s music is so hyper-stylized (I may be damning myself by saying so, but Pitchfork was right to point out Hockey’s mostly agreeable cut-and-paste job of LCD Soundsystem and the second Strokes album) that it runs the risk of devolving into a shallow aestheticism – one song is the dance hit of the summer, one (“Four Holy Photos”) is the Dylan-esque song full of seemingly random imagery and strident harmonica bits. What I fear, is that Hockey’s triumph, if achieved, is the triumph of style over substance. I feel a similar discomfort about liking the Dandy Warhols’ 13 Tales from Urban Bohemia and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Howl album. Both are fine albums from a musical perspective, but both are also indicative of two bands playing dress-up (it’s sadly telling to me that Howl remains Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s finest hour. And 13 Tales is pretty much the only Dandies album that shouldn’t go fuck itself). To Hockey’s credit, I think they’re playing dress-up to a much smaller degree than the Dandy Warhols, but I’ve always been a fan of balance, and even in the age of Lady Gaga, I think we can balance style and substance (the first person who attempts, with any seriousness of purpose, to argue to me that Lady Gaga’s music is in any way substantive will win a lifetime supply of scorn from yours truly).

I suppose some pretentious wanker who took a class in post-modernism might be compelled to suggest that maybe Hockey is striking such a large dance-rock pose to comment on poserdom itself. After all, the opening track on the album is called “Too Fake.” Surely, this wanker might suggest, that song is Grubin calling posers out as much as he’s labeling himself one, yes? My answer is a solid maybe. I know you can be in a rock band that comments on the nature of being in a rock band, but I also know that, to make it work, you have to be precisely as awesome as the Velvet Underground. But there’s nothing on Mind Chaos to suggest to me that Hockey is operating on any deeper level than the good-time music that litters the album. So I like them, but I’m careful not to like them too much until they prove that they are worth taking seriously.

And, lest I be accused of being humorless, let me clarify what I mean when I say, “worth taking seriously.” I don’t mean I want Hockey to start ingesting heavy doses of Joy Division and losing the quite-welcome spring in their step. I mean I want to hear something from them that suggests they’re doing something other than proving that any idiot can make a rock record (of course any idiot can make a rock record. How many albums does Kid Rock have? The problem is, I have no time for bands that exist to prove this point. That dead horse has been beaten enough, kids. Leave it alone). I’m certainly not asking Hockey to make a second album as colossally misguided as the Killers’ Sam’s Town, an album that crawled so far up Bruce Springsteen’s ass that I believe the Boss had to have Brandon Flowers surgically removed. I just want to know that they’re not laughing all the way to the bank. I’ll give you a for instance: “All My Friends” by LCD Soundsystem, probably my favorite song of the last decade (that, right there, is all the counting down of the best of the decade that I’m willing to do, folks. Take it or leave it), is an excellent dance/pop song but it resonates much deeper than that. There isn’t a happy moment that I’ve had in the last ten years that couldn’t be adequately soundtracked by that song, and I guarantee you I won’t be saying that about anything from Mind Chaos in ten years. Now, if Hockey’s second album is more Sound of Silver and less Sam’s Town, well… it probably won’t be. But I’m willing to be pleasantly surprised.

Sainthood

Last time I heard Tegan and Sara, they were walking with the ghost. I knew a lot of people who loved that song and whatever album it was on (the internet says it was on an album called So Jealous), but I was not one of them. I found the song pretty repetitive and I didn’t like the singer’s voice. Turns out that singer was Sara Quin and it turns out that, as of last year’s Sainthood, I still don’t care much for her voice. Sainthood is not the worst thing I’ve ever heard, mind you, but at best, it makes me want to listen to Mates of State. Or the New Pornographers. Or Santogold. Or Metric. Or the last Yeah Yeah Yeahs record. I could do this all day, and that’s a problem for Sainthood.

Tegan and Sara Quin, the titular sisters in this mad pop duo, seem to have gone to a subpar school of How to Make Pop Music – one that taught them that “pop song” = “repetition of the same few phrases over and over again.” I know that, to some extent, this is the case -  that’s why a refrain is a refrain.  But Tegan and Sara have too much repetition and not enough pop song to go ’round, which is especially irritating when you realize they are attempting to practice the chorus/chorus/chorus song structure that the aforementioned New Pornographers have mastered (FYI, there’s a new New Pornos record coming out in May. I am very excited about this). Maybe if I thought about music differently, I could focus on the cutesy vocals and admittedly catchy melodies and come away enjoying Sainthood. But I don’t and I can’t.

What I can think about is how, in “On Directing,” Sara Quin sings, “I know it turns you off/ when I get talking like a teen” and how that strikes me as the truest line on the album. In my estimation, all of Sainthood is talking like a teen. I feel like, if there was a store for teen-pop kids (like a less deliberately gloomy Hot Topic), you’d walk in and hear Tegan and Sara music at top volume. Wait a second, there is a store like that. It’s called American Apparel. Someone walk in there and tell me what you hear, because I’m not fucking going.

I have hit on exactly one context in which I could really like Sainthood: if Tegan and Sara were sixth-graders, I would be pretty impressed with their music. It’s melodic enough, but lacking in complexity, the way a lot us are in our preadolescence. The repetition could be forgiven in youngsters who are making their first foray into pop music; in grown-ups, it comes off as supremely lazy. Though none of the songs on Sainthood make it past the four minute mark, all of them feel like they could be about half as long. And album closer “Someday” is a blatant ripoff of probably every song on the best Mates of State album, Bring It Back – especially “Punchlines.” And it’s telling to me that “Someday” is my favorite song on the album – and for every decent song on Sainthood, I can think of a better song by a better artist that I’d rather be listening to. In fact, I can do that for every song on Sainthood. I was going to list them in order below, but gave up on the exercise when I realized that I would just be suggesting you listen to Metric, Mates of State, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs instead of Tegan and Sara.

So there are two things that occur to me upon repeated listens to Sainthood. First off, Tegan and Sara are a poor man’s (or woman’s) version of Metric, a band that brings consistently better melodic hooks, constantly better singing, and less repetition. A friend of mine came to stay this weekend and in exchange for a few luxurious nights on my futon, he dumped a ton of Metric’s old stuff on my hard drive. I was already in love with Fantasies, but my time with Live It Out and other previous Metric albums has only increased my esteem for that band. “Monster Hospital,” for instance, is vastly superior to every single track on Tegan and Sara’s Sainthood. Second, the songs on Sainthood that don’t make me want to switch over to Metric make me want to switch over to other, better, bands with strong female voices. I’ve already listed a bunch so I won’t repeat ‘em, but it tells me that Tegan and Sara are tragically generic and I’m forced to wonder if that’s what they’re trying to be. And if it is, that makes Tegan and Sara music for people who don’t really care about music. I’m not being facetious here, either – there is a demographic out there that consists entirely of people who want to put an album on and forget about it. If you’re in this demographic, you’re going to really pay attention to the album very rarely, so it rarely has to be good – it has to please your ear, say, once every ten minutes or so.  I’m adamantly outside of that demographic, and I tend to view those within it as some weird breed of people who will swallow musical poison to avoid silence. When I listen to music, I want to be riveted. I want music that demands my attention, and Tegan and Sara have me skipping to the next track, not because I want to hear it, but because I want to play my little game of “what would I rather listen to?” And that fun lasts for about three minutes before I just listen to something else.

So that’s my not-so-ringing endorsement of Sainthood. I’m not joking when I tell you that, if you don’t give a fuck about music, the album will work just fine for you. But if you don’t give a fuck about music, you probably don’t read Bollocks! (unless you’re here to shit on me for not liking your favorite band. If your favorite band is Tegan and Sara, shit away. Your scorn will only make me stronger). I guess, to sum up, since Sainthood is for people who don’t give a fuck about music and I do give a fuck (a mighty one – feel free to name your band A Mighty Fuck) about music, I can’t honestly give a fuck about Tegan and Sara’s Sainthood.