The Songs of Rocktober 30-21

Do you ever do “thirsty” Thursdays? Who has a job where they can do that? Don’t you have to work Friday morning? Okay, I don’t work until Friday afternoon, but I do work late  Thursday nights. If only there was some other way to celebrate this glorious Thursday. I know… how about ten more songs of Rocktober?

30. Sonic Youth – “Teenage Riot” – Probably Sonic Youth’s best song. It’s got a weird guitar tuning, but it’s a great song about how someone like J. Mascis should rule the world as some sort of guitar-wielding slacker Messiah. “Teenage Riot” is the lead track on 1988′s incredible Daydream Nation (you might notice that both Sonic Youth tracks on this countdown came from that record) and it might be the reason so many older indie types get all gooey over Sonic Youth. It may sound like typical electric indie stuff to the enlightened ears of 2009, but imagine this song hitting in 1988 when the best-known rock bands were complete tossers like Motley Crue, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Warrant, and Skid Row. In that context, Sonic Youth was performing a public service by releasing “Teenage Riot.”

29. Arctic Monkeys – “A Certain Romance” – “Over there, there’s broken bones/ there’s only music so that there’s new ring tones,” sings Alex Turner on the Arctic Monkeys’ best song (this is the one that was my gateway to liking this band). The lilting reggae guitar and jumpy bass line anchor the verses so Turner can focus on what’s really important: spittin’ some melodic vitriol. The Arctic Monkeys were but young pups when they cut this tune, but it is evidence of plenty of fight in those little dogs. It’s also evidence that their first album deserved some of the hype it got.

28. Wolf Parade – “This Heart’s On Fire” – Wolf Parade kinda splits its musical styles between the synth-driven pop of Spencer Krug and the growly, guitar-driven rock of Dan Boeckner. “This Heart’s On Fire” is a Boeckner tune, with chugging guitar, pounding drums, and earnestly howled vocals. I love the way Boeckner yelps “And you’re my favorite thing/ tell it everywhere I go/ I don’t know what to do” because every time I hear it, I realize that I’ve felt that way before. I might still feel that way now. Is a component of true love not knowing what to do with yourself? I think so. But there’s no way in hell I can sneak this song into my wedding play list anywhere. In lieu of that, it would make a good addition to Rocktoberfest (perhaps – perhaps! – a slightly better venue for it).

27. The Flaming Lips – “Be My Head” – I was in a pretty good band (I liked us) this year called Radical Edward. We played exactly one show (drummer moved to NY, bass player joined the Air Force. “And in June reformed without me/ and they got a different name”… just kidding. I hope) and in that show, we covered “Be My Head” by the Flaming Lips. This song, from Transmissions from the Satellite Heart, is tons of fun to play and sing or just listen to at top volume. The guitars are all crazy (nice riff on G in there) and Wayne Coyne is his usual awesome, weird self. Sing with me: “Be my head/ and I’ll be yours.”

26. The Breeders – “Cannonball” – This song is embedded in my brain from growing up a child of the alternative rock 1990s. It wasn’t until much later that I would learn that Kim Deal was from the Pixies (a little-known band who never did anything remarkable) – in the meantime, I had “Cannonball” and the Breeders. This song was all over alternative radio as soon as that existed, with the distorted vocals, the palm mutes, that zig-zaggy clean guitar line on the verse. Every time I listen to it, I just stop and listen and I forget that I was miserable through much of the 90s – I just remember this song (and a handful of others) looming large on my radio, urging me toward a life of rock music geekdom. Thank you, Kim Deal. Thank you.

25. David Bowie – “Queen Bitch” – Another song that Radical Edward covered; I loved blasting out that G-F-C progression and doing the chorus noodles. One of Bowie’s best rock tunes and, naturally, it’s about drag queens. Doesn’t matter though – Bowie was the king of the 70s. If he made an album, it was amazing. If he produced your album, it was amazing. If you travel back in time, go to the 1970s, hang out with David Bowie, and feel your awesomeness increase exponentially. Physicists call this effect the 1970s David Bowie Awesomeness Multiplier (or the 70s D-BAM for short)

24. My Morning Jacket – “Off the Record” – I know the guitar intro sounds like Hawaii Five-O. I know. But this song, the verse of which is sung by Jim James (the awesome bear) in a manner that somewhat channels the ghost of Joe Strummer (this is something most mortals cannot do – you have to be the halfbreed son of Awesome and a bear) and the chorus is skull-fuckingly catchy. This song still makes me want to jump around the room and shout “Off the record!” along with Jim the Bear every time I hear it. And I hear it a lot. For a band that pretty much only traffics in raucous badassery, “Off the Record” is still a crowning achievement.

23. Titus Andronicus – “Titus Andronicus” – Time to get a little bit obnoxious. This New Jersey band is loud, abrasive, and – at times – unlistenable. Underneath all that is something of a melodic sense, which is brought to the forefront in “Titus Andronicus”, their catchiest song by far. The lyrics are dark (there’s even a tossed-off “Fuck everything/ fuh-uck me!” in there) and angry: “There’ll be: no more cigarettes/ no more having sex/ no more drinking ’til you fall on the floor/ no more indie rock/ just a ticking clock/ you’ve no time for that any more” and the chorus is “Your life is over.” It’s mad cathartic. My sister was dying when I first heard this band and I was plenty angry that someone so awesome would only live 31 years. So this is the song I listened to when I wanted to punch everyone and everything right in the fucking face. It still is.

22. Iggy Pop – “Lust for Life” – I’ve already established that David Bowie was awesome in the 70s. Proof? He produced Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life album, the title track of which (despite now being used to shill for cruise companies) is still one of the most badass songs ever. It features an iconic bass line and Mr. Pop talking about how he’s  worth a million in prizes (and how he’s had it in his ear before; you get three guesses as to what “it” is). Though he vows to stop beating his brains with liquor and drugs, you get the feeling that this guy is a more frequent backslider than Pete Doherty (If you don’t know who Pete Doherty is, do not despair. Simply substitute “Amy Winehouse” for “Pete Doherty” to make that joke work).

21. Franz Ferdinand – “Take Me Out” – This song got all the love in the world when it first came out, which (of course) meant that I resisted it with all my might. But no longer. “Take Me Out” is a pop treasure that actually rocks. The jagged rhythm guitars (that are, toward the end of the song, lovingly embraced by snarly little lead noodles), the crisp cymbal crashes, the fatalistic “I know I won’t be leaving here with you” lyrics. It still makes the feet stomp, and it still should.

There are only two days left of this madness. And then the ‘Fest begins. Tomorrow’s set features four of the best songs of the 1990s, a surprising (well, not to me) but raucous cover song, and a guy who banged Courtney Love and then understandably shot himself.

Here’s a lot of linkage if you missed the beginning of this countdown or want to go back and confirm that I have, so far anyway, excluded your favorite band: 100-91 90-81 80-71 70-61 60-51 50-41 40-31

What’s It Like to Be a Girl in a Band?

Listen:

I’ve had The Eternal, Sonic Youth’s new album, for a few months now. Probably since the day it came out. Normally, with an album like that, I’d listen to it several times in a couple of days and then review it, either very positively or very negatively. And I have listened to The Eternal a lot since  I got it. But here’s the thing: I don’t have a lot to say about Sonic Youth other than to say that I like them. I really like them. A lot. Enough to forgive them for “Anit-Orgasm” which – don’t get me wrong – is an awesome song musically, but the lyrics contain such completely fucked logic that I’m half convinced they’re taking a piss. The first chorus states “Anti-war is anti-orgasm” which is demonstrably false. I’ll prove them wrong right now, in fact: I myself am definitely against war.  Totally against it. I mean, I really hate war, okay? But I love orgasms. You’d be hard-pressed (haha) to find someone more pro-orgasm than I am. But don’t take my word for it, ask your friends. I bet you’ll find plenty of people who are anti-war and pro-orgasm. So either Sonic Youth is funning around a bit or Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore like it rough.

Anyway, The Eternal is a great album. It sort of reminds me of the noisier albums that preceded Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped, and its best moments approach Daydream Nation greatness. But it’s not gonna win you over if you don’t already like Sonic Youth. And that’s one of the things I really like about them, actually. There isn’t an album that strikes me as Sonic Youth trying to win over the 14-year-old crowd. They’re so insular that Miley Cyrus probably doesn’t know enough about them to give them the chance to snub her at an awards show. I mean, yeah, Rather Ripped is probably their “pop” album, but all their songs, underneath all the other stuff, are pop songs. Listen to “Total Trash” if you don’t believe me. In fact, just listen to “Total Trash.”

After listening to The Eternal about a million times, I’ve realized that one of my favorite things about any given Sonic Youth album is Kim Gordon. I could do something stupid and arbitrary and declare her the Queen of Rock or something, but that wouldn’t really do her justice. Suffice it to say that there are no other women (and few men) performing today who kick as much ass in a single song as Kim Gordon does. Check out “Kissability” from Daydream Nation or “Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream” (which is most definitely about Mariah Carey) – Gordon has an unmatched ability to go for the throat. Your favorite screamy-emo (screamo?) bands will never convey as much real meaning as Kim Gordon did by speak-singing “Are you for sale? Fuck you! Does ‘Fuck you’ sound simple enough?” on “The Sprawl”.

On 2006′s Rather Ripped, Gordon was a little bit subdued, more directly musical. That’s not a bad thing at all – I really dug that album. But she starts off The Eternal with a bang on “Sacred Trickster,” delivering the line ” ‘What’s it like to be a girl in a band?’/ I don’t quite understand” with all her ferocious, mordacious might. The Eternal is not – and does not need to be – a return to form for Sonic Youth (what, exactly, is their form? That’s like talking about the Flaming Lips returning to form. Incidentally, when I was in college, I knew a dude who didn’t like Beck’s Sea Change album for this reason: “It doesn’t sound like a Beck album, it sounds like a Flaming Lips album” – I guarantee you that he read that somewhere and regurgitated it verbatim. Anyway, one of my friends responded, “What does a Beck album sound like? Stereopathic Soul Manure?” I quipped, “Yeah, and what does ‘a Flaming Lips album’ sound like?” Even if you could define these things in some typical way, the assertion that Sea Change sounds like a Flaming Lips album could only lead to the net positive conclusion that Sea Change sounds fucking awesome), but “Sacred Trickster” is really refreshing after the quieter Rather Ripped.

And so the album goes, and it’s not that the vocal turns by Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo are by any means subpar (Ranaldo sings on “That’s What We Know,” which is one of Sonic Youth’s heaviest tracks in a long time and Thurston Moore is always great), it’s just that Kim Gordon is so goddamned interesting as a vocalist. The two dudes have pretty calm baritone/tenor voices and then there’s Gordon, whose vocal takes might not always be described as “pretty” (although “Massage the History,” despite its excessive length, is beautiful), but they’re definitely compelling in a way that few vocalists of any gender would ever attempt. Only Karen O., of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs comes to mind as a close comparison, and it’s arguable that she owes a heavy debt to Kim Gordon. But you’ll never see a VH1 Divas special with Kim Gordon, Karen O. and Pixie/Breeder Kim Deal, will you? (That would be awesome, however – maybe Exene Cervenka and Corin Tucker could pitch in? Maybe I should initiate a hostile takeover of VH1) No. No, you won’t.

There’s lots of not-Kim-Gordon stuff to like about The Eternal, assuming you like Sonic Youth to begin with (again, I can’t think of the Sonic Youth album for people who don’t like Sonic Youth. Listen to one of their albums – any one – do you like it? Then you like Sonic Youth). One of my other favorite things about this band is that I like each of their albums more with every listen, which means The Eternal is really great for me and it will only get better.

Incidentally, I’ve alluded to some magical rule of the 3 year follow-up in some other reviews this year, and The Eternal continues the pattern. If you made your last album in 2006, this is the year to get the follow-up out. The Yeah Yeahs Yeahs, MF Doom, Neko Case, and now Sonic Youth have all hit home runs on this rule (and I can only guarantee that it will be in effect for 2009. It also assumes your last album was awesome – so don’t expect, say, the Red Hot Chili Peppers to issue a stellar follow-up to Stadium Arcadium – whatever they do and whenever they release it, it will still suck). The final test of this theory is coming in October, when the Flaming Lips release the double-disc Embryonic… which, I have it on good authority, will sound like a Beck album.

The 29 Best Albums of My Life: #16

While a lot of music criticism is not much better than a heated, tossed-off comment by a fictional character who sometimes attempts to have grown-up conversations while speaking into plastic cheeseburgers, I submit to you that Juno may have been hasty in her declaration that Sonic Youth is “just noise.” I also submit to you that there is no way that a Nirvana-loving, thirty-something hipster doesn’t know who Mott the Hoople was or how they had a huge impact on the hopes and dreams of one Mick Jones.

All that’s not to say that everyone will or should love Sonic Youth. Because, while they’re not “just noise,” they are often “a lot of noise.” It just so happens that I like a lot of noise, with a dash of melody and a hook that sneaks up on you and slaps you on the back “with a heavy rock,” to quote “Total Trash” from Sonic Youth’s 1988 masterpiece Daydream Nation.

See, you might fool someone into thinking Sonic Youth is for them by playing Rather Ripped or Nurse, but Daydream Nation is the test. It has all the melody and noise and squally guitar jams and the long songs and the weird titles and Kim Gordon yelling fake orgasms. It’s the album you play to test someone’s Sonic Youth mettle, not because it’s hard to listen to but because it has the most buried treasure of any Sonic Youth release. It’s hard to get passed “Teenage Riot” as an amazing opening song, but each successive listen reveals more to love on the other tracks. Daydream Nation is the album for people who are really ready to sit and listen, start to finish, to a Sonic Youth record.

I bet it’s a great bullshit detector too. Try this at your next party – find the biggest hipster/poser in the room and go name-drop Daydream Nation near them. They’ll probably nod and say something safe like, “Yeah, that’s a cool album.” That’s your cue to crank the album up at top volume.

Party (probably) over.

If I sound like I like Daydream Nation because almost nobody else would like it, let me be clear: that’s not the case (and, in fact, plenty of people like this album, many of whom I disagree with about almost everything else). If I was going to do that, I’d be talking up Sonic Youth’s Goo album or Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica, an album I dearly love but which (I’m making a bet now) everyone else I know will hate with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. I’ve always liked noisy, kind of ugly music not because of some bullshit contrarian philosophy but because, on some level, really noisy stuff appeals to me. It captures life’s true chaos in a compelling sort of way. This is why I liked the Titus Andronicus record more than everyone else I know.

And one of my all time favorite noisy albums, among my favorite albums ever is Daydream Nation. Under all the noise, it’s an indie-pop album, and the guitar playing is fucking amazing, from “Teenage Riot” right on through “Eliminator Jr”. And what’s not to like about Kim Gordon’s “Does ‘fuck you’ sound simple enough?” on “The Sprawl”? Yeah, five of the fourteen tracks are at or near the seven-minute mark, allowing for a lot of weird noise, that bane of the knocked-up fictional teenager. But Sonic Youth is really the only band I forgive for going beyond about five minutes (unless it’s on maybe one song every two or three albums) in any song and that’s because their songs need time to spread out; sometimes they pull you in with the hook (as on “Total Trash,” which has one of the most indelible guitar lines of all time) and then wander away from it, only to bring it back later and other times, they bury the melody back further in the song, letting it bubble up to the surface when it’s good and ready.

Is it prog-punk? Is it pretentious indie gobbledigook? Is it just rock ‘n’ roll, evolved into some sort of crazed, J.  Mascis-worshipping (Thurston Moore has copped to “Teenage Riot” being an imagining of the Dinosaur Jr. frontman – and Rain Man of the guitar – as President of an alternate universe) beast? Who knows? Who cares? Daydream Nation is a hard album to describe – you have to give it a day in court and actually listen to it. If it pisses you off (and it will piss off a lot of people), well, then, it pisses you off. Try Juno’s precioius Moldy Peaches (but I’m warning you – other than that slightly heart-warming tune from Juno, they suck. They suck bad, they seem kinda proud of sucking, and they want you to pay them for it. So fuck them) or something else entirely. But, if you wade into the admittedly noisy waters of Daydream Nation, you may find, as I have, that rather than being “just noise,” Sonic Youth is Noise Plus: noise plus awesome guitars, noise plus the anthemic sounds of “Teenage Riot” and “Kissability,” which leads us to Sonic Youth being noise plus one of the most awesome female performers in all of rock ever, Ms. Kim Gordon.  If you liked the first Yeah Yeah Yeahs record, maybe send a thank-you note to Kim Gordon. ‘Cause she sang like that first.  “Kissability,” and “The Sprawl” are but two great entries in the Kim Gordon canon, along with Nurse’s “Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream,” Gordon’s masterful fuck-you to Mariah Carey.  (I am adamant that there was a name-change at some point, becuase when Nurse first came out, I recall this song being listed as “Mariah Carey and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream”)

If you asked me what’s so great about Sonic Youth, I would put Daydream Nation on for you and let you decide for yourself (Note: no one has ever asked me “Matt, what’s so great about Sonic Youth?” and don’t expect they ever will, but one can always dream). Now, there are those people out there (whose opinions can often be found on websites whose names rhyme with “snitch pork”) who will turn their nose right up at you should you not immediately be blown away by Sonic Youth’s awesomeness. They will have a similar reaction if you say you don’t see what’s so great about Radiohead (or if you suggest that not everything Radiohead does is a complete reinvention of the human ability to perceive sound). In both cases, you can’t blame the bands for fans like that. Sonic Youth is an amazing, noisy band and Daydream Nation is an amazing, noisy record. You don’t have to like either, and when you post the 29 best albums released in your lifetime on your little blog that between 2 and 6 people (on average) read, I won’t feel the least bit cheated to find Daydream Nation absent from the list. You wanna go get a beer?