This Is Happening (You Cannot Change the Channel)

I think, in part because our national attention span is so short (know who won American Idol the other night? In a year, you won’t give a shit. I’ve saved an entire year by not giving a shit today) and in part because it’s so easy to consume a lot of different styles of music these days, there will probably never again be Big Years in Music like 1977 when the Clash and the Ramones and the Sex Pistols all blasted into the collective consciousness with something fresh and new and exciting. You can mourn that if you want, but from where I’m sitting, 2010 is shaping up to be My Favorite Year in Music for A Good Long While. Sure, it’s not going to spawn any movements as vital as punk (but look what “punk” is  in 2010! People think Green Day is punk, for Christ’s sake. Although we do have the Future of the Left and, therefore, hope), but nearly every album that I’ve looked forward to this year has easily met (She & Him Volume Two) or massively exceeded (the National’s High Violet and the Hold Steady’s Heaven is Whenever) my expectations. It’s not quite June and I’m literally drowning in music that I love.

So let’s let the lovefest continue for LCD Soundsystem’s This Is Happening, shall we? I know it’s funnier to hate albums and there are albums that I have in the stack that I’m reasonably sure I won’t like (please prove me wrong, Sage Francis. Please?), but honesty trumps humor in my book. So I’d be doing us both a disservice if I told you that This Is Happening was something less than stellar, ass-shaking good times. Also, I’d be lying to you if I said that. This Is Happening is 100% certified Ass-Shaking Good Times.

The genius of James Murphy (he probably wouldn’t use that word, but – clearly – I would) is that he seems to intuitively understand what is great about myriad styles of music and he routinely spins that knowledge into gold. In a lot of ways, This Is Happening is the poppiest LCD Soundsystem album yet (lead single “Drunk Girls,” “I Can Change,” and album highlight “All I Want”) and it’s still freaky, funky, and weird (“Dance Yrself Clean,” “You Wanted a Hit,” and “Pow Pow”). In other words, it’s everything I’ve come to expect from a guy whose debut album featured the blissful pop of “Daft Punk is Playing at My House” and the angry punk of “Movement” (which is, by the way, one of the best songs to run to when you need a little extra inspiration) before ending with “Great Release,” which is one of this young century’s totally overlooked Beautiful Songs.

This has nothing to do with my review of this album per se, but I want to tell you before I forget: I heard a person at the National show last week say he wasn’t really into LCD Soundsystem and then he said he couldn’t wait to see Matisyahu live. Now, I realize that Matisyahu strokes the musical G-spot of all five of you Hasidic frat guys out there, but he is to reggae what John Mayer is to the blues (and if you took that as some kind of endorsement of Matisyahu’s often out-of-tune, banal ramblings, let’s face it: you’re probably John Mayer). All I’m saying is, if you don’t really get LCD Soundsystem but are exalting the musical prowess of Matisyahu, I’m going to have a hard time taking you seriously.

Well, maybe it does have something to do with this review. See, James Murphy kinda does well what Matisyahu does so poorly. Matisyahu’s synthesis of Judaism and reggae is clunky at best* and gimmicky at worst. Murphy, on the other hand, respects his record collection enough to practice the musical alchemy a little more carefully. This Is Happening‘s nods to 1970s David Bowie (to whom we should all nod, if we enjoy, you know, good music) are neither accidental nor clumsily handled. James Murphy is able to make something new out of what came before whereas Matisyahu is only able to make me angry out of what came before.

Let’s take, for example, This Is Happening’s “All I Want.” While the lead guitar line is designed to recall Bowie’s “Heroes,” James Murphy sings, “All I want/ is your pity/ all I want/ is your bitter tears.” In Murphy’s song, we can’t even be heroes for a day because, let’s be honest here, we’re not that selfless. Even for one day. Murphy gets away with this kind of biting honesty all over This Is Happening because he couches it in a healthy dose of self-deprecation: “love is an open book/ to a verse of your bad poetry” has teeth, but they bite Murphy as well when he adds, “and this is coming from me.” In the same song, he promises he can change “if it makes you fall in love.” These aren’t starstruck love songs, they’re the more pragmatic words of weary experience – I can give you something if you give me something. Makes This Is Happening sound like a downer, doesn’t it? Well, if you set those themes to indelible beats (more of the genius of James Murphy – I do not own another album where seven out of nine tracks exceed six minutes in length. Murphy routinely eclipses that mark on This Is Happening but he never bores me), you end up with another excellent, honest, funny, LCD Soundsystem record.

In fact, James Murphy really only lies to you once on This Is Happening, but it’s a doozy. On “You Wanted a Hit,” he sings, “You wanted it smart/ but honestly, we’re not smart/ we fake it all the time.” Bullshit, Mr. Murphy. You know exactly what you’re doing and, while you may honestly lack the ego to know that it’s awesome, I can assure you that it is. I didn’t really want a hit and I don’t know if I got one by any traditional metric**, but this album is fucking stupendous and that’s really all I wanted.

*Before people get all “You’re an Anti-Semite” on me, I would like to emphatically point out that I don’t doubt for a minute that Matisyahu is sincere in his religious beliefs. But, like many Christian rock bands, his faith does not necessarily translate into good  music, which matters a whole lot more to me than which Sky-Dad he believes in (or even if he believes in a Sky-Dad. I really don’t care). Who honestly gives a shit about Bob Marley’s religion (he was Rastafarian. They worship marijuana) when they listen to “One Love”? The music is amazing. But for the record, a God who would create pigs and not want you to eat bacon is unfit to govern the universe.

**Fuck Sound-Scan. If you think that the only good albums are the ones everyone’s buying, you’re the kind of person who might’ve embraced Nazism to keep up with the Goebbelses. A lot of people bought Frampton Comes Alive! and that album is a crime against truth, beauty, and humanity. Also, Adolf Hitler invented the “talk-box” effect in the late 1930s to torture the Jews. So every time you listen to “Show Me the Way,” it’s like killing Anne Frank all over again.

Romance is Boring

Well, let’s see if the soft spot in my heart for Los Campesinos! (the Welsh band with the Spanish name) has grown any since they dominated my 2008 with not one but two totally awesome albums.

Nope.

The soft spot is about the same size that it used to be, which is still reasonably large-ish. The new Los Campesinos! record, Romance is Boring (I disagree with the assertion, but that’s a great title nonetheless), is probably my first big Expectations Test of 2010 (it will be followed shortly by second albums from both She & Him and Titus Andronicus). Their first album, Hold On Now, Youngster, made me pretty giddy, with its acerbic lyrics and bouncy, twee-pop music (I personally wouldn’t call it that, but a friend of mine used it to deride the band not long ago and I’m stealing his words because I confess I’ve never known what people meant by “twee”. My friend went on to compare Los Campesinos! to the Go! Team [on exclamation points alone, he's got a point] in a way that suggests he has about as much regard for both bands as he would have for a grilled shit sandwich with a side order of deep-fried herpes). Of course, it caught me in the early part of 2008, when I was feeling like I didn’t have much besides a Hold Steady album (Stay Positive, which turned out to be the best album of that year) to look forward to.

So what, exactly, is the trouble here? Romance is Boring isn’t bad. It’s certainly not boring. It’s got the clever lyrics (so far, my favorite is “we need more post-coital/ and less post-rock”, a sentiment with which I heartily concur, “post-rock” being right up there with “twee” on the list of Bullshit Styles that I Think Pitchfork Made Up), the music is actually better (more guitars, fewer chimey bits) than in the past. And yet…

And yet…

Well, I’m kinda stunned that I don’t like this album more than I do. And don’t get me wrong (or do), I do like it. It’s just… hmm… Here: have you ever had a friend talk up a favorite dessert or something – say, tiramisu – and they take you to this place where they think the world’s best ever, you’d-kill-your-mom-for-a-slice, perfect tiramisu is made and you try the tiramisu and it’s got all the essential elements (for you non-culinary types, any good tiramisu has, in my estimation, two essential elements: coffee and rum), but it just doesn’t quite deliver for you the transcendent, orgasmo-religious (how’s that for a made-up word, Pitchfork? I can do this shit too) experience that it clearly does for your friend? Well, replace your friend with “me”, yourself with “also me” and the tiramisu with Romance is Boring. I think I’ve reached a point where I no longer believe my own rhapsodizing about how fucking awesome Los Campesinos! are. This probably won’t create a problem for other listeners of their music, but it’s kinda bumming me out.

To prove that I was still inexplicably ga-ga over Los Campesinos!, I revisited their debut. Hold On Now, Youngster is still awesome, but I’m now skeptical that I would list it among my favorite albums of 2008. It’s still good, but it doesn’t grab me the way it used to. Fearing the onset of some kind of complete desensitization to great music, I decided to test myself on another band, Titus Andronicus. I was pretty awestruck by their debut, The Airing of Grievances. In anticipation of their second album, The Monitor (which is coming out next month and which can’t come out soon enough for me), I listened to Grievances again. Funny thing: I probably love The Airing of Grievances more now than I ever have. It’s a great album, still one of the more cathartic records I’ve ever heard (when you feel like beating the shit out of the whole world, put on “Joset of Nazareth’s Blues” and “Titus Andronicus” and you’ll feel better in no time. Or at least you’ll have an invigorating soundtrack for that steep climb up the book depository stairs).

So what’s changed between me and Los Campesinos!? Was I so eager for Romance is Boring that I ruined it with my own admittedly high expectations? No. I think it is exactly as good as I expected it to be. Los Campesinos! are doing what they do best, and they’re doing it pretty well. I think I’m just less excited by what they do best than I used to be. Now, bear in mind that I’ve only had this album for a couple of weeks and I could be orgasming over it by year’s end, but I don’t feel that way now. I felt sort of obligated to listen to Romance is Boring and that’s never a good sign. Having fulfilled the obligation, I don’t regret anything, but I do feel like I was just going through the motions a little (yes, I realize I’m dangerously close to a “faking it” analogy). 2010 is a weird year so far – there’s stuff I’ve been sure I would hate that has blown my mind and stuff I’ve expected to blow my mind that has been… well, so far, merely adequate. That I haven’t been utterly disappointed by anything yet is actually a rare and encouraging sign.

At the end of the day, I think the problem I have with Romance is Boring is that I expected it to blow my mind and it didn’t. It was merely good, possibly even great (maybe. Nah, probably not), but entirely unsurprising. I’m not gonna sell the album back or anything and I’ll probably keep listening to it, but I feel like I might end up feeling like I’m in love with an image of this album that exists only in my mind. In which case, I guess I will have proven that my romance with Los Campesinos! has become boring, at which point I will wait until they are dying of cancer to cheat on them. (Too soon?)

The Pros and Cons of the New Soulsavers Record

I’m not gonna lie: I downright loved the last album by Soulsavers, It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s the Way You Land. I loved its unwieldy as fuck title, I loved its post-apocalyptic gospel feel, and I loved it for giving me a duet between Mark Lanegan and Will Oldham (on a cover of a Neil Young song! Grizzled dude trifecta!). So I was quite excited to discover that Soulsavers – Brits Rich Machin and Ian Glover – had teamed up with Lanegan once again for Broken, which doesn’t feature Mr. Oldham but it does have a Palace Brothers cover (Palace Brothers = Will Oldham = Bonnie “Prince” Billy. I know, it’s hard to keep track). But it has not been, for me, as immediately rewarding as its predecessor. So I decided I wanted to discuss the pros and cons of Broken with another person, mostly to try to work out my real feelings for the album. Because I’m slightly biased in favor of Soulsavers, I’ll handle the “pros”, but I wanted to find a real con with which to discuss the “cons.” So I called up my good friend Zombie Ken Lay (I know what you’re thinking: Lay’s conviction was vacated when he conveniently died, but dying don’t mean you broke the law any less, n’est pas?) and he sauntered on over to my imaginary office for a chat about Soulsavers and Broken.

Me: Well, the first thing this album has going for it is Mark Lanegan. The dude’s voice is perfectly suited to the sort of pseudo-gospel atmospherics of Soulsavers, and it especially soars on the Palace Brothers cover, “You Will Miss Me When I Burn.” By the way, I wasn’t familiar with this Will Oldham tune before I got Broken, but if I had to guess which song on here was written by the Bonnie Prince, I’d guess that one. It’s just so him.

Zombie Ken Lay: Yes, but doesn’t Broken feel a bit melodramatic at times? It’s Not How Far You Fall had dramatic tension, but Broken often sails over the top, especially on “Some Misunderstanding”, which is nearly eight minutes long. The stakes feel artificially high on this album.

Me: That’s a valid point (from a guy who knows a thing or two about making things artificially high). But they’ve also added some badass guitar work on these songs. I didn’t like “Some Misunderstanding” the first time I heard it either, but it’s really grown on me. It’s another stellar track for Lanegan, too. I kinda forgive the song its melodrama because Mark Lanegan sings it so well.

ZKL: Okay, but what about the two long instrumental tracks on the album? They’re both dirges. Completely unnecessary.

Me: Yeah, I’ve got to agree with you there. The thing with these guys is, they’re always striving to be epic, almost cinematic, really —

ZKL: I’m gonna stop you right there. You realize that the Pitchfork review said basically the same thing, right? And any time you lend credibility to a Pitchfork review, that’s a “con.”

Me: I guess you’d know something about cons, wouldn’t you, Ken? Am I right?

ZKL: Fuck you.

Me: Just saying. Anyway, getting back to the album. I know it sucks to validate a Pitchfork review, but they’re right about Soulsavers trying to make Big Music. Just like Sigur Ros (but in English!), they can stumble on the road to epic awesomeness. But when they don’t stumble, they make some of the most beautiful music I’ve heard in a long time. “All the Way Down” is glorious.

ZKL: Yeah, but “Can’t Catch the Train” is basically a blatant Tom Waits ripoff.

Me: True. It’s not an entirely unlistenable one, but you’re right – Soulsavers should leave broken-ass songs about trains to Tom Waits. It’s sort of his niche. On the positive side, on the enormously positive side, Broken features guest vocals from Red Ghost, a.k.a. Rosa Agostino. Her voice is perfect for this kind of music and she has more cool stuff on her MySpace page. It’s worth at least two “pros” for Broken when you consider the Red Ghost tracks. Album closer “By My Side” is one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard in a long time. In fact, I’m going to suggest that, while taking a break from making awesome albums with Isobel Campbell, Mark Lanegan makes an awesome album with Rosa Agostino.

ZKL: The album would be better if they lost the instrumentals and put Agostino on every track. As it is, Broken is overlong – there’s not a song under four minutes on here and there are three songs that are around seven minutes long.

Me: You’re wrong, Zombie Ken Lay. There are two songs that are shorter than four minutes, but one is a gratuitous instrumental.

ZKL: Sorry. I’m not good with numbers.

Me: I know. Everyone knows. It’s okay. Any final “cons” for Broken?

ZKL: It just feels a little uneven to me, too much like the soundtrack to a movie version of Fallout or something. But other than that, I don’t have anything else negative to say about it.

Me: And that’s discounted for agreeing with the Pitchfork review, at least in spirit. To close the case for the “pros”, I will say that Soulsavers are remarkably consistent. People who dug It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s the Length of Your Album Title will probably enjoy Broken, though perhaps just a tiny bit less. I considered It’s Not How Far one of the best albums of 2007, and, while I doubt Broken will be one of my very favorites of 2010, I have been listening to it at least once a week since I got it with no major regrets.

So I’ll go ahead and say the “pros” beat the “cons” by a field goal (in overtime) on Broken and hopefully that will encourage people to check the album out and decide for themselves. Soulsavers are a group whose good music is amazing enough to compel me to forgive their mediocre music (I have yet to hear anything from them that is outright bad music). I’d like to thank my guest, Zombie Ken Lay, for debating the Soulsavers album with me and for not eating my brains. He might have been a lying, stealing bastard in life, but he seems to be a pretty stand-up guy in death. Just don’t let him do your taxes.