The Very Worst Album of 2010 Part II: Reflection (And Maybe Just a Little More Hostility)

Having vented my spleen on Santana’s utterly shitty Guitar Heaven, I would like to turn now to a broader contextual discussion of the record. How does something like this come into existence (and I am not prepared to rule out the possibility that a mad scientist created it in an attempt to destroy the world) and who is it for? And what, if anything, could such a musical abomination mean?

To take the last question first, Guitar Heaven might be the last nail in the coffin that holds the rapidly putrefying remains of Rolling Stone’s credibility. The magazine gave the album three stars (out of five) and called the performances, “mostly faithful to the originals” which suggests to me that Rolling Stone‘s Mark Kemp may not have actually listened to Guitar Heaven. Not that I can blame him. If you think the Joe Cocker-sung abortion that they call “Little Wing” on this album is “faithful” to Jimi Hendrix’s original, I will fight you. I will literally, violently, will all the force of my rage, fight you. With a two-by-four and a sock full of quarters. If anything, Cocktana’s version of “Little Wing” serves as definitive proof that we should pass an international law that forbids people to cover Jimi Hendrix songs.

And how did something like Guitar Heaven come to exist? That’s the easiest question of all to answer: it came about the same way every Santana album has for the last dozen years. Santana decides he wants to buy a boat, some producers come in and write some shitty tracks, arrange the collaborations with some brand-name, talentless vocalists (I know some people think that lasting a few weeks on American Idol means you’re talented, but I submit to you that it means exactly the opposite of that), and behold! a full-length album’s worth of crap is ready to clog up your FM radio for another year. Santana gets his boat, one or more asshole collaborators get Grammys, and everyone wins except, of course, people who believe in things like truth and beauty. Guitar Heaven turns the formula on its head by eliminating the need to actually write songs at all – now, Santana and his partners in crime (let’s just call it what it is, okay?) can mangle songs that people already know and love. And don’t believe for a second that this is a one-time deal; I’ll bet you every one of Carlos Santana’s dollars that there will be a Guitar Heaven II some time in the near future.

So who’s it for? You might be inclined to guess that it’s for the same Baby Boomers who saw Santana, drugged off his ass, at Woodstock forty-one years ago. If so, shouldn’t they be outraged? After all, Guitar Heaven almost certainly represents the co-opting and watering down of some of the great, primal rock ‘n’ roll moments that were the soundtrack to the youth of a many a Baby Boomer. Santana’s guitar tone renders the notes of Jimi Hendrix, Keith Richards, and Angus Young in a warm, digitally polished shine that is about as vital as a road-killed squid (it happens more often than you think) and only one vocal performance on Guitar Heaven really does justice to the original song; Chester Bennington’s performance on the Doors’ “Riders on the Storm”, is every bit as boring as Jim Morrison’s.

Of course, Guitar Heaven isn’t just a cynical attempt to create and cash in on the perfect Baby Boomer nostalgia bait. It also tries to nab those of us on the cusp of Generation X and whatever the fuck the generation after X was. “Photograph” was a song from my childhood and having Chris Daughtry sing it is a clear attempt to get fourteen-year-old girls to buy this album or at least get that one track from I-Tunes. And if we’re talking about cynicism, what other word describes putting “Under the Bridge” on the album at all? The song is clearly not a guitar classic, but it was on the radio twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for about two straight years in the 1990s. That one is aimed squarely at people my age (as is the inclusion of Chris Cornell, although I was not fooled into believing for even a second that Cornell is as great as he was even as late as Superunknown), but literally nobody my age has ever strummed a solitary air-guitar note to “Under the Bridge.” Why? Because it’s the slow, sensitive song you put on when you want to try and slide into second base (I never did that, but I knew guys who did).

If you’re troubled and/or infuriated by Guitar Heaven, allow me to provide you with some comfort: although you’re right to be infuriated by this album (because – and I’m listening to it as I type this – it really fucking sucks), you needn’t worry that it represents some new kind of musical evil. These attempts to cash in on music someone else wrote have always been around. Paul Anka tried it a few years back with an album called Rock Swings which was so transparently hungry for the money of twenty-and-thirty-somethings that Anka even attempted a cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” There are, of course, good covers albums but they are the exception that proves the rule (the rule being, “Covers albums are generally cynical attempts to get money quick”). Astute readers will be in a hurry to point out that I loved Bettye LaVette’s Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook, and I say, “That’s very astute of you.” The thing is, LaVette, without any big-name assistance, took songs other people wrote and made them her own. There’s a sense, for instance, of the personal resonance that “Wish You Were Here” has for LaVette. When you listen to Rob Thomas and Carlos Santana choke the life out of “Sunshine of Your Love”, you can hear that the song means dollar signs to them and nothing else. They’re wringing it out like a sponge, waiting for money to fall out.

It might be tempting to try to link Santana’s decade-long mission to sell out as much as possible (which is his right, by the way – if you want to suck for money, that’s up to you, but don’t get all indignant when I call you a whore) to the Baby Boomer Generation as a whole. After all, a lot of these people spent maybe a decade (some more, some less) trying to stick it to the Man before deciding that they can save more for retirement if they just started working for him. Again, that’s their business and I certainly don’t mean that all Baby Boomer are sellouts, but I am willing to bet that those among the Boomers who buy Guitar Heaven are probably the most ashamed of their hippie-dippy past.  And to be honest, I don’t care so much that Carlos Santana is a sellout per se. I care that he’s a sellout who makes shitty music and now he’s making shitty music out of formerly good music.

And, lest I receive any Red-baiting comments, let me clear up what I mean when I say someone is a sellout. Making money doing what you love is not selling out. Watering down, pussifying, and taming your passions for mass appeal is selling out. Let the great Joseph Campbell sum it up for you: “There’s something inside you that knows when you’re in the center, that knows when you’re on the beam or off the beam. And if you get off the beam to earn money, you’ve lost your life. And if you stay in the center and don’t get any money, you still have your bliss.” Carlos Santana hasn’t just fallen “off the beam”; he’s swan-dived off of it into a swimming pool full of money, exchanging soulless, lifeless “music” (for it can just barely be called that, and mostly only because it consists of known chords and notes) for cold, hard cash. Or, to put it more succinctly:

Ladies and gentlemen, Carlos Santana has “lost his life.”

The Case Against Green Day

It’s actually pretty hard to describe how much I dislike Green Day. I’m serious – this is the fourth draft of this post that I’ve started because it’s also really hard to decide where to start discussing all the things I don’t like about them. Do I start with all the better bands they’re ripping off? Do I start with the black-dominated wardrobes and guyliner? Do I start with some of the laziest, most cringe-inducing songwriting I’ve ever heard? Do I start with the fact that they’re considered by some people who may or may not have cognitive disabilities (including themselves) to be a punk band?

Maybe I’ll start there, because that bugs the living shit out of me (and because I have a lot of love for good punk music. A lot of love). When I think of punk bands, I think of (who doesn’t?) the Clash, the Stooges, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, the Dead Kennedys, the Jim Carroll Band, early Bad Religion, and – for some current reference – the Thermals, the Old Haunts, Titus Andronicus, and the Future of the Left. Green Day is, at best – at best – a dull, lifeless distillation of the style of music those awesome (and vastly superior) bands play(ed). The Clash gave us, “Let fury have the hour/ anger can be power”; Green Day’s “Know Your Enemy” (one of the most repetitive, godawful songs I’ve heard all year. Billy Joe Armstrong knows one word that rhymes with enemy: “enemy.” Oh wait. That’s the same word. I hate this band) literally waters that down to “Violence is an energy” and “Bringing on the fury” and maybe I’m paranoid, but that seems a little close to be coincidence. Am I accusing Green Day of callously ripping of their betters? You bet your ass I am. And even their peers – one of 21st Century Breakdown‘s many awful tracks is “East Jesus Nowhere” which features a guitar riff eerily similar to (and by “eerily similar to”, I mean “shamelessly ripped off from”) Marilyn Manson’s “Disposable Teens.” Have you left no sense of decency, Green Day? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

When American Idiot came along back in 2004, lots of people loved it because they hated the President and all the bullshit he was up to. But what did that album really say about…well, anything? The answer is (drum roll please) fuckall. Sure, they got their best line ever on the title track (“I’m not a part of a redneck agenda”) but the rest of that album was generic suburban alienation bullshit. They spent 13 tracks saying nothing the Clash didn’t say better in “Lost in the Supermarket”.  The best moment of that album is “American Idiot” and it’s eclipsed in every way by (take your pick) “White Riot” by the Clash, “California Uber Alles” by the Dead Kennedys, “Anarchy in the U.K.” by the Sex Pistols, and even “Time for Heroes” by the Libertines*.  And Green Day’s utter lack of ability to handle anything approaching substance led them to squander a great song title in “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” Any punk band worth a damn (hell, any kind of band with any kind of sense) doing a song with that title in 2004 could’ve made an awesome song about how frustrating it is, only a few years after 9/11, to be constantly reminded to “never forget.” But what does Green Day give us? “The innocent can never last.” Really? That’s all you got? And this was their Big Meaningful album, folks. Not only does that fail to scratch the surface, it fails to come anywhere near the surface. It floats around in space, consulting maps and charts in a futile attempt to determine the location of the surface. And it’s fucking banal, musically and lyrically. Especially lyrically. In the span of one song, we get that prize-winner about the innocent and “here comes the rain again/ falling from the stars/ drenched in my pain again/ becoming who we are.” That might be fine for any given 8th grader’s Live Journal entry, but it doesn’t cut it for discerning listeners of rock music (much less bands that claim to make rock music). It’s like Armstrong just pulled words from his copy of Poetic Imagery for Dummies Pretentious Assholes. And don’t even get me started on “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” By itself, that song puts Green Day at the top of the list of bands that need a serious cock-punching.

But people are buying their shit at an ungodly rate. Rolling Stone, a magazine whose irrelevance actually increases exponentially with every review, raved about 21st Century Breakdown‘s “rage filled punk anthems.” The Los Angeles Times called the album a “dazzling musical journey.” If “Know Your Enemy” and “21 Guns” are rage-filled punk anthems and/or dazzling musical journeys, we’re in trouble. You can like whatever you want, but I’m warning you: if you let bands like Green Day (or My Chemical Romance or any other band that is just dying to write the anthems of your prepubescent/adolescent/adult angst) climb to the top of the punk and/or rock heap, you’re running the risk of creating a nation of black-clad, whiny dullards who are capable of expressing their feelings/desires/politics only in the most vague and offensively bromidic terms. That’s a nation where Green Day dominates the radio, every television show and movie is about emo vampires, and people think Dane Cook is funny. Believe me, America: we can do better than that. We must do better.

*This song features the line, “Did you see the stylish kids in the riot,” which I mention only because it occurs to me that Green Day are the stylish kids in the riot (the kids who show up to say they were there, but don’t expect them to hurl any bricks, thank you very much). For the sake of contrast, Joe Strummer, who wrote “White Riot” actually participated in a riot. He and Paul Simonon attempted to set a police car on fire while the British cops beat up some black kids. I’m not advocating destroying cop cars in hilarious ways, but it’s certainly nice to know that Strummer and the Clash weren’t afraid to put their money where their mouths were.

Bitch, Please! A Review (and Response to a Review) of The Hazards of Love

First off – sorry about the brief hiatus there. Had a busy week. Working lots, getting engaged – these things can take up your time.

Anyhow, there are piles of albums to review and more coming out (like a certain live album and documentary about a certain best rock band in America, but we’ll get to that later) and I need to get back to work. But thanks to you, my 6 to 9 (on average) readers, for being patient.

The Decemberists are part of a music scene in my old stomping ground of Portland, Oregon, that has produced awesome punk music (like The Thermals), strummy goodness (like M. Ward), and whatever genre you would call the Decemberists.  I like to call it Novel Rock. And their new album is, naturally, a sort of “concept” album. Having discussed recently the pitfalls of the double-album, I feel I should take a minute to discuss the “concept” album with you. It’s usually a bad bet. The Wall was a concept album, but the concept is kinda loose and, if you can ignore the fact it carries a large subtext of Roger Waters hating his fucking fans, it’s a pretty good listen.  But you remember when Garth Brooks went all emo and did that Chris Gaines thing? Yeah, you don’t remember it because it was a fuck-awful idea. But, also a “concept” album.  So you can really hit with the concept album or really miss with it, depending on your abililties. If you’re abilities are unprecendentedly awesome, your concept album will be The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. But then you’d be David Bowie and, if you’re David Bowie and you read Bollocks!, I will totally by you a beer.  Or a tea. Or a whatever. You are awesome, David Bowie. That’s what I’m trying to say.

The Decemberists are ripe candidates to hit the mark with The Hazards of Love, and they do. After all, they’ve done epic songs before and even strung together the loosely conceptual The Tain EP, which was totally awesome (more awesome when performed in its entirety at the Hollywood Bowl, backed by the L.A. Philharmonic). But I feel, in order to properly review this album, I must respond to Pitchfork’s completely dumbassed review of it. My repsonse to their review should give you a good understanding of how I feel about it.

The Pitchfork review starts with some word-a-day calendar bullshit about how the Decemberists were always meant for an album like this, and that’s actually a valid point – and one I’ve made less pretentiously above. Then the reviewer apparently drops acid and decides that the blues-scale distorted guitar riffs on The Hazards of Love are “stoner-metal sludge.” Do they just have words in a hat over there, and they pull the words out and create new genres? Has this dude never listened to Led Zeppelin? Point being, there’s nothing remotely metal on this album.

But let’s set aside the music for a minute and talk about the plot of the album. Pitchfork says that, though it  “has some nice twists, it’s not exactly Andrew Lloyd Webber.” Excuse me, Pitchfork? Yeah, I have a degree in theatre. If your plots are “not exactly Andrew Lloyd Webber”, it means that they’re “probably good.” As an example, here’s the plot of The Phantom of the Opera: an ugly (disfigured)  guy likes a pretty girl. That’s it. The whole fucking thing. And some asshole sings “Music of the Night.” Andrew Lloyd Webber is to theatre what Judas was to Jesus (since it’s Good Friday) – a pile of money and some nails through the wrist. Fuck Andrew Lloyd Webber and fuck Pitchfork for holding him up as some sort of master of the musical genre. Haven’t you assholes ever heard of Stephen Sondheim?

And – what galls me further – is that the P-forker goes on to whine about how following the plot is “too much work, not enough payoff”, which he then follows with a smug-as-fuck (I seriously want to slap the sweater right off this dipshit) parenthetical “Hmm, imagine that“. Poor P-forker; it’s so much easier to just crank up Wavves and be hip without having to think. Dipshit. Anyway, here’s the plot of The Hazards of Love, which I discerned from 2 listens without reading the goddamn lyric sheet: Margaret is this lady who wanders through the woods one day and finds a fawn caught in a trap. She frees him, he turns into this dude William and they fall in love. Here’s the catch – William was abandoned at birth and rescued by a magical queen who wants him to be a mama’s boy forever, which is why he’s hardly ever allowed out of the house in human form. So she gets pissed at Margaret for deflowering her little guy and hires a murderous Rake (whose song, like all good villain tunes, kinda steals the show) to kidnap Margaret and have his way with her. William tries to rescue his true love and, spoiler alert, everyone drowns. Not too fucking complicated if you ask me, and the songs tie it together pretty well. Unless you’re a Pitchfork kid who’s too busy  asphyxiating auto-erotically while fantasizing about a three-way with Sufjan Stevens and Dan Deacon, apparently.

Colin Meloy sings the parts of a Narrator, William, and the Rake. Shara Worden from My Brightest Diamond sings the part of the Queen (and damn, does she have a great voice). Lavender Diamond’s Becky Stark is Margaret. The songs, particularly “The Rake’s Song” and “The Wanting Comes in Waves,” are beautiful and some of the finest melodic work the Decemberists have done to date. In fact, The Hazards of Love is probably my favorite of their albums.

But I’m not done with Pitchfork yet – you know what the guy did that really pisses me off? This sentence: “As a turn toward metal, The Tain EP’s smaller portion was more satisfying– although, as mid-career change-ups go, this is still a fair piece more enjoyable than something like MMJ’s Evil Urges.” Fuck you, buddy. Evil Urges was a great album. Objectively speaking, you can’t gush over Wavvvvvvvvvvvvvves and say that Evil Urges sucks. Just because Pitchfork wants My Morning Jacket to be their Lynyrd Skynyrd (and Jim James has the temerity to want them to be our My Morning Jacket), doesn’t mean I’ll tolerate their besweatered dis of one of the best albums of last year. I don’t know how a writer of the caliber of Amanda Petrusich could stand to write for those fuckwits. Although, come to think of it, the last review of hers I read was for the Onion‘s AV Club. And, wouldn’t you know it, it was a positive review of Evil Urges. Suck it, Pitchfork.

As a bonus, a request my pal Zac sent to The Current, a radio station you definitely should listen to: