The Homegrown Snob

Fiona Apple – “Every Single Night”

If you haven’t heard the mercurial singer’s new song yet, well, it’s kind of bonkers. But her wordplay and expressive vocal tics are still in tact.  Her first album in seven years (deep breath), The Idler Wheel is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve you More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, is out next month.

Kate Bush – “Hello Earth”

Still one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard. And every time I hear it, I feel taken out of myself a little bit. For me, it’s the pinnacle of Bush’s Hounds of Love album — more and more considered a masterpiece — coming at the end of the dream-sequence second side, “The Ninth Wave.” She’s called it a lullaby to the planet, but it works as a metaphor for death or meeting God or just putting things in perspective. This is a great one to put on late at night.

 Radiohead – “All I Need”

Sometimes this is my favorite song on In Rainbows. I love the lyrics (“I’m an animal trapped in your hot car,” for example) and the build up to and release at 2:55 always gives me chills. This is another homemade video — using clips of the nature doc “Microcosmos” — that is beautiful and works extremely well with the song.

Talk Talk – “I Believe In You”

EMI sued Talk Talk in 1988 for handing in Spirit of Eden, an album the company considered unmarketable. But not before  the band made this quiet video for this remarkable song.  It’s not as un-commercial as you might fear.

Garbage – “Automatic Systematic Habit”

This twitchy new track from the first Garbage album in seven years, Not Your Kind of People, sounds like classic 1990s Garbage. Which is exactly what their rabid fans, myself included, want to hear. That record’s out May 22 for those who are curious.

Garbage – “Sex is Not the Enemy”

While were on the subject of Garbage, I’d like to dedicate this one to all those who voted for Amendment One on Tuesday. The revolution’s coming.

Elvis Costello – “Monkey to Man”

Did someone say “Woolly Bully”? Also, this rocks.

Scissor Sisters – “Invisible Light” [NSFW]

I’ve posted this one before, but I can’t get enough of the visual weirdness, Sir Ian McKellan’s monologue and the Frankie Goes to Hollywood vibe.

7.5/10

Between moaning about his recurring drug habits and near-fatal pneumonia and being, you know, kind of lonely, Jason Pierce’s output  since his 1997 masterpiece, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space has been scattershot at best.

So it’s a relief to find him both focused and musically agile on Sweet Heart, Sweet Light, his first record in five years under his Spiritualized moniker.

Pierce has been playing hazy, punk-laced psychedelia for the better part of three decades now, first as part of the Spaceman 3 and then on his own in Spiritualized. He’s tweaked his formula over the years — leaning more heavily on distorted guitar rave-ups, pulling in horn sections and backing choirs —  but never straying far from his bread and butter.

Sweet Heart, Sweet Light doesn’t change that, but it does find him sounding comfortable in his skin as an aging rocker with his share of problems. Trouble — as usual — is never far away, whether through the hellbent protagonist of “Hey Jane,” the vindictive “Get What You Deserve” or the self-loathing detailed in the weary “Little Girl” and “Mary.”

After 12 years of mucking about with R&B/gospel influences, he’s finally learned how to pair those with his Sex Pistols-light guitar rock. “Hey Jane” is 9 minutes of hazy, frightening perfection with a redemptive ending chorus of the album’s title. “Too Late” reaches skyward as he declares his willingness to have his heart broken.

And though Pierce still can’t seem to resist the overblown — the 6-minute, loud-louder repetition of “Get What You Deserve” and the 8-minute “Headin’ for the Top Now” are interchangeable with a number of other similar-sounding Spiritualized tracks — when he scales back, he stuns.

The Dr. John co-written “I Am What I Am” marks soulful new ground, with a catchy chorus. “Life is a Problem” and “Freedom” are whisper-quiet in contrast to the rest of the album, with a whiff of country rock tossed in.

Sweet Heart, Sweet Light proves again that the power of Pierce’s barebones songwriting, often obscurred by layers of noise or stretched to the breaking point, is his greatest strength. It’s a comfort to hear him realize that, too.

Rufus Wainwright – “Out of the Game”

You know you’re a badass when you can get Helena Bonham Carter to star in your video. Well, that’s Rufus Wainwright. Watch her lip sync Wainwright’s latest classicist pop tune  – as a librarian with some serious anger-management issues — right here. Oh and his new record is out today, kiddies.

Everything But the Girl – “When All’s Well”

I’m late coming to EBTG, most known for 1995′s  chilled electro-pop hit “Missing,” which I can take or leave. Thanks to Spotify, I’m discovering the duo’s  ’80s output was fairly tremendous and very different from that ubiquitous hit. Tracey Thorn’s voice is a marvel of cool heartbreak. Here’s one of my new favorites, “When All’s Well.” Apologies in advance for the “dancing”.

Belle and Sebastian – “The Boy With the Arab Strap”

Timeless. The first time I heard this jaunty little toe-tapper, it felt like someone had unlocked my brain and put to music the unarticulated sounds I’d been hearing in there my entire life. I think I replayed it about 50 times that day.

Tori Amos – “Spark”

Hey, who wants to hear a really depressing song about a miscarriage and general lost-ness and unhappiness set to a spindly guitar? Here you go!

XTC: To know their music is to love it.

The wit, the melodicism, the charm, the humanity of 20+ years of music — from their meager new wave beginnings to their dissolution early last decade — entranced a generation of non-mopey, classic-pop loving kids and adults.

Here’s why:

XTC – “Respectable Street” (1980)

XTC – “Senses Working Overtime” (1982)

XTC – “Love on a Farmboy’s Wages” (1983)

XTC – “This World Over” (1984)

XTC – “Summer’s Cauldron” (1986)

XTC – “Grass” (1986)

XTC – “Mayor of Simpleton” (1989)

XTC – “The Disappointed” (1992)

XTC – “I’d Like That” (1999)

XTC – “Your Dictionary” (1999)

Jack White – “Sixteen Saltines”

This bizarro clip features kids and teens running amok. And a creepy blue kid. But the song’s pretty classic Jack White and no one’s touching him on blues rock these days. Sorry Black Keys, it’s the truth.

Laura Nyro – “Poverty Train”

I’ve been dragging my feet on Laura Nyro for years (mostly thanks to those overly happy Fifth Dimension covers), but I’m finally opening my ears. She burned so bright, so young — like a Joni Mitchell stealing from gospel music and writing for Motown —  paving the way for Carol King’s solo career several years later.  This one, from Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, is a winner. She’s being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, too.

Phil Ochs – “Jim Dean of Indiana”

It took an episode of “American Masters” on PBS to finally expose me to Phil Ochs. This — a high contrast to Ochs’ political folk work — could be James Dean’s own “Candle in the Wind,” written years before Elton John and Bernie Taupin dreamt up their ode to Marilyn Monroe. It’s all loose biography, but the longing for the lost promise of America’s youth comes through in Ochs’ aching vocal.

7.5/10

Those unfamiliar with Paul Weller and his enormous canon (as most in the U.S. are) could do far worse than Sonik Kicks — an electrifying, dizzying ride through the turmoil of middle-age — as their introduction.

Coming on the heels of two universally lauded albums, 2008′s 22 Dreams and 2011′s Wake Up the Nation, it’s another chapter in Weller’s apparent artistic rebirth. Again on Sonik Kicks, his enthusiasm is strong enough to elevate even weaker tracks to being enjoyable.

Backstory: Weller was the founding member of The Jam and The Style Council, two of the most successful and influential U.K. bands in the post-Beatles world. With The Jam, Weller channeled Kinks-styled suburban tales through punk’s rage, creating a string of classic albums and singles from 1977-82. With The Style Council, he opted for an expensive, neo-soul sound that encapsulated almost everything dated about ’80s music. Solo in the early ’90s, it was for a workmanlike Eric Clapton-lite rock/soul sound.

That’s where he sat for 15 years, mining the same vein in solid but largely uninspiring efforts, until something shook him in 2008 and he started pushing his limits again. On Sonik Kicks, he’s added layers of electronics and Middle Eastern strings to the songs, stretching them out while still largely maintaining their urgency.

The effect is immediate, in “Green”‘s hard, hypnotic pulse, the skyward-looking choruses of “The Attic” and most especially on “That Dangerous Age” — an expert melding of David Bowie doo-wop, Ray Davies’ character sketches and Damon Albarn’s ultra-British delivery into something his own. The surprises are the jazz and lounge-pop of “Study in Blue” and the dark electronica of “Drifters.”

The characters on the album are distinctly British but universal, lamenting the time they’ve wasted getting where they are as middle-aged managers, finding comfort in family life, and Weller focuses his lyrics on the  everyday details of life. The last song, “Be Happy Children,” plays as a father’s prayer.

Sonik Kicks stumbles when Weller loses that focus. There’s little point to the grating “Kling I Klang” or its sonic excess, except perhaps maybe to yell “vicar’s wife” in an exaggerated British accent .

Weller makes up for that early misstep in a brilliant, kaleidoscopic second half that’s as adventurous as anything he’s ever recorded.

3/10

I generally try to stay away from posting bad music on this blog. But sometimes, something is so bad it can’t be ignored.

Madonna’s frightfully vapid, forgettable and meaningless MDNA is such a case.

Though she’s been irrelevant most of the last decade, her Super Bowl show last month was solid and entertaining — a reminder that no matter how far from mainstream consciousness she slips (never that far, really), she’s created some of the most enduring music of the last 30 years.

Easy truth: Madonna’s never been an album artist. She survives and thrives on singles alone. So a hit-and-miss record is to be forgiven, especially at this point in her career, when she’s more focused on making movies and being a celeb mom than music. Let’s also look at this truth: Like A Prayer, Ray of Light and Music were all very good, approaching great, albums.

2007′s Hard Candy was an embarrassment, showing the previously ageless Madonna running too hard to keep up with teenagers bent on clubbing. However, news that she’d re-teamed with William Orbit — who washed her pseudo-spiritual preachings on Ray of Light in captivating, warm electronics — offered more hope for MDNA.

But the end result is a pretty horrid exercise in how not to grow old gracefully. As a friend put it on Facebook, “This new Madonna makes Hard Candy sound like Like A Prayer.”

Madonna’s rarely been deep but she’s often been intriguing. Her musical choices, the juxtaposition of her image to the lyrical message in her songs, her purposeful baiting of mainstream Christianity added life to her songs. But almost always at the heart of those songs was some sort of genuine emotion, no matter how facile.

Even that is forgotten on almost all of MDNA’s songs. Instead, this is a colder, harder exercise in soullessness than Hard Candy. “Girl Gone Wild,” “Some Girls,” and “I Don’t Give A F–” could be sung by anyone. There is absolutely no personality in any of these songs, hammered into glib club mixes with dumber-than-dumb lyrics like:

“When I hear them 808 drums
It’s got me singing
Hey-ey-ey-ey
Like a girl gone wild”

It gets worse. “Gang Bang” is a tuneless revenge song (to ex-husband Guy Ritchie?) about killing a spurned lover. “Bang, bang/Shot you dead/Shot my lover in the head” and “If you’re gonna live like a bitch/ Then die like a bitch” (both repeated numerous times) are the extent of the song’s sentiment.

The only real bright spots here are “Superstar” — a diary of her daily trials and excesses — and “I’m A Sinner,” which are not coincidentally the only times on MDNA when Madonna sounds like Madonna.

The production throughout is slick and thick and sometimes interesting, so there’s some merit there.

Even when you’re Madonna, at some point you have to own up to the fact that you are 53. And that it reeks of desperation to try to hang with 20-year-olds. And that working that hard to seem young — and sounding like you’re working hard — is even more desperate. And that desperation is uncool. And that pop music is about cool and you are no longer cool because you’re too busy pretending to be what you aren’t.

At some point, we realize that you — the queen of calculated trend-setting — are simply following trends in hopes of clinging on.

Paul Weller – “That Dangerous Age”

From the smashing new Sonik Kicks — out today on Haw River’s own Yep Roc Records — here’s a Bowie-meets-Ray Davies bite of glammy storytelling. I think it’s the best single he’s released in 20 years, more of the crazy-great fourth act he’s been enjoying since 2008′s 22 Dreams. Learn more about him and hear more below.

Paul Weller – “The Changingman”

Weller is a living legend in the UK, where he’s had a bazillion hits over the last 35 years — starting with the electric snap of The Jam in 1977 and moving to the sophisticated soul-pop of The Style Council in the 1980s. He’s mostly stuck to bluesy trad-rock since going solo in the early ’90s. This is one of his best songs, worth turning the volume up up up.

Madonna – “Girl Gone Wild”

This is for those of you who hoped her new album, MDNA, might be, you know, listenable. Well, it’s not.

Republica – “From the Rush Hour With Love”

Dismissed as the poor man’s Garbage, I always liked Republica despite the truth in that tag. I think it’s a shame they called it quits after two albums (the second of which was a marked improvement over their nascent debut).

6.5/10

For lovers of power-pop or jangle-pop or indie-pop, the run from 2001-2007 with The Shins and James Mercer was a fruitful period.

Over the course of three albums, Mercer’s band morphed from rambunctious neo-psychedelic upstarts to contemplative adult-indie stalwarts. From Natalie Portman’s lips to the world’s ears, the songs on Oh, Inverted World were indeed life-changing, life-affirming revelations: bouncy, fun, carefully constructed, lyrically obtuse and beautiful. Chutes Too Narrow continued in a lighter, more technicolor vein. And, even at its most staid, Wincing the Night Away reveled in sonic adventure, with a new sense of the studio becoming Mercer’s instrument.

Since then, Mercer worked with Danger Mouse in Broken Bells — a project that this critic would say yielded more impressive results on paper than in finished product. The material robbed Mercer’s songs of their immediacy, too often plunging them into the murky territory Danger Mouse is so known for.

So as Mercer returns with his first Shins project in five years, its with as much hesitation as expectation that some longtime fans greet Port of Morrow.

It’s easily the most produced-sounding Shins record. Even if earlier Shins records sounded polished, they never sounded overly fussy. The skidding keyboards on “Spilt Needles” were bracing, the quicksand beats of “Sea Legs” perfectly illustrating the song’s title.

The pristine mixing and studio polish works best on Port of Morrow‘s wonderful first six tracks, bringing the ginormous hooks to the front and making Mercer’s lyrics — delivered in his yelping tenor — easily discernible.  ”The Rifle’s Spiral” is dressed up in fancy studio gimmickry, with blippy keyboards sharing equal airtime with a taut guitar riff. “Simple Song,” the first single, feels like a melodic rewrite of “Phantom Limb” and “Turn On Me” but is too gorgeous to fault and is the album’s best and most immediate song. “Bait and Switch”‘s boisterous 3 minutes are gussied up with synths running full-tilt in the background.

The production wears thin when the songs do, mostly on the record’s second half. “For a Fool” and “Fall of ’82″ are indistinct, middle-of-the-road pop tunes. The last two tracks are Mercer-by-numbers ballads that turn to snoozers as the record fizzles out. These four songs feel little more than Mercer phoning in that Shins sound.

Port of Morrow is also the most backward-looking Shins album. “Bait and Switch,” “No Way Down” and “September” sound like close cousins to a lot of the material on “Oh, Inverted World.”

Mercer also seems caught up in introspection moreso than before. “Well, I guess it’s only life … we all spend a little while going down the rabbit hole” and “I’ve been down the very road you’re walking now, it doesn’t have to be so dark and lonesome,” he sings on “It’s Only Life.” It’s the most emotionally naked but also the clumsiest song he’s ever recorded, lost in sentiment and coming off as a poor man’s Crowded House. The melody, though, is without fault.

And so Port of Morrow‘s biggest impression is one of mild disappointment. Despite a handful of great tracks, this isn’t the kind of record that should take years to make. It’s certainly not one that’s going to tide fans over for another five years. Still, a world with new James Mercer songs in it is better than a world without.