Changing music criticism.
Small Craft On A Milk Sea feels like it drifts aimlessly for way, way, way too long toward the end. But for the first 40 minutes or so it’s glorious and vicious, a seductive dystopia with a mind of its own. Worthy of a full 10 Listens review for sure.
In this new series, 10 Listens will publish two writers’ takes on a given record, artist, or concept. The exchange will be given as a series of brief essays, with each subsequent one a response to the previous. The inaugural series ends today with final words by Brad Nelson. Read part one, part two, and part three as well.
Maybe the problem is in the approach: As you would have it, B., Swift fails in her approach. She is one-dimensional (I need a shortlist of singer-songwriters that fly in more than one dimension; that peculiar and intense focus I have always called “craft”). She speaks with unearned authority about things beyond her amassed experience (the album is called Speak Now and its whole conceit is stupid, raw, untempered shit better left unsaid). She is relentlessly smug and self-serving. If you draw back to realize the map of Taylor Swift, what you glimpse is some ugly overgrown center of self-involvement, rich webs that spiral upon themselves unto complete dissolution. It is emblematic of a generation with Facebooks. Blogs. Empathy in inadequate sums. No music can sustain this weight.
But I can’t think of Swift as a singer-songwriter. She would have me think that, what with her acoustic guitar and how on this record she drags her mouth around exclusively confessional syllables. But she writes pop music; moreover she initially emerged as a writer of Nashville pop. In this realm, artist and audience take a perverse joy out of limited dimensional migration. I do too; I don’t expect anything beyond this because genre doesn’t cater to outsized expectations. Continue reading ‘Disagree to Agree: Taylor Swift’s Speak Now, Pt. 4′
Taylor Swift is basically a goldendoodle.
In this new series, 10 Listens will publish two writers’ takes on a given record, artist, or concept. The exchange will be given as a series of brief essays, with each subsequent one a response to the previous. Today, B Michael responds to Brad Nelson’s response to his original post.
I do not disagree: Taylor Swift’s main songwriting strength is the ability to pick out one, two, or three details in a situation or story; she bludgeons you about the head, neck, and ears with her limited observational palette until you’ve mistaken detail for depth. Shining up a mirror really good doesn’t provide you with a singular biographer. At the most basic level, it’s still you and your experiences that are what allows you to parse and express your idea of you and your experiences. And I’m saying that Taylor Swift isn’t even a particularly well-polished mirror. She’s more like one of those pitted, surface-blasted plastic mirrors you’d find at a garage sale or broken into pieces in an alley.
Saying that something isn’t deep has already lodged within it the rejoinder that you’re not trying hard enough. It’s like, Oh, you don’t get the latest Almodóvar film? It’s like cutting the cheese in an Olympian’s hyperbaric chamber. Sorry…
Continue reading ‘Disagree to Agree: Taylor Swift’s Speak Now, Pt. 3′
Not mentioning the past when reviewing this EP is impossible, so I’ll just out-and-out say it: this EP is like having an old college roommate visit you years after you lived together. Blake Schwarzenbach is back in a 3-piece punk band. It could be that simple for me. I could easily end my review there and a lot of people would understand exactly what I am talking about. So, for those of you that understand, I’m cool with you stopping here and taking this for the fan-obsessed review it should be.
As for the rest of you– the non-Jawbreaker fans or those not in the know entirely– this is a four-song EP. And it’s great. Really great. The rest of my rambling aside, know that I think this EP is exactly the kind of jumpstart I needed to get back in the grind of reviewing albums. Power chords, simple drumming and basslines, and bitter but not overly angry lyrics make this a worthy listen 10 times over. These four songs are an embodiment of failure and understanding. To prove it, let’s break it open song by song. Continue reading ‘Forgetters: Forgetters EP’
In this new series, 10 Listens will publish two writers’ takes on a given record, artist, or concept. The exchange will be given as a series of brief essays, with each subsequent one a response to the previous. Today, Brad Nelson responds to yesterday’s post.
There is nothing I do better than revenge.
Taylor Swift is mean.
Taylor Swift is also nice, especially when nice things happen to her. Or when more obscure pleasures, perhaps unrealized, announce themselves—the exact chemistry of a night light or a green eye, or what tethers 2 a.m. to anxiety.
Continue reading ‘Disagree to Agree: Taylor Swift’s Speak Now, Pt. 2′
In this new series, 10 Listens will publish two writers’ takes on a given record, artist, or concept. The exchange will be given as a series of brief essays, with each subsequent one a response to the previous. Today, B Michael Payne leads off with his initial take on Taylor Swift’s Speak Now.
It’s the sort of thing we might not ever agree on, so I’ll lead with the fact that I don’t really care for how Taylor Swift’s Speak Now sounds. If I had to elaborate, or if you wanted me to “say more,” I would say that I somewhat dislike the music. But it’s more like I just don’t deign to notice it.
It’s much more interesting to me, what she says and what she says means. Continue reading ‘Disagree to Agree: Taylor Swift’s Speak Now, Pt. 1′
The voice that stars in Cotton Jones’ lovely Tall Hours In The Glowstream sounds like he was born in a small American town about 60 years ago. He was raised there until he turned 18, when he and his high school sweetheart moved out to a cabin at the edge of the Western Pennsylvania wilderness. They lived happily for a few years, but then his young wife died after a brief and mysterious illness. He never remarried. He just kept living alone in that cabin- hunting, fishing, chopping wood, praying, listening to the AM radio, driving his truck 20 miles to the nearest town once a week to buy whatever goods that nature couldn’t provide. He was happy to live the rest of his days as a hermit, not like some crazy Luddite Unabomber or anything, just an old-fashioned guy who savored his solitude.
Continue reading ‘Cotton Jones: Tall Hours In The Glowstream’
Making something absolutely new, something purely next-level is a classic struggle for every sort of artist. Accordingly, much of the world of indie rock is currently in part of a cycle that every artistic medium eventually gets hit with: an eager embrasure and fetishization of all things weird and exotic. What may start as a well-intentioned foray into an entirely foreign sonic set often ends up sounding alienating to many (assuming that wasn’t the original intention). These artists are actually hailed as geniuses by the critical community on a daily basis while I, confused, retreat to the familiar, human tropes of garage rock.
So what about me? I like lots of different things! I want to appreciate the exotic and the psychedelic! Just give me something concrete to hang on to – tell me you’re a human being and I promise I’ll listen. I think Suckers heard my distress call. Continue reading ‘Suckers: Wild Smile’
When I heard that The Old 97’s were releasing a 2-Volume album, I was secretly hoping it would be a more-epic-than-epic Use Your Illusion-style project, packed with 9-minute power ballads and maybe a couple of profanity-riddled rants against the jerk-offs in the music press. But basically, they just recorded a bunch of really good country-rock songs in a short period and wanted to spread them out over a few months. Not that I’m complaining, of course. This band is so great that listening to any given Old 97’s album means you’re guessing which tracks will end up on their next Greatest Hits compilation. On The Grand Theatre, Volume One, the Greatest Hits sound like “The Grand Theatre,” “Every Night Is Friday Night (Without You),” “Champaign, Illinois,” and “A State of Texas,” which I hope will make an appearance on the upcoming season of Friday Night Lights. The rest of the songs are still really good (except perhaps “Please Hold On While The Train Is Moving,” which is as silly as its title suggests). The Johnny Cash-like “You Were Born To Be In Battle,” sung by bassist Murry Hammond, really stands out. So does Rhett Miller’s whispering on “Let The Whiskey Take The Reins.” And the closer, the quietly dark “Beauty Marks,” is a fantastic teaser for Volume Two, seducing me and leaving me wanting so much more. I’m certainly going to listen to this album a bunch of times, but I feel like doing a full review is unnecessary. It’s an Old 97’s album. It’s great. Listen to it already.
As Epic begins, a simple minor-key acoustic guitar riff mopes along while the singer sighs: “To say the things I want to say to you would be a crime/ to admit I’m still in love with you after all this time.” Sure, the melody flows nicely, and her voice has an unmistakable allure- bold and confident but not showy, with a subtle cutting edge. But in spite of these attributes, it’s hard to hear those first few bars without thinking Christ, not another humorless, heartsick, self-pitying folk singer.
Then at the end of that first verse, the singer pulls off a neat trick. She tells her ex that, instead of admitting her shameful, lingering feelings, she’d rather let that old flame “seduce me with your charms until I’m drunk on them/ go home and drink in bed/ and never let myself be in love like that again.” It’s not so much the lyrics that get me, but the way she sings them. That line goes on much longer than the previous phrases, to the point that she practically sounds out of breath by the end, and all the while the melody sinks lower and lower until it seems to hit rock bottom. In other words, she takes a cliched sentiment but finds a clever way to mimic the seemingly endless downward spiral of an unhealthy on-again/off-again romance. As a whole, the song is not extraordinary, but that aforementioned moment, along with that gorgeous voice, convinced me to give the rest of Epic a chance. And I’m glad I did.