Alternative Mind Is A Popular Mind
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Before I begin, two things:
1) Björk! (She gets in everywhere round here, obviously!)
2) I am, in fact, one of those lazy cretins who can’t be bothered to tag their iTunes content properly, so this obviously means that half of my library is rather ironically tagged as “Alternative” in genre.
I am aware that some of the more didactic members of this site take pride in their music, making sure they’re all nice, spruce and presentable before becoming tallies on their profile, much like parents sending their kids to school. Which is perfectly fine; Lord only knows that the Internet was designed with OCG (Obsessive Compulsive Geekery) in mind. Is it “folk”, “alt-folk”, “ambient-folk”, “hillbilly-folk”, “space-folk”, “Cali-folk”, “strictly-don’t-give-a-folk”… a lot of the time, artists can be the progenitors of a new sound and find it difficult not only to branch out of the said personalised stable, but find it borderline irritable to be pigeonholed so coolly. Most often than not, though, this whole genre-tagging malarkey can strike me as trivial up to a point, seeing as most popular music now prides itself in its ability to refute any classification.
And if Santogold’s debut release cannot entirely assume such a description, then it still does all it can to put itself into contention as one of the most broad-sweepingly brilliant debuts this year has seen. However, I have already waxed lyrical about the lovely Miss Santi White, so whilst Santogold still gets a shout here, I’d like to divert some praise to Cadence Weapon, and his similarly eclectic release, Afterparty Babies. Both White and Weapon’s albums complement each other in that they do well to combine elements of hip-hop, rock and electro-dance music to bring socially informed dance tracks, as well as laying down some savage rhymes as a framework. Whilst White covers the bases via ska punk homage, Weapon dives straight in to satirical diatribes of mall girls, frat boys and disillusioned youth in general with a funky mix of old-school guitar riffs and dirty electro synths that complement the intelligence behind his rhymes and delivery (Getting Dumb in particular is practically waiting to explode). Sounding like a reverential cross between Kanye West and Beastie Boys, its always refreshing to listen to a rap artist who doesn’t just settle for glorifying pimps, ho’s and berettas, however well produced the whole shebang can be.
There’s no denying that being the talented producer has become more of a celebrity-enhancing feature as the decades go by. Yes, the likes of George Martin and Brian Eno have been celebrated for as many years as their work was been released, but as Timbaland and Mark Ronson have proved, showbiz success and tabloid exposure can be attained for the toiling musicians and arrangers also. So far this year, we’ve had the likes of Chris Brown, Ne-Yo and Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic showcase/inflict their singing/songwriting/production wares on a listenership that rapaciously swallows their superficially flashy-if-emotionally vacant arrangements (I’ll give props to Taio Cruz, who manages to escape the smug lasciviousness inherent with multi-hyphenates quite respectfully). In any event, it should come as no surprise that one of my favourite albums of the year thus far is one such production-hype event. It’s a cover album, armed with one of the best producers in today’s music world with a Hollywood starlet front-and-centre barbed with some very special guests.
Quite fabulously though, Scarlett Johansson’s collaboration with Dave Sitek and tribute to the music of Tom Waits, Anywhere I Lay My Head, featuring alumni from Sitek’s TV on the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’s and David Bowie himself, isn’t nearly as vacuous and sonically turgid as that description would have you believe. Rather it is a beguiling journey into a dark soundscape filled with all kinds of rough-hewn sonic textures, Sitek investing Waits’ sinister industrial arrangements with more organic instrumentation that pays fine reverence to the strong melodies beneath the progenitor’s often indecipherable work. Scarlett manages to not embarrass herself either, embracing the fact that she is little more than an important cog in a twisted mechanism and delivering a sultrily thin vocal enhanced by its poignant displacement within Sitek’s fine work. Standouts on this remarkable LP include Falling Down, with the fabled Bowie on equally enchanting back-up, and I Wish I Was In New Orleans, featuring Scarlett sounding like a jaded pixie whose traded her music box for an empty absinthe bottle.
Though if Johansson’s voice lost amidst Sitek’s woozy ambiguousness is enough to disturb you (in that good way, obviously!), you’d do well to approach Portishead’s long awaited Third album with immense caution. Of course, after an eleven-year gap between this and the last LP, you’d be forgiven for throwing caution to the wind and revisiting their unique brand of existential despair. For many fans, it proved as lovely a homecoming as could ever be imagined; to hear Beth Gibbons still singing like a ravaged angel over tensely mechanised rhythm sections and overbearing bass lines with nary a ray of light to be seen was as sublimely bleak as ever before. Tracks like
Machine Gun, its abusive sampling jarring at first but irrevocably powerful on later listens, and We Carry On, not so much a slow burner as a destructive bass-heavy avalanche, in particular are clear in presenting the band’s unforgiving emotional outlook; the world’s gotten darker, and they’ve adapted accordingly.Another album blinkered with sadness and yet tempered with undeniable hope is the return of Jason Pierce’s Spiritualized, Songs in A&E. Inspired by dire experiences from his suffering pneumonia in 2005, the subject matter on the songs is undeniably bleak; songs with titles such as
Borrowed Your Gun were never going to be self-effacing ditties, were they? However, by going the way of belligerent acousticisms and romantic string arrangements (often to be heard in saintly interludes peppered throughout the album), Pierce and company have done well to make sure that every note is felt without over-egging the work with conventional sentimentality, with Pierce’s vocals in particular sounding as if he’s still playing a gig with a drip inside his arm. Album closer Goodnight, Goodnight and Soul On Fire are standouts on a welcome return that is more moving than most alt-rock outfits can dare to be right now.Insofact, rock music could do well to spread a little humility amidst the buoyant noise these days. This is where I have to give honourable mentions to electro-scamps Hot Chip, reverb-masters British Sea Power and cute-collegiates Vampire Weekend, who for reasons of time and space, have all churned out some worthwhile listenees that I haven’t been able to divulge in further. And before I bid adieu for Part Three, I have to express my utmost, toe-curling abhorrence for Fall Out Boy’s version of Beat It… words cannot describe!! Thank Christ, Part Three promises some laidback loveliness!
xxx
