Wednesday, December 28, 2011

40 Songs, 40 Days (2011 Edition), Day Thirty Four: Punk Rock Princess by Something Corporate

Amongst the reasons to break up a band. 'I have leukemia'
is pretty high up there...
I usually don't have much respect for emocore bands....but there's something about Something Corporate that has always attracted me. To the best of my knowledge, it's the only band that I turned the Penguin onto, and it's one whose finiteness is part of its charm.

I first discovered the band when I was sorting through a collection of holiday themed songs I had downloaded. In amongst the dross that I have long since forgotten was 'Forget December,' the band's paen to acknowledging that Christmas cheer doesn't heal familial dysfunction...and I loved the dark, moody composition, as well as the expressive vocals of Andrew McMahon. Unlike the other emocore bands I have heard, whose vocalists seem to be affecting their angst, McMahon seems thoroughly sincere. It helps, of course, that some of SC's songs take joy in a life that all their peers seem incapable of; I defy anyone to listen to, "I Woke Up In A Car," or "She Paints Me Blue" and not be a lil' uplifted by the nugget of hope McMahon's vocals hold out.

The band only put out three albums and an EP before going on a hiatus. Initially that hiatus was supposed to be temporary so McMahon and the other band members could explore other avenues. Hell, McMahon formed his own side project, Jack's Manniquin, that...well, I wasn't as thrilled with...and then was diagnosed with leukemia. This made the hiatus permanent, although in light of McMahon's remission the band has recently reunited to tour in support of a greatest hits album.

"Punk Rock Princess" is the first single off their first major release, Leaving Through The Window, and it's one of my favorite tracks of theirs. At its core it's a natural descendant of those silly pop singles where a guy or a girl (or both in duet form) pledge his or her love to the romantic interest of their choice...only this is Love In The Oughts, which means that this star-struck teen's perception of puppy love has been filtered through the dirty glass of a post-modern world...so he's not pledging to hold her hand and buy her an ice-cream soda; he's pledging to let her 'think him whole' and to be her 'Garage Band King.' And throughout all this, he's not even sure this is the love of his life--he's accepting, even looking for, things missing in her that he can't replace. He's accepting that this is not going to be forever, that her very nature assures that the relationship won't last, so all he wants is to be her, ummmm, heroin....

And I have to admit--I personally don't think that this song would hit me so hard if it wasn't for the work of both drummer Brian Ireland and guitarist Josh Partington. The licks these two put down fills out the song, amplifying the desperation in McMahon's vocals. I like to imagine the rhythm created by those two are McMahon's heartbeat as he's confessing his attraction to the object of his affection, ready to be shot down even after he assures her he is not expecting more than a brief respite from their respective loneliness.

I think it's telling that while there are one or two songs from Jack's Manniquin that I tolerate, even like, I have never had the sheer mania for that later project that I have for Something Corporate. But then, even with McMahon promising a fourth album sometime soon out of nostalgia, I kind of wonder if Something Corporate is better served by just being a band that existed for three years, put out a consistently great body of work, and then disappeared forever.

Here is the official video....
 

Monday, December 26, 2011

40 Songs, 40 Days (2011 Edition), Day Thirty Three: Chantilly Lace by The Big Bopper

"Auto-what?"
Yes, that song...

There's a reason why this song has endured for so long. I've talked in the past about certain songs that have been so imprinted by their originators, and this is one of them. The way the man originally known as J.P. Richardson keeps sliding between spoken word, conventional singing, and idiosyncratic shouts and noises is very unique in and of itself. Sure, you could argue that all The Bopper was doing was borrowing from then-peers such as Little Richard, but I think what makes this song endure is the simple exuberance in his voice. Listening to it now, I get the impression that this is a guy who was loved being up on stage acting like a goofball--he was apparently a ham in all the best possible ways, someone who gave it his all whether on a record or live.

And the other great thing about this pop song--unlike the so-called pop that we endure on stations such as 'the Now' or Z100, which just goes on and on, twisting itself into all sorts of permutations in an effort to convince you that the thin musical concept it's presenting is worth four or five minutes of your time, this song is done after two minutes. And that's all it deserves; at its core, this is a song about a girl the Bopper is going out with tonight that, you know, he thinks is swell. It's a very basic concept to grab, and the Bopper presents it, let it wiggle a bit for our enjoyment, and ushers it off stage. That's all pop music needs to be. It's the reason I believe, as many pop music aficionados do, that the ideal length for any pop song should be three minutes. I shudder to think what Richardson would have produced in this landscape of autotune and over-the-top epicness; it would most likely be so bloated that I wouldn't be able to stand it.

As it is, this is a little bite size nuggest of pop rock, and that's all it needs to be.

Here's the video!

Saturday, December 24, 2011

40 Songs, 40 Days (2011 Edition), Day Thirty-Two: Last Christmas by Idiot Glee

"Do I look out of focus to you?"
Here it is, Christmas Eve, and I've exceeded thirty songs this year...but it doesn't look like I will complete the goal of forty. It's enough for me to be encouraged to embark on a 2012 cycle, and I will once again add the shortfall to the total. I will conquer this thing yet...

And here's the third of our Christmas Novelty Songs--hell, it's a cover of a Christmas Novelty Song that I cited in my last entry as The Last Great Perennial Christmas Single.

Idiot Glee is from Kentucky, and are apparently the alter-ego of James Friley. Idiot Glee has also apparently made it a habit to produce a Christmas covers EP ever year; this rendition of the Wham! UK cover is from their first, An Idiot Glee Christmas. The female vocalist you hear is Ashley Crawford...and I guess as a cover, it's okay. It really doesn't do much to make it stand out. There is the sleigh bells, the Casiotone synth does give it a strange, swirly feel that's at turns very open and very claustrophobic, and Crawford's vocals have an odd quality all their own--when the male vocals come in for harmonic support, they're very startling...and to be fair, they also serve to give the rendition a slim golden chain-like anchor to that original 1980's version.

I don't know what else to say. As I was saying to a friend yesterday, the biggest reason who so many people (you know, like me) have grown to loathe Christmas music is that there are these three dozen or so songs that have been ossified into an Acceptable Holiday Canon...and musicians have spent literally decades just picking from this Canon and reworking them with only minimal exertion of creativity. And that's what Mr. Friley has done.

Incidentally, the EP is still available for a dollar here.

Sorry our little sidetrip into Christmas Music didn't end on a more epic note...but maybe next year....

No video for this one...but here's Mr. Friley and Ela Orleans from the same EP collaborating on the 'delightful' Christmas paen to Date Rape, "Baby It's Cold Outside."

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

40 Songs, 40 Days (2011 Edition), Day Thirty One: Without You by Hey Monday

When your lead singer's previous band was named after her
middle name....well, you know who wears the pants in
this one, right?
Hey, look!  I managed to break thirty this year!  There might be hope left after all....

...and we're back to the Holiday Novelty Song--well, kinda. Unlike our last dip into this pool, which tried to make its way onto the perennial Holidays Playlist by doing a paen to an end-of-the-year festival that isn't Christmas, this one tries to crack that list by giving us a song that makes Christmas incidental.

And make no bones about it--in the last handful of years, there's a lot of these Christmas-Songs-That-Aren't, usually presented by these pop rock bands that sprung up in the wake of the Disney-sponsored Tweener-pop revolution. These are songs that are for all extents just plain ol' songs addressing the usual pop music themes--I Miss My Significant Other; I Love My Significant Other; I Wish To Have Physical Intercourse With My Significant Other; I Am Going To Use Metaphor To Describe An Incident of Physical Intercourse With My Significant Other--and sprinkles in references to mistletoe and Christmas decorations and caroling to convince us that yes, this is a Christmas song. Now granted, this mode of attack has produced successes in the past--an argument can be made that the Last Great Perennial Holiday Single was 'Last Christmas,' which is the prototype for all these songs, The Killers have made a cottage industry out of doing these strange and dark Christmas singles that seem more about mayhem than the holidays, and one of my favorites songs from the emocore band Something Corporate is 'Forget December.' But sometimes you get, well, 'Without You.'

There are too many jokes I could make about this photo,
and all of them would be inappropriately rude...
Hey Monday, the Florida band that has given us 'Without You' has only been around since 2008, have only been recording since last year and boy, do they want to be Paramore badly. Just like Paramore, Hey Monday builds its image around its lead singer and guitarist, Cassadee Pope. And Pope is striving so hard to be a clone of Hayley Williams, it's not even funny....except that her attempts to fashion her image thusly has resulted in her coming off more Ashley Simpson (remember how she liked to proclaim that she was a 'rock chick' during that brief period when pop culture treated her singing aspirations seriously?) than Williams, or Avril Lavinge, or any of a dozen pop-rockettes that have come down the pike. If anything, Pope is a lumpen Plasticine statuette of a pop punk diva, something kids draw in their art classes when asked to draw a rock band.

As for the band itself....in spite of their posturings (which includes the self-conscious 'radical' misspellings of the band members' names, and the weird fetishization of Pope's tattoos by their fans), Hey Monday comes off as the sort of band that's featured on a Disney Channel sitcom because, you know, Paramore rocks too hard.

'Without You' is from an entire EP of Christmas songs called, imaginatively, The Christmas EP. And the fascinating thing? There are four songs. One is a cover of 'O Holy Night.' Of the three originals, only one ('Mixtape For Christmas') bothers to mention Christmas or anything Christmas-y in the title. And those originals use Christmas not as an inspiration, but as a backdrop. Take the references to snow and mistletoe out of 'Without You,' and you still have a pop song that's perfectly workable. And there's something sad about that. I may be a pretty cynical bastard when it comes to Christmas, but at least I know that when I sit down to watch something yule-ish, I want it to actually have a whiff of the Season to it. Listening to this, all I can think of is that Pope wants to be Hayley Williams, and she wants to have her generation's version of 'Last Christmas' under her belt. And she fails on both counts.

Every year I see more and more of these kind of songs. And it saddens me because I see it as a further indication that in most people's mind Christmas has drifted so far away from the things it was supposed to represent and more about the trappings. And I can't see this trend stopping in the future.

Here's the song....


Wednesday, December 14, 2011

40 Songs, 40 Days, Day Thirty: Flash Gordon Theme by Tenacious D

I've discussed the idea of the joke band that found themselves being larger than the joke they started telling--I've covered it pretty extensively when I talked about The Zambonis--and today, we're going to be talking about a joke band whose largeness is probably only exceeded by Spinal Tap...Tenancious D.

And don't argue about it--as originally conceived by Jack Black and Kyle Gans, Tenacious D was meant as a joke. To be more precise, the band was a hobby until the duo decided to use it as the central conceit of a series of short films they made for HBO back in 1999. Those short films led to them supporting bigger acts on the road, which led to them cutting their first album, which led to their Top Ten hit 'Tribute,' which led to them actually making a movie....which thankfully did poorly (and deservedly so), thus stopping the band from becoming world leaders or something. They may very well be the most successful joke band in recent memory.

This cover of the classic Queen theme to the campy as all Hell movie is...well, it's delivered pretty straight, and to be fair Queen is tailor made to Black's overdramatic, bombastic vocals, even if the single acoustic guitar acoustic is rather strange. But hearing this live rendition makes me wonder if Black and Gans are now at that point in their musical career that Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean were at when I wrote that earlier entry, that point where they want people to know that they can write and perform, you know, actual songs and not just take-offs and parodies. This might very well be why that third album, referred to at different times as Tenacious 3-D or Rise of The Pheonix has been in limbo for so long. Are Black and Gans unsure about whether they want to continue down the jokey high-concept path that gave them the most success or try to mature a bit and find new paths to explore.

Of course, it could just be that the two thought the Queen song was kick ass. It wouldn't surprise me if that was all it was.

Anyway, this is not the live version I have on my Sansa Disk...but it's still a cool rendition that slides ever-so-easily into one of my favorite songs of theirs, 'Wonderboy'....

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

40 Songs, 40 Days, Day Twenty Nine: Hanukkah Hey Ya! by Smooth-E

Blame This Guy...
And as I try to race to the end to minimize the amount of bleed over for 2012...our first Holiday Novelty Song.

The Holiday Novelty Song has a long and storied history--after all, what is 'Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer' or 'Frosty The Snowman' but a holiday novelty song that has drifted into the realm of The Standard? Of course, what fascinates me are those novelty songs that become perennials but never quite break through to Standard status; here in New York, every Christmas time we are tormented with repeated playings of 'Dominick The Christmas Donkey,' the saga of the donkey Santa uses to bring toys to the children of Italy sung by Lou Monte but apparently never getting much traction outside of the tri-state area.

To be honest, it is amazing to me how many of these songs do end up clawing their way into the playlists of lazy radio stations everywhere. Every year we get dozens, if not hundreds of songs from various artists bidding for the same sort of immortality Frosty and Rudolph and That Reindeer That Ran Over Grandma have achieved...and for every 'Last Christmas' or 'Merry Christmas, Baby (Please Come Home)' or 'All I Want For Christmas Is You,' there are dozens which don't make it.

Which I guess brings us to Eric Schwartz, a.k.a. Smooth-E, an Oakland native who tries with this song to break into that hallowed holiday playlist by taking The Adam Sandler Road. Sandler guaranteed himself Holiday Novelty Immortality by sidestepping the overexposed Christmas and writing his HNS about Hanukkah. Actually, he cemented it by writing about Hannukkah three times over. And this prompted a whole group of other artists to do a little 'me, too' creating their own paens to Other Holidays That Take Place Around Christmas. As I write this, there's one artist who has actually produced an EP of Atheist Christmas Songs...no lie.

Not surprisingly, the biggest group of alternative HNS's are about the Festival of Lights, and to be fair, some of them are pretty good.

Not this one.

Mr. Schwartz, in creating his Hanukkah-themed parody of Outkast's smash hit of several years ago, falls into one of the pitfalls of the Novelty Song--namely, mistaking stereotyping for celebrating. Even thought Schwartz at one point proclaims 'Oi is just Yo backwards,' he brings nothing more to the table but a series of surface impressions of what Hanukkah is--hey, look! Menorahs! Driedels! Matzoh Balls! Latkes!'...and ending with the whole 'hey, we get eight nights of presents compared to you guys' getting one'...a point made better by, among other people, Adam Sandler in the songs that started this all.

Here is the video, which is just as cheap and surface as the song itself (Hey, look! These jews are accountants!). My apologies...