Celine Dion-You Shook Me All Night Long (live) ; The Cults-Go Outside/You Know What I Mean; The Ronettes-He Did It

I'm almost done with a great book from the 33 1/3 book series. This is a series for serious music nerds. Each book is written on a "classic" album; it's either an in-depth account of the record, or a creative piece inspired by it. The unique aspect of the book I'm reading is that it's the only entry in the series that is dedicated to an album that the author totally hates.

The book is called Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, and the thing that makes it so great is that he puts his (and our) taste on trial. How much of taste is actually aesthetic taste, and how much of it is conforming to, or, at least in our minds, subverting the taste of "the herd"? He talks about philosophy, economics, Dion's place in Canada's psyche, and how taste often comes down to distinction: a way of distinguishing yourself from people that you consider to be beneath (or above) you.

If I'm honest with myself, I would say that I'm definitely a "snob" when it comes to music, books, film, etc. But what does that mean? I know that when I listen to certain music it moves me to a much greater extent than other music, but how much of my taste is at least to a certain extent dictated by my wanting to distinguish myself from others? For instance, why do I hate Train so much? The fact that they sound uninspired, premeditated, disingenuous, and capable of effectively substituting for Valium has to be part of it, but why is the feeling so visceral? I MUST BE GETTING SOMETHING OUT OF THAT HATE. I need some musical therapy, obviously.

This first video might be Celine at her worst. This performance wasn't even mentioned in the book, but it was branded in my mind like a mass slaughter of Teddy Ruxpin dolls witnessed by an overly sentimental five-year-old. It's. Just. SO BAD. I blame it more on the people who told her that this would be a cool thing to do than on her. But still! The dichotomy that is Dione is perfectly illustrated by the likes and dislikes: a very high number that is split almost perfectly down the middle. Even the top two comments are defensive reactions to the inevitable vitriol that is spewed in the comments below.

The Cults are viewed by some as a "guilty pleasure" (a concept which is also discussed in this book). I wouldn't go so far as to label them that. They actually do a really good job of emulating 60s girl groups. My only issue is that in the live clips I've seen, the lead singer uses effects on her vocals, instead of trying to approximate the studio versions with the creative use of background singers. Not a huge complaint, because her voice is still pretty good.

The "Go Outside" video is actually a bit creepy. Superimposing yourself into Jonestown footage is interesting, but almost a little uncomfortable. Good song, though. "You Know What I Mean" perfectly captures the 50s and 60s girl group sound and feel. Speaking of which, here is "He Did It," one of my favorite Ronettes songs. The band kicks so much ass, and has to in order to keep up with Ronnie Spector's absolute monster of a voice.

Casual Sax? (Tim Capello-I Still Believe/Eleanor Friedberger-My Mistakes/Curtis Mayfield-Little Child Runnin' Wild)

The saxophone. One of the most (unfairly?) maligned instruments in music. The root of its issues seems to be a lack of subtlety. While many other instruments lend themselves to fitting in with a group, the saxophone often comes across as a bit over the top-like an over-sized, gaudy ring. Granted, I'm not an expert on sax (baha, first of many too-easy-to-pass-up puns in this post), but the majority of times I hear the saxophone, it's about as subtle as twenty-two inch rims on a Toyota Celica. I'm just gonna keep going with these comparisons. AS SUBTLE AS RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY. No, that's ironic. No, that just sucks. Never mind. Damn you, Alanis.

The first video I'll post is a classic, but mostly for the wrong reasons. This is an example of bad sax. Some people say that bad sax is better than no sax at all (I can't stop-what's wrong with me?), but I'm not sure with this one. Just eight seconds in, it sounds like someone's blowing their nose through the saxophone. Then if you freeze the video at exactly 1:15, you'll see everything that's wrong with this song. You should not be a shirtless, lathered up with body oil, gyrating professional wrestler look-alike while playing the saxophone. It just doesn't seem right. You can even see Jason Patric turn to Corey Haim right afterwards and give him a look like, "Can you believe this guy? Oh well, I'm just here to hit on Jami Gertz anyway!" Lost Boys is a great 80s movie, though. NOTE: TRAGICALLY, I CAN'T EMBED THE VISUAL PORTION OF THIS VIDEO. JUST GO TO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdaaGlyu7EQ TO CHECK IT OUT. TRUST ME, IT'S WORTH IT.

Now on to what I consider to be good sax. The kind of sax you won't hear in Panera Bread. First up is the song "My Mistakes" by Eleanor Friedberger. This is Friedberger's first solo album-she's done a few albums with her brother as The Fiery Furnaces. The Fiery Furnaces are good, but a bit hit or miss. "My Mistakes" is a catchy song, with a great video. The song sounds almost desperately upbeat, and I think the lyrics and video reflect that. I really love the sax solo at the end, because it saves the song from getting monotonous, and is exuberant without crossing over into the d****erzone (that didn't say danger).

Curtis Mayfield was just amazing, and of course his music would have great saxophone in it. It does a "call and response" with many of the lines in "Little Child Runnin' Wild," and adds to the tension and feel of the song. Cool can be a corny word, but when the alternative for saxophone is so obtrusive and lame, it's actually the perfect word.

Yamantaka//Sonic Titan-Queens

There are many wonderful aspects of the holiday season. Family, food, and time to just take a breath and reflect on all the things I'm sometimes too preoccupied to appreciate during the year. After a busy year of work and stress, it's great to refuel for a few days, before the spring semester starts and it all gets rolling again.

Of course, there is a dark side to the holiday season. A beast that haunts me throughout the year, but only really unfurls its poisonous talons between Thanksgiving and Christmas. During the year I try to avoid the beast using a variety of methods. I turn potentially forty minute trips to Safeway into five minute sprints. I go straight to the staples of cereal, milk, oj, and three to five tv dinners, eschewing extraneous items that might require any real time spent in the midst of all the other harried customers.

I also avoid this beast by shopping at one clothing store: a fast, cheap, and easy to navigate store that allows me to quickly find the clothes that appeal to my rather limited fashion sense. Sometimes this store is in a mall, and if it is, I find out ahead of time what sector it is in. If it's closest to Macy's, I walk through Macy's and avoid all unnecessary contact with the beast.

The beast, if you haven't figured out already, is the shopper. The most dangerous species of the beast is the mall shopper, and hunting season for the mall shopper is between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Oftentimes the beast is dragging two to three of their young along, occasionally giving them food, drink, or early presents to ensure servitude. The beast doesn't necessarily look threatening; on the contrary, the beast moves in a slow, loping fashion that belies their innately aggressive nature. It is only when the mall shoppers spot potential prey, be it an Old Navy fleece on a sale rack, or a massage chair at Brookstone, that they spring to life and pounce.

The mall shopper tends to travel in packs, and during the holidays these packs turn into huge blobs of bag-lugging, sale-spotting predators. I am unnerved by the mall shopper throughout the year, but during this time I am deathly afraid of them. I simply cannot avoid walking through the mall, because I have to buy presents for so many people. I end up jetting through the mall like a Secret Service agent who's just received a call over the walkie talkie about an impending attempt on the president's life. I weave in and out of the crowds, making myself as skinny and invisible as possible. Even if I'm tempted by a Jamba Juice or Chick Fil-A restaurant, I press on, knowing that the longer I'm at the mall, the greater the possibility that I, too, will fall prey to the dreaded shopping mall beast.

I don't know the band Yamantaka // Sonic Titan. I don't even know if it's one band, or some sort of collaborative deal. I heard that the album was supposed to be good, and so I listened to this song as a sample. This song rules (1:31 RAWK), and I hope the rest of the album does, too. Check out the album cover! Cool album cover.

Ford and Lopatin-World of Regret/Emergency Room; Devo-Satisfaction/Mongoloid

Every once in a while, a linguistic mini-revolution takes place. An uprising which entails the "taking back" of a derogatory term, in which the unfairly maligned subgroup will transfom the term from a negative one into a positive one. Recently I've seen the word "nerd" being worn more as a badge of honor than the shameful signpost of social awkwardness and isolation it represented when I was a kid.

Maybe it's due to famous nerds, such as Mo Rocca or Bill Gates, who have either made nerdy kinda cool, or become rich enough to buy the rights to every dictionary on the planet and simply change the definition. Maybe it's because getting into college is so competitive these days, and some kids have just been forced into nerd status in order to keep up with the herd (the nerd herd, that is).

Whatever it is, I for one am glad that nerds are in. I always picture Michael Douglas' iconic scene from Wall Street, when he, in essence, changes the connotation of the word greed from negative to positive. The point is, ladies and gentleman, that nerds, for lack of a better word, are good. Nerds are right, nerds work. Nerds clarify, cut through, and capture the essence of the nerdy spirit. Nerds, in all of their forms; music nerds, art nerds, reading nerds, video game nerds, film nerds, math nerds, science nerds. And nerds, you mark my words, will not only save Nerdcorp, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much. (cue nerd applause)

The thing that's cool about being a nerd is it implies that there is a passion for something. Be it music, art, books, film, airplanes, whatever. It implies not being a slug, sitting on the couch, and passively watching the world go by. By definition, almost, it entails throwing oneself into an endeavor wholeheartedly. And that's how people get good at stuff. At least according to that Outliers book by Malcolm Gladwell. Just get started early, cause 10,000 hours in nerdland is still a lot of hours.

Ford & Lopatin are two dudes who make nerdy-sounding electronic music that is heavily influenced by Gary Neuman, Kraftwerk, and other "older" electronic music acts. Their album Channel Pressure is really great. "World of Regret" and "Emergency Room" are both catchy, and "World of Regret" has an amazingly corny video.

Devo will certainly go down in the Nerd Hall of Fame. Their album Are We Not Men?: We Are Devo is almost impeccable. Jagged, paranoid sounding, with great instrumentation, lyrics, and overall concept. Their cover of "Satisfaction" is amazing (check out the perfection at 1:49), and if "Mongoloid" began and ended with that evil bass line, it would be a classic. The whole song is great, though.

Nero-Reaching Out/Hall & Oates-Out of Touch/De La Soul-Say No Go/Hall & Oates-I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)

Age-wise, I'm right on the border in terms of whether my largest source of nostalgia should be drawn from the 80s or the 90s. However, I turned 13 in 1990, and was becoming more social and peer-oriented by that point, as opposed to during the 80s, when I watched more TV and, consciously or not, generally soaked up more pop culture. It's not that I was oblivious by any stretch in the early 90s, but my consumption of popular culture was more along the lines of listening to Pearl Jam, Nirvana, or Wu Tang in a car on the way to a friend's house, as opposed to the 80s, when I could often be found listening to Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel" on Kasey Kasem's America's Top 40, while fiddling around with my Speak N' Spell and watching Hulk Hogan throw down with The Iron Sheik.

I'm ok with this, because as fun as the 90s are, the 80s have much more of a distinct feel to them. Sure, it's a corny, big-haired, pastel feel, but it's very comforting and non-threatening just the same. The 80s seems very safe, pleasant, and cooky, like the lead actor in "The Greatest American Hero." This perception could be due to the naive lens that children almost inevitably view the world through, until the proverbial wool is pulled from before their eyes. I remember watching Ronald Reagan's slowly deteriorating mind, Ollie North's Iran Contra testimony, and Clarence Thomas' sexual harassment hearings with my dad and feeling like they had all the gravitas of a "Sesame Street" episode. If I had had the awareness at the time that I do now, I'm sure I'd have been listening to "Cuyahoga" by REM and bemoaning the fate of our nation, instead of jumping around to Kool & the Gang and belly-laughing at the drug violence on "Miami Vice" episodes.

The 80s also seem to have more retro-hipster-marketable-nostalgia legs than the 90s. Let's face it, not that many people want to bring flannel shirts and grimy hair back into style. Cigarette boats and sports cars have a bit more mass appeal to them. Some musical acts don't need nostalgia to give them staying power, however. Hall and Oates were huge in the 80s. They wrote great pop songs, and, in retrospect, were great soul singers as well. They owned the Top 40 charts for a time during the 80s.

Nero is one of the most popular dubstep artists around right now. Now, I like dubstep, but sometimes it grates. I generally prefer drum & bass, because the beats seem to be more smoothly integrated into a song, instead of having a "song" with two to three 8.1 on the Richter Scale wobbly bass drops thrown in. Not all dubstep is like this, but a lot is, and it can get old. Some other Nero tracks like "Innocence," (which I kinda like, but only in small doses) employ this tactic, but "Reaching Out" is thankfully a little more smooth and subtle. It also skillfully samples the great Hall & Oates song "Out of Touch."

De La Soul is one of the greatest rap groups ever. One of the many amazing tracks on their classic album Three Feet High and Rising samples the incredible Hall & Oates song, "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)." It's done so well, and the lyrics, flow, production and video (with a slick little Nancy Reagan [the "Just Say No" queen] cameo) is awesome. One of the best songs, on one of the best albums, ever.

NOTES: I could go off on both of these Hall & Oates videos, but that would just take too long. Suffice it to say that they're chock full of delightful 80s music video cliches. And there are commercials to be suffered through for at least two of these youtubes. Sorry, but I feel like they're worth it to watch the videos.

M83-Midnight City/My Bloody Valentine-I Only Said/Autechre-Dael

I like weird noises. When I was a kid, I was drawn to the strange noises in video games; as I got older, the distorted bleeps and bloops of electronic music also appealed to me. My friends and I would try to emulate the noises we heard, even using them to replace certain words or phrases in our vocabulary. For instance (and this was in the immature obnoxious phase that has hopefully at least for the most part ended), if my friends and I were in the room with someone that did something lame or annoying, instead of saying, "Ummm, I disagree with that statement. Perhaps you might consider another point of view," we would make a sound that simulated the swift opening and closing of a door that symbolically represented that person quickly leaving the room.

Certain phrases would evolve into completely unrecognizable noises that only we knew phonetically represented the original ones. For example, "uh, uh," changed to "eh, eh," which changed to "SHUUUUHHHH WEEEEEHHHHH EEEEEEHHHHH!" Perhaps the most famous example is a slurred plea for "Ritz Bitz with cheese" morphing into a term that will forever be implanted into the collective lexicon of approximately eight to ten people worldwide.

M83 has a very popular album this year. I've only listened to it a few times, and I'm still a bit on the fence. It is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, REALLY EPIC. Everything sounds larger than life. It makes The Arcade Fire sound like Elliot Smith. The song "Midnight City" is undeniably great, though, and the accompanying video is also solid. The track is grounded in a repeated noise that was created by electronically warping the lead singer/main guy's voice. It's pretty awesome. It reminds me very much of the repeated jubilant dolphin bleating sound in "I Only Said" by My Bloody Valentine. The whole song is great, but listen to how grimy the guitars get at 3:00, juxtaposed with the soaring beauty (yeah, I said it) of the entwined leaping dolphin lovers at 3:18.

Autechre, on the other hand, are COLD AS ICE. They're Darth Vader's pissed off mother-in law. They're the guy that can make Hannibal Lecter eat his own liver. They're the end of the world, and NOBODY CARES. And yes, they're a bit monotonous at times (but not really, you just gotta hang in there a bit). And the noises are so great. Especially the beginning. THUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMM CHICKITAH WEEEEEEEERRRR THUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMM CHICKITAH WEEEEEEEERRRR. So good.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra-Ffunny Ffriends/Pointer Sisters-Yes We Can Can

So it's that time of the year again. Time to hop on a plane and fly to Florida. For the first time in my life, I'm feeling a little bit burnt on flying to the East Coast all the time. Between trips to NYC, Florida, and other random destinations, I feel like every break from school I get is spent on airplanes.

I've always liked flying, but there are a few annoying aspects. At this point it almost seems like a certainty that if I check bags on a multiple-leg flight, they're gonna get delayed somewhere. Finding them then entails communicating with the missing links behind the counter of the lost baggage desk, who all seem to be perpetually relearning the procedures necessary to track down lost bags.

My own special brand of incompetence also adds to the little frustrations of traveling. As I mosey up to the security checkpoint, it suddenly dawns upon me THAT I FORGOT TO PUT MY HAIR GEL AND TOOTHPASTE INTO A LITTLE TWO OUNCE ZIP-LOCK BAG! Of course they're both brand new and filled to the brim. So I hand them over to the smug security guy, and look forward to using Wal-Mart hair gel for two weeks. It takes quality hair products to tame this fro, and unfortunately they don't stock them at Wal-Mart.

When I'm on a five hour flight, I usually figure that I should kill an hour and a half watching the in-flight film. I love to read, but I'm not gonna read for five hours. I was excited to see Midnight in Paris in the United entertainment guide; I even purchased earphones, because I left mine in the bag they forced me to check due to a full flight (no comment). So the TV lights up, and I lean back and nestle into my quasi-comfortable seat. Does Owen Wilson's smushed nose turn up on my screen? NO. It's Tom Hanks, playing an everyman schmuck who gets laid off from Best Buy and takes Julia Robert's public speaking class as a last ditch attempt to make something of himself. He even meets a hipster bicycle gang that dresses him up in cool threads. So yeah. 5 BLOODY STARS.

One thing to look forward to are all the year-end music lists that will help me consolidate the vast amounts of music I'd like to check out. It's just too overwhelming at times during the year to sort through the endless streams of music that come out. I've already started listening to recommendations, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra's "Ffunny Ffriends" is one of my favorites. I'm used to rap sampling funk songs, but this is a great example of a rock song skillfully sampling a great old funk song. Growing up I knew the Pointer Sisters from songs like "The Neutron Dance" and "I'm So Excited," but "Yes We Can Can" might be my favorite song of theirs I've heard.

Supergrass-Late in the Day/Pulp-Common People/Oasis (Noel Gallagher)-Don't Look Back in Anger

I feel like John Lennon towards the end of his Beatles career, when he was all burnt out and felt like he had nothing to write about. Unfortunately, I don't think I've built up the credibility to be able to copy posts from corn flakes commercials and circus posters and get away with it. On the other hand, it's fortunate that I don't have a blogging partner named Paul whose excellence juxtaposed with my mediocrity would make me look even worse. (For the record, John had some great songs on later Beatles records. "Good Morning, Good Morning" sucks, though).

The only thing I can think of to write about is 70s movies and documentaries. I've been really obsessed with both lately. I'm simply gonna list some of the ones I've seen lately, along with my reactions, thus absolving me of any responsibility to create a cohesive narrative with any sort of intrinsic entertainment value.

70s movies:

Midnight Cowboy-stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voigt. Paints a pretty bleak picture of city life. Dustin Hoffman is amazing as a tripped out hustler, and Voigt is perfect as a simpleton hillbilly. Kinda like the Odd Couple on crack.

Kramer vs. Kramer-stars Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. They get divorced in the beginning, Streep running away to get her mind right. Hoffman goes from being work-obsessed and fairly uninterested in parenting to completely devoted to his son. Brutal court battle towards the end. Amazingly acted and pretty touching. YEAH I SAID IT. I WAS TOUCHED. EMOTIONALLY.

Manhattan-Incredible cinematography (made me fall in love with NYC for the 753rd time). Creepy premise but well-acted.

Annie Hall-More Woody Allen greatness. Diane Keaton is so cool. Just goofy and awkward and awesome.

Network-GREAT. Such amazing satire of the news, and media in general. Faye Dunaway and Peter Finch are both amazing.

Documentaries:

The Thin Blue Line: Documentary about a man who was falsely found guilty of killing a cop in Texas. This movie was so great, it actually helped overturn the case.

The Kid Stays in The Picture: Fascinating documentary about the man who produced The Godfather, Rosemary's Baby, Marathon Man, and Chinatown. He also narrates it and has one of the best voices ever.

Hoop Dreams: Profile of two high school basketball prospects growing up in Chicago. Great insight into both of their lives.

Rolling Stones: Stones in Exile-Doc about the Stones recording Exile on Main Street in the south of France and Memphis. It's one of my favorite records ever, and any documentary about the Stones in the 60s and 70s is automatically gonna be great.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son about his Father: BRUTAL. Really good doc, but just soul-crushingly sad.

Ok, that's about enough. So Britpop! I'm not a huge Britpop guy, but there were some great songs to come out of the scene. One of my absolute favorites is "Late in the Day" by Supergrass. The whole album In It For the Money is great. "Common People" by Pulp has amazing lyrics, and I love this version of Oasis's "Don't Look Back in Anger."