The Post-Rockist

Glenn Gould-”Liszt’s Piano Transcription of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, First Movement”
(from The Art of Glenn Gould)

The Flaming Lips-”Can’t Get You Out of my Head”
(from The Fight Test EP)

In this segment of “Must a Post-Rockist Embrace Classical?” we look at the cover song through the lens of classical music.

The Rockist’s greatest pet peeve is the cover song. With such a great insistence on originality, the cover song can be to the snobbiest of music lovers nothing but uninspired and uncouth filler at best, cause for hatred and disrespect at worst. The only thing that can fill a true Rockist with more ire than a cover song is a cover band.

It is true that the cover song can act as filler in a live set, but a good cover can also produce a new kind of artistic expression of a well known piece of music. Please note my diction: “piece of music.” It’s the same way classical musicians describe the work of composers. Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, in all its greatness, is a piece of music to the orchestra conductor, who guides his or her symphony in an interpretation of the piece. In my recent exploration of classical music, I was surprised to find that Beethoven’s 5th Symphony has been played thousands of different ways. One would think that there is only one way to play those first four notes, possibly the best known opening four notes in the history of music. But there are myriad ways to do so, some better than others. (Continued)

M.I.A. - 20 Dollar
M.I.A. - Paper Planes
(from Kala)

I didn’t care much for Arular. In fact, you might say that I felt jilted. Personally affronted, even. As if M.I.A., Diplo, and a cabal of hipper-than-thou Chicago tastemakers had secretly convened to conjure a record that was so unmistakably bad that you had to be a nitwit to admit liking it in public. And then they proceeded to market it as the most exciting and original album of 2005.

After such an offense, I should have nothing further to do with Ms. Maya Arulpragasm. Nevertheless, she persisted in crawling into my awareness. She persisted with the neon retro ’80s style that I thought was finally starting to slip out of fashion again. She persisted with her tacky music videos that were such egregious eyesores that it was difficult to look away. She persisted with the whole Sri Lankan Tamil business, which I tend to brush off from an aesthetic standpoint but nonetheless makes me uneasy. She persisted even in bashing her former boyfriend/DJ and Chicago critics that I had erroneously assumed she was in cahoots with. She persisted, and I caved.

And now I’m shocked to find myself saying that Kala is one of the most exciting and original albums of 2007. Much like TV On the Radio’s Return to Cookie Mountain, Kala sustains itself by forging a rich landscape of organic and post-industrial tones, and sets itself apart with a distinctive voice that can, at a switch, be mixed and modulated to sound like a chorus of hundreds, or stripped down to sound like the intimate whispers of a lover. But unlike Cookie Mountain, which relied on many traditional rhythms that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on any ’90s alternative album, Kala is imbued with such a vibrant mix of post-colonial rhythms that it sounds as though the album simply emerged out of some alternate future. How else could you explain an album so chock full of 21st Centural carnival esoterica - booming dhol drums, whistles, police sirens, car horns, shouting street urchins - all synthesized to mesh with a Bollywood bounce and Baile Funk swagger.

Take the song “20 Dollar,” for instance. The bass line from New Order’s “Blue Monday” is slowed down, almost to the point of sounding reversed. M.I.A.’s voice is robotically harmonized, looping over itself in gurgles and squalls, repeating the chorus to the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind?” like a chilling, apocalyptic mantra. And then, with kinetic precision, she hopscotches around topics of war, globalization, and the vapidity of our culture. It’s frighteningly good, but more accurately, it’s plain frightening.

On the flipside is the sunny dub ballad “Paper Planes,” the only track produced by her ex, Diplo. The song, with samples from The Clash’s “Straight to Hell,” is making fun of her recent visa problems that prevented her from coming to the United States to record with Timbaland. With a smile and a wink M.I.A. plays up just how big of a threat she is. “All I wanna do is (*BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!*) and (*KA-CHING!*) and a-take your money,” she sings on the hook. The gunshots sound so musical and joyous that it occurs to me that this is the first time I’ve thought of the phrase “Happiness is a warm gun” and it didn’t have to be a metaphor for heroin.

Ultimately, her politics are unconvincing, or, at best, incoherent. The idea that her music is political, however, is essential to maintaining her image as an internationalist, culture-clashing diva. It gives her “edge.” Not that she needs it - she’s already one of the most polarizing personalities in music today. She’s brash and uncategorizable. She has more in common with the likes of Mos Def and Missy Elliott and Lee “Scratch” Perry than any of the legions of opinionated indie kids who either love her or loathe her. Until now, I thought I knew on which side of that argument I stood. But Kala surprised me. It succeeds not only by pushing forward the boundary on what many people consider acceptable music, but also by virtue of being a well-crafted album full of timely, memorable songs. I think I might even dust off my old copy of Arular now.

-Posted by Todd

 (This is the continuation of a defense of Rod Stewart (the ’70s version, anyway) that I’ve been working on. Basically, I hold that if you can look past his “Hot Legs” phase of the 1980s and the current “Songbook” phase the old crooner’s in right now, there’s no getting around the greatness of his ’70s catalogue.)

Rod Stewart - Handbags and Gladrags
(from The Seventies Collection)

“Handbags and Gladrags” is a classic Rod Stewart song in the distinctive “I’m pretending to be a wizened 50 year-old man” style that he perfected (see The Faces’ “Ooh La La” for further reference). The song is especially memorable for two reasons: (1) The distinctive, mournful, and unquestionably English-sounding horn section, and (2) the fact that a version of it was used as the opening music for the original British version of The Office.

What sets the song apart for me, though, is the memorable depiction of class; in particular, British class struggle. The song makes very little sense to Americans in a specific sense (what exactly are “gladrags”anyway?), but works extraordinarily well on an intuitive level. The song, obviously, is a sort of cautionary tale: Don’t forget that you wouldn’t have the money and standing you enjoy now without the hard-earned work of your parents and grandparents. Further, once the ephemera that you use to define yourself is stripped away, is there anything left beneath the surface? Heavy stuff.

There have been other covers of this song (Stewart’s version itself is a cover), but nobody else gets the delivery quite right. The lines “Once I was a young man/and all I thought I had to do was smile,” somehow strikes just the right rueful note and, even more impressively, is convincing despite Stewart being still a rather young man at the time. And, of course, the way he shouts and his voice cracks a bit on the final refrain of “They told me you missed school today/So I suggest you just throw them all away,” convinces you that, by god, he really is an aging figure desperate to connect with his target. It’s a masterful vocal performance, and a reminder that, even when it comes to rock ‘n’ roll, a perfect vocal performance can make a good song legendary.

Finally, the song is a perfect example of how to build momentum in a song: Slow, almost meandering lyrics and simple piano at the beginning (“ever seen a young girl growing old/trying to make herself a bride”) followed by the singer getting angrier and angrier as the horns come into the foreground. The horns eventually take over the music and, finally, the song itself. If you’re really listening, it’s impossible not to get swept away with the sound every time you hear it.

-Posted by Josh

Taken By Trees - Lost and Found
(from Open Field, single version)

Sometimes the simplest sentiments can leave the deepest impressions. “I don’t want to settle down; I don’t want to leave this town,” Victoria Bergsman sings, her gentle warble capturing the delicate balance between yearning and melancholy, between the wish to be spirited away to someplace new and the fear of the unfamiliar, between feeling—in Bergsman’s* simpler terms—lost and found. Sung in these terms, each phrase cradled in the trembling sustain of a vibraphone, her appeal is almost childish, which is to say it brings back painful memories of being younger and having to buck up to the unfair decisions growing up presents. Nothing’s sadder than feeling lovesick and out of place, it seems, and yet nothing’s more inevitable for an introspective, overly-sensitive adolescent. It may sound silly, but here on this song the phrasing is elegant and innocent, free of clutter. This is music for headphone insomniacs; a soundtrack for solitary strolls at dusk. This is Nico if she had a knack for melody. This is Burt Bacharach at a crossroads.

Taken By Trees, the new solo project of the former Concretes frontwoman, comes at a time when Victoria Bergsman is a little lost and found herself. When, after spending 11 years building up a strong indie foundation with her old band, her entire previous career is nearly eclipsed by a guest spot on last year’s Peter Bjorn and John record. Fellow Swedes Björn Yttling and John Eriksson do appear on Open Field, her beautiful and understated debut, handling production and percussion, respectively, while Electrelane’s Verity Susman offers her hands on the ivory, but it’s Bergsman’s sleepy and sorrowful vocals that pull you in and make you listen closer. Musically speaking, Taken By Trees is a sparse forest, but one you could easily get lost in.

*Actually, the original author of this tune is Tracyanne Campbell of Camera Obscura. Hence, the similarities in style you will no doubt notice.

-Posted by Todd

(photo credit)

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott - Honey, Where You Been So Long?
(from I Stand Alone)

Feist - So Sorry
(from The Reminder)

The Essex Green - Sorry River
(from The Long Goodbye)

Bix Beiderbecke - Sorry
(from At the Jazz Band Ball)

The Magnetic Fields - I’m Sorry I Love You
(from 69 Love Songs: Vol. 3)

Hüsker Dü - I Apologize
(from New Day Rising)

Sorry. We just kind of dropped off the face of the earth for two weeks there. We didn’t mean for that to happen. Seriously, we’re sorry. Apology accepted?