Here's a good article for all you Fall Out Boy-genre haters (and a new reason to hate them, because Wentz compares himself to Bob Dylan, which makes me want to puke a little bit.):
TEENAGE TASTELAND
INSIDE N.Y.C.'S ANGST-ROCK EMPIRE
June 6, 2007 -- ONLY a few years ago, Jonathan Daniel had hit 40 as a failed hair-metal god replete with gray hair, stolid paunch and a penchant for faded, tapered denim jeans. Bob McLynn, a Mr. Clean look-alike one decade younger, was a failed post-hardcore bass player living off a deficit account.
So it makes an odd kind of poetic sense that together, as the masterminds behind the New York-based agency Crush Management, they are responsible for some of the most popular, ubiquitous and critically savaged emo/pop-punk bands of the moment - Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, The Academy Is . . . basically, any band that a 13-year-old girl with a blog and Hot Topic habit obsesses over.
“[I thought] as long as I could figure out how to make money with artists, it’ll be a business,” says Daniel, whose face shines with a fine film of sweat and who punctuates nearly every thought with a high-pitched, machine-gun-style laugh. “And the turning point came when I found Fall Out Boy.”
How Daniel found Fall Out Boy is in dispute (he says he stumbled across a song on the Web; FOB bassist/lyricist Pete Wentz recalls mailing in a tape), but the band was the first act Daniel and McLynn signed to their struggling company - though Daniel was skeptical.
“I was like, ‘I don’t know. They’re so green,’ ” he recalls. “But Bob was like, ‘I know what to do.’ ”
McLynn threw the band in a van and had them tour the country for a year, while Wentz intuitively built up a fan base - albeit primarily among 13-year-olds - by creating a patina of intimacy with them online. Which, to suburban girls suffering from strip-mall ennui, felt very real.
“And then I went to see FOB down at the Continental for a little Sunday afternoon show, and there were 300 kids there, at 3 in the afternoon, singing every word to every song,” says Daniel. “I started going crazy. This was the new way to reach kids.”
Fall Out Boy’s success has spawned a legion of sound-alike, look-alike bands, several of which are now signed to Crush, including Panic! and Academy - both discovered by Wentz. He also encouraged Crush to sign the supremely goofy rap-rock outfit Gym Class Heroes, who just had a No. 1 hit with “Cupid’s Chokehold.”
Much like Lou Pearlman - the crooked impresario who created and controlled the ubiquitous boy bands of the mid- to late ’90s - the guys behind Crush have successfully marketed a critically dismissed, yet commercially successful, stable of cute boy bands to timid teenage girls not yet ready for real rebellion.
“It’s no different than *NSYNC with guitars,” says Butch Walker, a producer and songwriter who has worked with FOB and Academy. “Which they’re not. But I don’t think [these] kids are as critically discerning as they would be if they were older.”
Crush’s management style borrows from Pearlman’s business model, as well as parts of Motown and the Brill Building. They’re a factory, operating out of a single loft-like office space on East 11th Street.
The recording studio is in the back, as is the in-house producer, a lanky, talkative 37-year-old journeyman named Sam Hollander. The merchandising is run out of the front. The on-call video director, a super-chill 38-year-old “Sound of Music” obsessive named Alan Ferguson, has a room of his own, littered with candles and DVDs of old Hollywood musicals, while core songwriter and producer Walker is based out of Los Angeles.
Shrewdly, Crush simply manages this team. None of these artists is on the Crush payroll, but when they work with Crush artists, Daniel and McLynn - who pointedly and often refer to their company as a “family” - get a cut.
“It’s not as ugly, seedy, inside-job as it seems with us,” says Walker. “It’s really like a family.”
Until now, Daniel and McLynn have intentionally remained anonymous, which allows their biggest bands to seem like part of an organic movement rather than extensions of a calculated, cultivated brand.
Fall Out Boy, Panic! and Academy specialize in baroque videos with narratives not seen since the ’80s, as well as logorrheic song titles only an adolescent could love: “Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part To Save the Scene and Stop Going to Shows),” “Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends” - Fall Out Boy tracks both. “The kids get so deep on the lyrics,” says McLynn. “They speak to kids on a level that no one’s spoken to them before.”
Also unofficially employed by Crush is Fall Out Boy lyricist/bassist Wentz, the band’s most famous member and the elfin, guylinered mascot of the entire scene. A pop-culture obsessive who spends an inordinate amount of time online, Wentz basically works as their A&R guy, having signed all three bands to his own label, Decaydence, which is also managed by Crush, as is Wentz’s clothing line, Clandestine.
“It can get incestuous,” Wentz concedes. “Crush manages everything I do - almost everything. I pee on my own. But it’s a trickle-down theory of economics that really works.”
“Wentz is an entrepreneur,” says Walker. “He was a bored kid from the suburbs who was like, ‘I’m gonna have more T-shirts to sell than songs in my set list.’ ”
Wentz himself - who recently hit a new, Us Weekly level of celebrity by hooking up with the dubious likes of Ashlee Simpson - admits that “Fall Out Boy is the way I support my lifestyle.”
“All the bands judge each other by how much merch they sell,” says Daniel.
Such crass commercialism has long had its place in hip-hop - Wentz himself aspires to be like his mentor and Island/Def Jam president Jay-Z - but in Wentz’s scene, not so much. This makes him one of the most loathed figures in rock, suspected of exploiting his fans’ false sense of a confessional community in the interest of selling CDs at $20 a pop. And the Crush bands are among the very few, in the age of file-sharing and downloads, who can; FOB’s latest record, “Infinity on High,” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts.
Yet these profit-margins haven’t translated to critical respect, or fans over the average age of 15. Daniel, to his credit, isn’t so shocked. He admits that the bulk of his bands aren’t so familiar with rock.
“Panic! in particular - I think their musical history traces back to the first Third Eye Blind album,” he says. “That’s it. Like, the guy producing their record gave them ‘The Beatles Anthology.’ And they were very excited, but they didn’t know any of it.”
Also, Daniel thinks that FOB and its spawn are disparaged by critics because “they’re very much like the hair bands of the ’80s, like Motley Crue - it’s, like, heavy metal for girls. This scene is very much like that. It’s very female-based.”
“He couldn’t be more on the mark,” says producer Hollander of Daniel’s assessment. “Dead on. If you were a hipster, like I was at that age - God, you wanted to laugh at it. That’s exactly right.”
“It’s not edgy,” says songwriter Walker (he’s also written and produced for Pink, Avril Lavigne and Bowling for Soup). “It’s no different than the hair metal movement that Bon Jovi pioneered,” he says. “When those girls outgrew New Kids on the Block and Debbie Gibson and started smoking cigarettes and hanging out with boys who drive Camaros, they started listening to Bon Jovi. And that music was not good either.”
Walker, whose tastes run more toward the Arcade Fire, concedes that a lot of the Crush bands sound “so same-y - they all have the same look, play the same guitar songs, all the songs are about the same s - - -. I think that’s why the critics don’t like it.” He pauses. “Jonathan may not be the poster boy for what is indie-cred cool, but if he was, he wouldn’t be successful. Let’s not have our head up our ass and shoot ourselves in the head with the hipster gun. And I think that’s why the company is equally loved and loathed.”
To Wentz, it’s all just white noise. He sees himself as one in a long line of great artists who, in their prime, were profoundly misunderstood: “You know, Bob Dylan plugged in and everyone started booing,” he says. “Thirty years later, he’s hailed as one of the greatest artists of all time. There are plenty of ways to get rich. It’s very easy. But if you want to be involved in this, you want to be involved for the legacy of your art.”
He prefers to see himself and Crush as a latter-day version of Andy Warhol’s Factory. “The most important thing is the brand, and the shift in popular culture we’re making,” he says. “We don’t have meetings about what color we should dye our hair.”
And so next month, the band - which to date has employed monkeys, Wentz’s dog Hemingway, and Kim Kardashian in its videos - will expand its navel-gazing oeuvre by shooting its next video in Uganda.
“Pete and the band want to focus a lot of attention on humanitarian efforts,” says director Ferguson. “The band is going to meet at orphanages, political leaders. Fall Out Boy will play at a school, for example. You know those big, inflatable things that kids jump on at carnivals? We’re gonna bring one of those to the orphanages for a day so the kids can play with it.”
Trickier, he says, is capturing the mood: “I need to make it compelling. You don’t want it to look like a Sally Struthers commercial. This is a ‘TRL’ video.”
But for now, there’s a tour to wrap up: FOB played Jones Beach last night, along with Crush stablemates Academy and Cobra Starship, after which Wentz headed over to his 28th birthday party at Angels & Kings - a theme park-y dive bar in the East Village recently bought by Crush (all their artists are investors).
The opening night party hosted Jay-Z, Helena Christensen and Kate Bosworth, though of course the Crush guys prefer to position it as just a dirty little clubhouse for their artists. Wentz, hilariously, told The Post at the opening that his own bar was a necessity because he wasn’t “cool enough” to get into most clubs. “We just want someplace where we can hang out and be ourselves.” And which, no doubt, will lure kids from Long Island and New Jersey, hoping to “hang out” with their favorite uncool, superfamous rock stars.
Wentz and Crush, though, aren’t worried about the little girls catching on. “I feel like our fans could smell a fake,” Wentz says. “I do the things I believe in.”
“Wentz, as much as he is hated on by the cred kids - they have no idea what kind of force they’re reckoning with,” Walker adds. “A lot of people think he’s cashing in on empathy and pain. But whatever.”
maureen.callahan@nypost.com
Showing posts with label Fall Out Boy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fall Out Boy. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
Monday Morning Shuffle
So i open iTunes yesterday to listen to something while i'm working and guess what? It's gone. I mean...there's nothing there. I have no songs, no videos, no explanation. So i frantically click over to my iTunes folder where everything is stored and sigh with relief that all the files are there. So what happened? iTunes just decided it didn't want my library anymore and dumped it. I have no explanation. So anyway, i imported the library again, which is still in shambles because of my complete deletion a few weeks back, and end up with about 1,000 more songs than i had. At first, i said, "Great, it found some stuff i forgot to add." Until i started scrolling through and noticing double and triples of a ton of stuff. Not everything, but enough to make a difference. Anyway, my OCD kicked in and spent the next 2 hours with a focus unlike i ever have and completely retraced and reorganized everything. I deleted most of the doubles and triples completely off my computer, freeing up about a gig of space. Let's hope i didn't kill anything important.
On with the shuffle,
1. This Ain't A Scene, It's an Arms Race - Fall Out Boy, Infinity on High
I started here on purpose because i know i'm the only one here that consistently likes them. And i have no idea why. You know that i'm usually the first one to write off a band that the masses like, especially after that awful Verizon commercial with the meathead lifting and sweaty and listening to it on his phone and then getting a call from his "babe" all the while forgetting to spot his friend on the bench. I mean, that's usually the breaking point for me. But here i am, enjoying yet another guilty pleasure from the most sold-out band available today. Part of me is ashamed, and part of me doesn't really give a shit. It's poppy and fun to listen to and sing along with. Sometimes you need that...i can't sing along with Sigur Ros. (besides, you all have your guilty pleasures too. I know it so i won't feel too bad.)
Anyway, so far, i like this album. It sounds like all the other ones, and talks about the same exact shit. But like i said, it's catchy, poppy and you can sing with it. When my windows are down (not really an option now that we've hit summer) flying up the 101, this is what i'll be listening to.
2. Chi-City - Common, off of Be
Common is one of my favorites. It's been welllllll documented. I love his voice and his delivery. He sounds so relaxed on the mic, it almost sounds like a saxophone or a soulful trumpet just being played casually by an expert in complete control. He never sounds too bored or too excited. It's a unique sound out of the genre.
My favorite lines in this song:
A black figure, in the middle of chaos and gun fire/So many raps about rims, I'm surprised n***** ain't become tires/On the street you turn code and then go screech/I tell em fuck em, like I do the police/The beast in runnin' rampant/I'm in between sheets tryna have sex that's tantric/But the ghetto, trying to make a get up, stand up anthem/You spit hot garbage son of Sanford/What you rappin' for to get fame or get rich?/I slap a n***** like you/And tell him Rick James bitch.
3. Cat Power - Satisfaction
This was one of the suggestions way back in November 06 (jesus, has it been that long?), when i threw together a hastily prepared and ill-conceived top 5 list of favorite covers.
I like this song a bunch. I love it when people take covers and completely make them their own, almost so it could have been the original song and nobody would have been any the wiser...
I also like the fact that she never sings that chorus. It's a tease...you want it to be there...you expect it to be there...and it never comes. It's like a secret she thinks about telling you and then decides not to. It drives me crazy and keeps me coming back for more. I've always had a thing for teases.
4. The Patient - Tool, off of Lateralus
This is just another good song on what has to be the best Tool album...and since there really is nothing specific to talk about...let's tell a story.
We talked on our group blog about what it was like back in the day to invite friends over to listen to music. Not to watch a movie or do something else, but to literally come over just to listen to an album. I couldn't remember the last time i did this until i heard this song. I have no idea what grade it was but Nole came over, and i'm pretty sure that some of the girls were with him, but i can't remember because Nole and i were so into listening to the bass lines and the drum bits that we weren't paying attention to anyone else. I can remember Nole sitting at the head of my parent's kitchen table, during the opening to Schism, trying to explain to the girls what kind of technique the guy must have used to create that sound because, at the time, there was no conceivable way that the bassist had enough fingers to play that opening. Anyway, he stands up, and he has his arms out like he's playing a bass and he's demonstrating in only the way Nole can when he's excited and everytime i hear that song, i'll think of it.
5. Hear You Me - Jimmy Eat World, off of Bleed American
Speaking of nostalgia...this song has such an old school quality to it that even though i didn't hear it until my junior year of college (maybe even senior), it still takes me back to moments in high school. There's just something about the reflective quality of it.
This song is about these 2 girls, in the midwest i think, who worked or hung out at a venue and apparently were really cool to all of the small travelling acts, giving them places to stay, feeding them, giving them goodie bags for the road, etc. After hearing Nole talk about touring and how some people just came out of the woodwork to be cool (and how sometimes you just had to straight up ask kids if you could crash....ha ha.) this song means a lot more to me. Anyway, i guess these two girls were very cool to Jim and the band and when they died in a car accident, the band wrote this song for them. "Hear you me" is something that one of the girls used to say a lot apparently. And i'm writing this without researching it, but i'm pretty sure when i read about it, there were a few other bands with songs about these same girls. Apparently they made an impact on a lot of people. May angels lead them in.
It's a federal holiday and i'm still doing to shufflle...and in the morning no less... Now that's dedication.
Much love. Have a great holiday.
On with the shuffle,
1. This Ain't A Scene, It's an Arms Race - Fall Out Boy, Infinity on High
I started here on purpose because i know i'm the only one here that consistently likes them. And i have no idea why. You know that i'm usually the first one to write off a band that the masses like, especially after that awful Verizon commercial with the meathead lifting and sweaty and listening to it on his phone and then getting a call from his "babe" all the while forgetting to spot his friend on the bench. I mean, that's usually the breaking point for me. But here i am, enjoying yet another guilty pleasure from the most sold-out band available today. Part of me is ashamed, and part of me doesn't really give a shit. It's poppy and fun to listen to and sing along with. Sometimes you need that...i can't sing along with Sigur Ros. (besides, you all have your guilty pleasures too. I know it so i won't feel too bad.)
Anyway, so far, i like this album. It sounds like all the other ones, and talks about the same exact shit. But like i said, it's catchy, poppy and you can sing with it. When my windows are down (not really an option now that we've hit summer) flying up the 101, this is what i'll be listening to.
2. Chi-City - Common, off of Be
Common is one of my favorites. It's been welllllll documented. I love his voice and his delivery. He sounds so relaxed on the mic, it almost sounds like a saxophone or a soulful trumpet just being played casually by an expert in complete control. He never sounds too bored or too excited. It's a unique sound out of the genre.
My favorite lines in this song:
A black figure, in the middle of chaos and gun fire/So many raps about rims, I'm surprised n***** ain't become tires/On the street you turn code and then go screech/I tell em fuck em, like I do the police/The beast in runnin' rampant/I'm in between sheets tryna have sex that's tantric/But the ghetto, trying to make a get up, stand up anthem/You spit hot garbage son of Sanford/What you rappin' for to get fame or get rich?/I slap a n***** like you/And tell him Rick James bitch.
3. Cat Power - Satisfaction
This was one of the suggestions way back in November 06 (jesus, has it been that long?), when i threw together a hastily prepared and ill-conceived top 5 list of favorite covers.
I like this song a bunch. I love it when people take covers and completely make them their own, almost so it could have been the original song and nobody would have been any the wiser...
I also like the fact that she never sings that chorus. It's a tease...you want it to be there...you expect it to be there...and it never comes. It's like a secret she thinks about telling you and then decides not to. It drives me crazy and keeps me coming back for more. I've always had a thing for teases.
4. The Patient - Tool, off of Lateralus
This is just another good song on what has to be the best Tool album...and since there really is nothing specific to talk about...let's tell a story.
We talked on our group blog about what it was like back in the day to invite friends over to listen to music. Not to watch a movie or do something else, but to literally come over just to listen to an album. I couldn't remember the last time i did this until i heard this song. I have no idea what grade it was but Nole came over, and i'm pretty sure that some of the girls were with him, but i can't remember because Nole and i were so into listening to the bass lines and the drum bits that we weren't paying attention to anyone else. I can remember Nole sitting at the head of my parent's kitchen table, during the opening to Schism, trying to explain to the girls what kind of technique the guy must have used to create that sound because, at the time, there was no conceivable way that the bassist had enough fingers to play that opening. Anyway, he stands up, and he has his arms out like he's playing a bass and he's demonstrating in only the way Nole can when he's excited and everytime i hear that song, i'll think of it.
5. Hear You Me - Jimmy Eat World, off of Bleed American
Speaking of nostalgia...this song has such an old school quality to it that even though i didn't hear it until my junior year of college (maybe even senior), it still takes me back to moments in high school. There's just something about the reflective quality of it.
This song is about these 2 girls, in the midwest i think, who worked or hung out at a venue and apparently were really cool to all of the small travelling acts, giving them places to stay, feeding them, giving them goodie bags for the road, etc. After hearing Nole talk about touring and how some people just came out of the woodwork to be cool (and how sometimes you just had to straight up ask kids if you could crash....ha ha.) this song means a lot more to me. Anyway, i guess these two girls were very cool to Jim and the band and when they died in a car accident, the band wrote this song for them. "Hear you me" is something that one of the girls used to say a lot apparently. And i'm writing this without researching it, but i'm pretty sure when i read about it, there were a few other bands with songs about these same girls. Apparently they made an impact on a lot of people. May angels lead them in.
It's a federal holiday and i'm still doing to shufflle...and in the morning no less... Now that's dedication.
Much love. Have a great holiday.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Monday Morning Shuffle
First off, the Grammy's sucked as usual. My dad was pissed that the Dixie Chicks won so much because they're commie pinko leftists but really they just had a great CD and a terrific producer and really did deserve to win a bunch. Also, i suggested that if my dad didn't enjoy protest music that he should take every album he has from every Vietnam era band he liked and just go ahead and burn them. Moving on.
Secondly, i really enjoyed the conversation about the Top 5 British Bands of all time. And yes, i missed a big one with Queen. They deserved to be up there in both lists. A great band, very influential and one of my favorites. It was a blinding error and i'm embarrassed for making it. Most of the time, these postings are just crap off the top of my head, but i actually went and did some research on the British Top 5 post and i really thought i had considered everyone who deserved the influential spots. For instance, I had initially written The Clash in at #5 before realizing that The Sex Pistols totally paved the way for The Clash...it would be like saying that Green Day was in my American Punk Top 5 but the Ramones weren't...So yeah, somehow Queen slipped through the cracks but thanks to Nole for bringing it to every one's attention.
Also, my lack of knowledge, experience and appreciation for Radiohead has been very well documented on this blog so i can't really believe that anyone was surprised i left them out. I'd have been a total poser for putting them in at all. It's a problem, i admit it, and i'm working on it, i promise. In the meantime, i would really like someone (Laura, Kate, Courtney i'm looking at you) to do some research and put some thought into just who and what Radiohead has influenced. The other bands we all named paved the way for other bands that followed with a swath as wide as a thousand bulldozers and i'm interested to see what bands or what sounds specifically can be traced back to Radiohead and also why they stop there and can't be traced THROUGH Radiohead to someone else. You have your mission, go forth, wreak havoc.
On with the shuffle:
1. Tunnel of Love - Dire Straits
I like it when the shuffle throws me an 8 minute song right off the bat so i can actually listen to it and type at the same time. It seems like i always get some crazy 2:15 song and i have to pause to finish my commentary about it and it just messes with the flow of the entire shuffle.
Anyway, Dire Straits kicks ass...and now that i think about it, i think they may be in my Brit Band top 5 after all... i originally had them at 6 -8 but now that i'm listening to this song, i might like their body of work overall more than i like The Who, or The Beatles. I'm not saying they were a better or bigger band, i'm just saying that on a song by song basis, i think i'd rather listen to "Money for Nothing" than "Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy" or "Sgt. Peppers"...i don't know, maybe, that's a pretty bold statement and one that may not be true by this afternoon. We'll see.
Anyway, this song has this rolling feel to it that would make it a good running or driving song. It just keeps flowing over its 8 minutes interspersed with little solos and guitar licks and Mark Knopfler's incredibly cool sounding vocals that sound like he's breathing out a puff of smoke every time he opens his mouth. Talented band, and an underrated one at that. If the depth of your Dire Straits knowledge is Money For Nothing or hearing Romeo and Juliet on the soundtrack of "Can't Hardly Wait" give me a call and i'll get you hooked up.
2. Chicago is So Two Years Ago (acoustic) - Fall Out Boy
I'm not sure where i downloaded this from but the quality is awful. You can barely hear Patrick Stump's vocals over the little scenster kids clapping and singing awfully off key while imagining how the lyrics perfectly apply to their own little broken-heart high school romances. In fact, this is horrible, i'm clicking next.
3. Red Rabbits - The Shins, off of Wincing the Night Away
I'm flying to NYC on Thursday and this CD is at the top of my play list for the 6 hour flight. I'm very excited. In fact, let's do a quick top 5:
Top 5 new (to me) albums i'm most excited about listening to on the way to and from NYC
1. The Shins - Wincing The Night Away
2. The Killers - Sam's Town (surprisingly good)
3. Norah Jones - Not Too Late
4. The Beta Band - 3 E.P.s
5. Johnny Cash - American V
Yeah, and just listening to this song for the first time, i can tell i'm going to enjoy it. I hope the rest of the CD is like this. The new Shins strikes me like the perfect album to chill out to on a plane while reading a large chunk of Audacity of Hope (sorry i'm so far behind guys). These guys should call Natalie Portman every damn day and thank her.
4. The Man in Me - Bob Dylan, off of The Big Lebowski Soundtrack
Hilarious song, hilarious movie. They did such a good job on the music in that movie that i can't listen to a single song on the soundtrack without automatically picturing exactly what's happening in the movie. And isn't that what a soundtrack is supposed to be about? Just total symbiosis between the two mediums? That's what i thought.
Anyway, what more can i say about Dylan or the movie? Not a lot i feel. But i will mention this joke from Bill Maher: "Bob Dylan is the voice of our generation and he can't argue with that. We didn't really have a choice in the matter. If we had a choice wouldn't you think we'd pick a better voice than his?"
5. Rockin' The Suburbs - Ben Folds, off of Rockin' the Suburbs
It makes sense that i'm going to see Courtney in NYC this weekend and she's the one who introduced me to Ben Folds and to this song. Courtney and I took a class our freshman year in Colorado called U.S. Race And Ethnic Relations...which we both affectionately remember as Race Relations Boot Camp. What an awful semester. Although Courtney and I will both admit that we learned more about race and privilege and our own thoughts and prejudices than at any other time in our lives, it was just an amazing way to be absolutely torn down at your core and be told that everything you've known about your race and your upbringing and your opportunities were just complete false or worse, that you've only had the opportunities you had been given at the expense of someone else. So this song really hit me at the perfect time in life... "Y'all don't know what it's like/being male, middle class and white./Y'all don't know what it's like/being male, middle class and white. It gets me real pissed off and i wanna scream/It gets me real pissed off and i wanna scream, It gets me real pissed off and i wanna scream, 'FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Yup...that's pretty much exactly what it felt like at the time. Isn't it amazing how music can do that?
Alright, big week this week. Vegas tomorrow with Ron and Nole, then NYC to see Courtney and others. I can't make any promises about more posts this week but i've got a lot of ideas and i'm hoping that i can find a really cool coffee shop to sit in with my laptop and iPod and just be so stereotypical that it hurts. So don't be surprised if you see 3-4 more things this week.
Secondly, i really enjoyed the conversation about the Top 5 British Bands of all time. And yes, i missed a big one with Queen. They deserved to be up there in both lists. A great band, very influential and one of my favorites. It was a blinding error and i'm embarrassed for making it. Most of the time, these postings are just crap off the top of my head, but i actually went and did some research on the British Top 5 post and i really thought i had considered everyone who deserved the influential spots. For instance, I had initially written The Clash in at #5 before realizing that The Sex Pistols totally paved the way for The Clash...it would be like saying that Green Day was in my American Punk Top 5 but the Ramones weren't...So yeah, somehow Queen slipped through the cracks but thanks to Nole for bringing it to every one's attention.
Also, my lack of knowledge, experience and appreciation for Radiohead has been very well documented on this blog so i can't really believe that anyone was surprised i left them out. I'd have been a total poser for putting them in at all. It's a problem, i admit it, and i'm working on it, i promise. In the meantime, i would really like someone (Laura, Kate, Courtney i'm looking at you) to do some research and put some thought into just who and what Radiohead has influenced. The other bands we all named paved the way for other bands that followed with a swath as wide as a thousand bulldozers and i'm interested to see what bands or what sounds specifically can be traced back to Radiohead and also why they stop there and can't be traced THROUGH Radiohead to someone else. You have your mission, go forth, wreak havoc.
On with the shuffle:
1. Tunnel of Love - Dire Straits
I like it when the shuffle throws me an 8 minute song right off the bat so i can actually listen to it and type at the same time. It seems like i always get some crazy 2:15 song and i have to pause to finish my commentary about it and it just messes with the flow of the entire shuffle.
Anyway, Dire Straits kicks ass...and now that i think about it, i think they may be in my Brit Band top 5 after all... i originally had them at 6 -8 but now that i'm listening to this song, i might like their body of work overall more than i like The Who, or The Beatles. I'm not saying they were a better or bigger band, i'm just saying that on a song by song basis, i think i'd rather listen to "Money for Nothing" than "Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy" or "Sgt. Peppers"...i don't know, maybe, that's a pretty bold statement and one that may not be true by this afternoon. We'll see.
Anyway, this song has this rolling feel to it that would make it a good running or driving song. It just keeps flowing over its 8 minutes interspersed with little solos and guitar licks and Mark Knopfler's incredibly cool sounding vocals that sound like he's breathing out a puff of smoke every time he opens his mouth. Talented band, and an underrated one at that. If the depth of your Dire Straits knowledge is Money For Nothing or hearing Romeo and Juliet on the soundtrack of "Can't Hardly Wait" give me a call and i'll get you hooked up.
2. Chicago is So Two Years Ago (acoustic) - Fall Out Boy
I'm not sure where i downloaded this from but the quality is awful. You can barely hear Patrick Stump's vocals over the little scenster kids clapping and singing awfully off key while imagining how the lyrics perfectly apply to their own little broken-heart high school romances. In fact, this is horrible, i'm clicking next.
3. Red Rabbits - The Shins, off of Wincing the Night Away
I'm flying to NYC on Thursday and this CD is at the top of my play list for the 6 hour flight. I'm very excited. In fact, let's do a quick top 5:
Top 5 new (to me) albums i'm most excited about listening to on the way to and from NYC
1. The Shins - Wincing The Night Away
2. The Killers - Sam's Town (surprisingly good)
3. Norah Jones - Not Too Late
4. The Beta Band - 3 E.P.s
5. Johnny Cash - American V
Yeah, and just listening to this song for the first time, i can tell i'm going to enjoy it. I hope the rest of the CD is like this. The new Shins strikes me like the perfect album to chill out to on a plane while reading a large chunk of Audacity of Hope (sorry i'm so far behind guys). These guys should call Natalie Portman every damn day and thank her.
4. The Man in Me - Bob Dylan, off of The Big Lebowski Soundtrack
Hilarious song, hilarious movie. They did such a good job on the music in that movie that i can't listen to a single song on the soundtrack without automatically picturing exactly what's happening in the movie. And isn't that what a soundtrack is supposed to be about? Just total symbiosis between the two mediums? That's what i thought.
Anyway, what more can i say about Dylan or the movie? Not a lot i feel. But i will mention this joke from Bill Maher: "Bob Dylan is the voice of our generation and he can't argue with that. We didn't really have a choice in the matter. If we had a choice wouldn't you think we'd pick a better voice than his?"
5. Rockin' The Suburbs - Ben Folds, off of Rockin' the Suburbs
It makes sense that i'm going to see Courtney in NYC this weekend and she's the one who introduced me to Ben Folds and to this song. Courtney and I took a class our freshman year in Colorado called U.S. Race And Ethnic Relations...which we both affectionately remember as Race Relations Boot Camp. What an awful semester. Although Courtney and I will both admit that we learned more about race and privilege and our own thoughts and prejudices than at any other time in our lives, it was just an amazing way to be absolutely torn down at your core and be told that everything you've known about your race and your upbringing and your opportunities were just complete false or worse, that you've only had the opportunities you had been given at the expense of someone else. So this song really hit me at the perfect time in life... "Y'all don't know what it's like/being male, middle class and white./Y'all don't know what it's like/being male, middle class and white. It gets me real pissed off and i wanna scream/It gets me real pissed off and i wanna scream, It gets me real pissed off and i wanna scream, 'FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
UUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Yup...that's pretty much exactly what it felt like at the time. Isn't it amazing how music can do that?
Alright, big week this week. Vegas tomorrow with Ron and Nole, then NYC to see Courtney and others. I can't make any promises about more posts this week but i've got a lot of ideas and i'm hoping that i can find a really cool coffee shop to sit in with my laptop and iPod and just be so stereotypical that it hurts. So don't be surprised if you see 3-4 more things this week.
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