Album Review: Bee Bee Sea: Sonic Boomerang

Everyone needs an album that makes you want to crank up the volume and jump up and down, and Sonic Boomerang by Bee Bee Sea is it. The guitar-driven trio crank out a remarkable racket from just three people, crafting chugging, driving beats while intervals create a brightness that make the songs explode. It's garage psych with some surf touches. Lyrics are kinda besides the point, kinda muffled and in English rather than their native Italian, so they are just there to provide structure to the songs. especially the repeated words and phrases. "The Dog is the King of Losers" has a bunch of "bow wow wow"s and the title track could include, "rev it up" or "live it up" or something like that as the key phrase. I could be wrong, but it doesn't matter. It's like Ty Segall without the noodly, shapeless indulgences. (Sorry, Ty. I love, but you need to edit.) Even the long guitar breaks are in service to the whole.

Yes, I know this album came out just a few weeks ago, too late for critics who had already drafted their year's best lists. Yes, I know that rock is dead and all the cultural conversation is, rightfully, around R&B and hip-hop, where the likes of Kendrick Lamar are making lyrically substantive albums. Yes, this is a mere trifle in comparison. But you'd be hard-pressed to find a more fun album right now than Sonic Boomerang.

Concert Review: Gary Numan, Paradise Rock Club, Dec. 4

I know what you're thinking. Gary Numan: one-hit wonder from decades ago. Synthesizer novelty hit guy. But you won't find Numan on any Retro '80s package tours with the Thompson Twins and Howard Jones. There aren't many artists with careers this long whose shows make you think, "Oh, good. He's doing lots of his new stuff."

Since his "Cars" days, Numan has discovered stage presence and industrial music, both of which served his performance well, facing a packed house at the Paradise last night. No Kraftwerkian Teutonic icy detachment from him. An old fan acknowledged after the show that back in the day, Numan was a stiff performer. However, at this show he moved around at odd angles, struck an assortment of poses and generally worked the stage, particularly appreciated at a club with two giant support columns that obstruct views from many angles. He was backed by a young band, all of them in post-apocalyptic desert wear. The guitarist and bass player were fairly animated without trying to steal the show. Vertical banks of lights added atmosphere and spectacle when they weren't inducing seizures. The overall level of showmanship was notably on display with "Love Hurt Bleed," when half the sound, including the vocals, dropped out of the PA. The band's in-ear monitors were apparently still going as they continued to grind through the song despite the growing murmurs in the audience. After a brief pause at the end of the number, full sound and the performance resumed unabated.

If there was any nostalgia in the music, it was for the industrial era of the late '80s into the '90s. Trent Reznor has acknowledged that Numan was big a influence, and the favor has been returned. Many NIN-like sounds turn up in Numan's recent work, and he even added more jagged edges to his once-pristine early songs. However, Numan eschews the anger and shoutiness that characterized the work of Trent and his industrial compatriots while incorporating other aesthetics of the genre.

Numan has maintained an audience by being a charismatic performer and not allowing himself to be constrained and defined by his early single hit.

Concert Review: Chameleons Vox, Middle East, Cambridge

Third time's a charm. I attempt to the see some incarnation of the Chameleons every fifteen years, and I finally saw a great show by them. The first time was the fault of the venue, a not-dearly-departed Philly club that functioned as both a dance spot that sold memberships and a concert venue; those two business models were at odds on a frigid February night in 1987 when the Chameleons came through town at the peak of their popularity. Rather than letting audience members in until they reached capacity then declaring the show sold out, staffers let the fans stand in the cold while they tried to decide how many club members to leave space for as late arrivals. I gave up, recognizing a painful exercise in futility.

A decade and a half later, the band was back together when their tour hit Chicago. They went on late, and leader Mark Burgess spent most of the set complaining about everything that wasn't up to his exacting standards. His pissy attitude was more memorable than any song they played.

So I tried again with great trepidation and low expectations on Saturday at the Middle East in Cambridge. First up were three opening acts that were musically aligned with the headliners, now dubbed Chameleons Vox to reflect that Burgess is the only remaining original member. All three bands would fit right into a Moody Fuckers playlist on a Little Records podcast. First up, the Milling Gowns had the right vibe but were totally stiff, and I've seen shoegazer bands make more eye contact with the audience. Way Out, a crack three-piece, had far more energy. Soft Kill sounded so much like the Chameleons that I almost hoped they'd cover one of the headliner's songs so that I'd be guaranteed to hear a solid version of it. All the bands had the atmospherics but no obvious songs.

Fortunately, I needn't have worried. Either Burgess has grown up in the passing years, or he has wild mood swings and I managed to catch him on a good night. The man at center stage was gracious and determined to put on a great show whatever the obstacles they faced. He acknowledged the first hurdle immediately: their lead guitarist became ill their first night in the U.S. and was unable to complete the tour. Things had gone so swimmingly with the opening acts that the Chameleons had three guitarists from two opening bands (Soft Kill and another that hadn't played at the Middle East) rotate throughout the set. Burgess immediately won the crowd's support for the able fill-ins. He also apologized, in a rasp, that his voice was wrecked, but his singing voice showed no signs of wear. Late in the set he admitted that they'd had to change the key on a song to fit his more limited range, but his tone was still perfect.

How good were they? You know how when a band nails a song that you really love that it feels like your head with explode with excitement? That happened. Repeatedly. Usually from the opening riffs.

Some background for those not familiar with the band. To call them a cult favorite would overstate their popularity. Their music has grandeur, and the lyrics are dark. They were the perfect soundtrack to my youthful days of confusion and heartbreak, exactly what you'd expect from a band with song titles like "Soul in Isolation." But they were never cosplay goth. They didn't have a cool logo to stand the test of time on a Hot Top t-shirt. They broke up at their peak of popularity because their manager died, which is tragic but not the stuff of romantic mythology. But they rightly earned a small fanbase.

They churned out the artfully-rendered fan favorites throughout their set. In introducing "Swamp Thing," their biggest hit, Burgess brought out one of the Soft Kill guitarists and explained that the song had just come together during sound check but they knew people wanted to hear it. The lead guitarist wobbled a bit with the intricate triples but did so well enough to give the song its emotional resonance. He then settled in more comfortably for his stretch of the set.

By the time they closed with "Don't Fall," I had no doubts about whether seeing them was worth the effort.

Why Eric Clapton, unlike Dave Grohl's fans, isn't an old fart fuddy duddy

At a press conference for a new documentary about Eric Clapton, a reporter tried to provoke the legendary guitarist with a question about a recent article from the Washington Post about declining sales for guitars. Short version: WaPo's Geoff Edgers got his knickers in a twist because Millennials have different cultural and musical values from previous generations and this is a terrible problem. Clapton's response: Whatevs. Good for him in recognizing that different doesn't mean worse.

Meanwhile, Consequences of Sound reported "Dave Grohl buys his 8-year-old daughter AC/DC album instead of Lana Del Rey" reinforcing stereotypes that men of the past are better than women of the present. I'll give Grohl a pass on this one, sorta, because the details revealed that his daughter actually wanted an Imagine Dragons album and they happened to hit the record story during a Lana Del Ray event. But the article writes dismissively about the young female Del Ray fans who didn't recognize Grohl, and CoS posted in on Facebook with the comment, "Father knows best." At press time it garnered nearly 10K likes and loves vs. 83 angry or sad responses.

Let's transpose this half a century to get some perspective: Daughter wants a Janis Joplin album. Dad buys her Bing Crosby instead. Who is the revolutionary and who is the reactionary upholding the patriarchal status quo? Which side are you on?

Voice of a Generation

Usually the phrase "voice of a generation" is used metaphorically for the words someone delivers in text or song rather than for their literal vocal skills. Kurt Cobain earned the tag, but so did F. Scott Fitzgerald, a guy never known as a singer. But if you take the expression literally, it's hard to find a Gen-Xer more deserving of the title than Chris Cornell.

Even if you aren't a huge fan of Soundgarden (and I'm not, always preferring Mudhoney's grunge Stooges to Soundgarden's grunge Led Zeppelin) or Chris's other work, there is no denying the power of his voice. Many have noted his four-octave range, but he also had impressive intonation and emotionally delivery. Yes, he could scream and wail, but he could also offset it with quiet contrast. Mariah Carey could be a another claimant of the title, and you don't have to be into her musical choices to appreciate her talent.

Chris Cornell wasn't just the frontman of a one of the biggest bands that exemplified Generation X. He was one of our best voices.

Albums, Art, Youth and Beyonce

What does Beyonce have in common with the Beach Boys and A Tribe Called Quest but not Elvis Presley or Grandmaster Flash? And what does this have to do with the Grammys?

The Grammys are imminent, and as people stake their claims on who will win album of the year, it’s worth looking at the place of the album as artistic statement in pop music.

Rock music gained cultural accreditation in the 1960s as it evolved from a singles-oriented genre to an album-oriented genre. Bernard Gendron posits this argument in Between Montmartre and the Mudd Club, but examples are rampant. Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, the girl groups of the early ‘60s were all singles artists. The Beach Boys’ crowning achievement was Pet Sounds. Sgt. Pepper, rather than any individual song on that album, culminated in rock’s achieving cultural legitimacy. Two factors contributed to this shift. One was that rock artists were conceiving of the album as a unified work, but the other was that they were meeting the maturing tastes of their audience. Singles are for kids. Albums are for adults with their extended attention spans and thicker wallets. The first wave of Baby Boomers were entering adulthood, and albums that were conceived as more than a collection of singles with filler fit their evolving taste.

A few decades later, hip-hop went through that same maturation process. Early hip-hop stars were singles artists. Think Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash. But hip-hop achieved its golden age as artists such as Public Enemy and A Tribe Called Quest put the emphasis on albums as a whole rather than singles. For all of popular music, the focus remained on albums throughout the CD era, as record companies largely phased out the single to force consumers to buy more expensive albums, which were increasingly bloated with filler to support their 70-minute playing time.

Two components allowed the pendulum to swing back to singles as a dominant force in the cultural landscape: iTunes and Millennials. The launch of the iTunes Store in 2003 unbundled the single from the bloated album. Consumers once again had a choice in spending less but getting only what they wanted. And there was a huge consumer bulge of potential buyers: the kids of Baby Boomers. Singles are the music of youth, and there was a huge generation of youth following Generation X, who had been referred to as the Baby Bust for the sharp drop in birth rates until that generation earned their own distinctive moniker.

But now the Millennials are moving into adulthood, and their tastes are maturing with them. They have the attention spans and income to consume albums. And in the realm of the Grammys, if you want to award an album as something conceived as a whole, not just a collection of hit songs, nothing comes close to Beyonce’s Lemonade in dominating the cultural conversation in the last year. This isn't a prediction of who will win since the Grammys have often gotten it wrong, just a warning that this could end up in the many lists of when the Grammys got it wrong.

Book Review: Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. by Viv Albertine

There are rock star memoirs you read because you're such a huge fan that you want to learn the inside scoop, such as Peter Hook’s book on Joy Division. There are rock star memoirs you read because they are so famous and have had a monumental cultural impact, such as Keith Richards'. Guitarist Viv Albertine's book is neither of those. You don't have to worship her band the Slits to appreciate her bio, which is good since they played a marginal role in the London punk scene. But Albertine has so much insight to offer to make this book a valuable read.

Albertine was in the thick of it during the London punk explosion. She formed her first band with Sid Vicious before he joined the Sex Pistols, and Johnny Thunders tipped her off that Vicious was kicking her out of the band before they even played a gig. She hung out at Sex, Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's clothes shop. She dated Mick Jones for several years.

That insider's view is a strong start, but there's much more. She describes how the lack of female role models among musicians limited her early imagination of what she could possibly achieve before she decided to pick up a guitar. When she did finally buy an axe, she struggled to both master basic skills and to find her own style, not just bash out the same three chords that had already become a shorthand definition of punk. Her burning desire for creative expression came to fruition when she was asked to join the Slits, and the band's biggest challenge was manifesting their artistic ideas.

And that's just Side One. Albertine breaks the book into two sections modeled on an album sides. Side Two follows her life after leaving the Slits. It's not the stuff of standard rock memoirs, but her story and way of telling it are intriguing and inspiring. First she has to figure out what to do with her life, and she demonstrates the value of identifying concrete steps to achieve her goals. After several fizzled attempts at higher education in her youth, she makes it through film school and finds steady work as a commercial director. She overcomes her loneliness by agreeing with a friend to go on more dates, ask men out and include men in outings with her girlfriends, resulting in her meeting her husband.

Then things go south. She suffers a miscarriage with major complications, endures repeated rounds of IVF in a desperate attempt to eventually have a baby, then gets diagnosed with cervical cancer. As she slowly emerges from the fog of those lost years, she recognizes the void in her life, reduced to a stay-at-home suburban mom. So she takes it upon herself to get her groove back by returning to music. She had long since sold her guitars and lost her chops, but she obsessively rebuilds her skills, adding new ones as a singer, songwriter and solo performer. This is both the cause of and balm for the dissolution of her marriage, but she takes justifiable pride in her daughter's getting to see her as much more than a mom.

She readily admits to her ups and downs, giving the book real emotional heft. She describes when she felt invincible and when she was overcome with self doubt, when she wisely followed her instincts and one terrifying expample of when she ignored them with an abusive man. She was struck with sudden insight on a date with Vincent Gallo, making her realize why she'd never have an affair with him, and the same evening her confidence was bolstered by a Patti Smith sighting.

There is a refreshing lack of score-settling and dirt-dishing. Mick Jones remains mostly opaque, a supportive if imperfect boyfriend, but she freely admits that she wasn't interested in a serious relationship at the time. She never uses the cliched excuse of "artistic differences" to explain her departure from the New Slits, but she gives a good picture of what that truly looks like. While the expression is frequently a euphemism for personality clashes or bruised egos, she describes how it felt inauthentic to her to perform songs from her youth as she wrestled with the issues of middle age, and she holds no ill will towards her bandmates for continuing without her, especially since she enjoyed being back in their fold. She respects the privacy of her husband and daughter by never revealing their names. She finds kind words for Nancy Spungeon despite not particularly liking her. The juiciest tidbit she drops is that she and Johnny Thunders never consummated their romance between his heroin habit had rendered him impotent.

There’s always room for another “rock and roll with save your life” story, fiction or non-fiction. But those stories are is usually coming-of-age tales of young adults. Albertine crafts a unique perspective by recounting how rock and roll can save a middle-aged suburban mom’s life.

Movie Review: Gimme Danger

How thorough is Gimme Danger, the Stooges documentary directed by Jim Jarmusch? I wrote a thesis on the Stooges, immersing myself for months in any anything Stooges-related I could lay my eyeballs on, and I still learned new things about the band. How good is Gimme Danger? I still got chills from the recordings that formed the central arguments of my thesis.

The story of the band is fairly well-known by now. A bunch of degenerates from the outskirts of Detroit, led by the flamboyant, antagonizing Iggy Pop, recorded a few albums and played a bunch of stages, earning few fans and pissing off many more. They crumbled under the weight of poor sales and their own drug habits. Rather than falling into obscurity, they were eventually heralded as important, ground-breaking revolutionaries. Their 2003 reunion served as a victory lap before the deaths of founding brothers Ron and Scott Ashton.

In lesser hands the documentary could have been straightforward but artless. But Jarmusch brings two strengths to piece. He has worked with Iggy since the '90s, and the centerpiece of the film is several extensive interviews with Iggy. And while the movie includes plenty of archival footage of the band, Jarmusch shows real flair in the selection of materials to fill in the gaps and illustrate the voiceover interviews. This includes a combination of stock footage, movie clips from other sources and newly-created animation that convey a sense of humor about the subject. For example, when they discuss using the Three Stooges as inspiration for the band name, the film includes a clip of the comedy trio playing instruments to a Stooges soundtrack.

Although Iggy is the star of the film, Jarmusch interviews many others, including guitarist James Williamson, Scott Ashton, his sister Kathy, Danny Fields, who signed them to Elektra, and Mike Watt, who replaced the late Dave Alexander on bass when they reunited. An existing interview with Ron Ashton, conducted shortly before his death, supplements the interviews done for this project.

A slight shortcoming is that the film glosses over some of the internal conflicts within the band. Paul Trynka's Iggy bio Open Up and Bleed shows great admiration for its subject without letting Iggy off the hook for his sometimes dismissive treatment of his bandmates. On the other hand, this movie was the first recognition I've seen of Alexander's specific musical contributions to their debut album, and it came straight from Iggy's lips. The film also fills in some of the dotted lines on the path to their reunion that started with Ron being asked to join with younger, admiring musicians for a faux-Stooges band for Velvet Goldmine, a fictional film loosely based on Iggy and David Bowie's relationship in the '70s.

Gimme Danger is currently in limited release and is recommended for Stooges fans and newcomers alike.

Concert Recommendations: Ash, Kishi Bashi, October 3

Do you prefer your exuberant music with noisy guitars or violin loops?

If that question is easy for you to answer, then your choice of concerts on Monday is easy. Me, I'm still torn.

On violin front is Kishi Bashi, the band name under which Kaoru Ishibashi performs, who just released a terrific third album Sonderlust. It is buoyant, a fun bounceback to his fetching debut 151a after the sophomore slump of Lighght, that failed to make much of an impression. I haven't seen them live, but there are obvious musical connections to Animal Collective's textural use of loops and Passion Pit's synth pop, plus an unexpected homage to Pink Floyd's "Money" with "Who'd You Kill." As a former Berklee employee, I wish Ishibashi's name came up among famous alumni more often than the problematic John Mayer.

If you prefer your lyrics more at the forefront, if you're feeling nostalgic for '90s UK music that never made as a much of an impression on this side of the Atlantic, or you like your punk with power pop sensibilities and a lingering adolescent love of metal riffs, go see Ash touring in support of the 20th anniversary of 1977, the album with such not-quite-hits "Girl from Mars" and "Kung Fu." The Irish band led by Tim Wheeler hit their commercial peak as a 4-piece, but guitarist Charlotte Hatherley left the fold a while back, so they are back to a trio.

Use the comments section to chime in if I've helped you make up your mind, because I'm still conflicted by the wealth of riches in the Boston area on one night.

Ash plays The Middle East Upstair, 472-480 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, doors at 8:00 pm. Kishi Bashi plays Royale, 279 Tremont St., Boston, MA, 02116, doors at 7:00 pm. Both shows Monday, October 3.

Road Trip Report: Ramones Exhibit at the Queens Museum

When the Ramones released their first album 40 years ago, they were either ignored or dismissed as reprobates by vast swaths of the population. Several decades later, they have now been embraced as hometown heroes in their birthplace. The Queens Museum is honoring their contributions to (the downfall of) society is an exhibition "Hey! Ho! Let's Go: Ramones and the Birth of Punk" that opened in April and runs through July 31.

The exhibit consists of four galleries of photos, music, artwork, artifacts, videos, instruments, handwritten lyrics, press clippings and other memorabilia. The materials and supporting text detail the story and influence of the band. Among the highlights are their first press release, penned by Tommy, that demonstrates his vision for the band from the get-go as well as their sense of humor. Visa applications provide a rare photo of Joey without shades. Video screens display early rehearsals and performances, and a block of six old CRT TVs offers a rotation of their music videos. One display includes Johnny's Mosrite guitar and clothes they wore in concert, which were definitely not costumes because part of their ethos was to dress the same on stage and off. As befitting a band with an art director, visuals compromise a significant component, primarily from Arturo Vega but also from other contributors, such as Mark Kostabi's original painting for the cover of ¡Adiós Amigos!

It winds down by describing the post-Ramones careers of the members but ends on a bittersweet note, that the band had limited success while it was active but has grown in stature after the death the original members.

The gift shop has a limited assortment of Ramones gear for most ages (babies and adults, but no t-shirts in kid sizes), and you can feel a lot better about buying stuff there than at Hot Topic.

The museum has other exhibitions, too. I skipped them. They weren't about the Ramones.

My visit lasted about an hour, accompanied by semi-squirmy/semi-interested kids who like but don't love the Ramones.

If you are planning a visit and you are not familiar with the area, keep in mind that the museum is near Citi Field, USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the New York State Pavillion and the New York Hall of Science. These can either be added attractions for your trip to the area or causes of traffic tie-ups that you want to avoid.

Finally, if you want to reenact "Happy Family," specifically "Sittin' here is Queens, eatin' refried beans," Taqueria Nixtamal is a short drive or long walk from the museum and is a cheerful little hole-in-the-wall with seats and refried beans. Service isn't quick, but the Mexican food is very fresh and carefully prepared. (Disclaimer: this restaurant recommendation is not an endorsement for gulping down Thorazines. And you'll need to bring your own magazines.)

Meditations on Prince and Bowie or; Why I'll Never Say, "I May Be Old, But at Least I Got to See All the Good Bands"

The public outpouring over the deaths of Bowie and Prince says a lot about the similarities between the artists and explains why the death of, say, Glenn Frey just wasn't as big a deal. Yes, both had distinctive costuming, unprecedented business dealings, and interracial audiences, and they expanded our ideas of appropriate sexual behavior. But much more importantly, both were relentless in pursuing new musical boundaries, of exploring and exploding genre definitions. They didn't rest on the laurels of their back catalogs but spent their whole careers trying to create something new. That kind of vision resonates far more than just selling a shitlload of records.

Which leads me to my challenge to the reader. If our most revered artists constantly looked forward and not just backward, shouldn't you be doing the same as a listener? It pisses me when people, especially those around my age, post the meme on Facebook, "I May Be Old, But at Least I Got to See All the good Bands" because it is closed-minded and backwards looking. And it pisses me off because it was the same bullshit that Gen Xers endured in our youth at the hands of Baby Boomers and that we are now aiming at Millennials. At that attitude's worst extremes, it's powerful Baby Boomers like Tipper Gore parading before the Senate because they fear the music of Prince (and I'll probably have more to say about this after I finish reading Folk Devils and Moral Panics by Stanley Cohen (no relation)). But it also plays in less virulent ways, such as the Steve Miller Band, who sold a shitload of records to Baby Boomers but offered no grand vision or musical innovation, getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before the Cure or Depeche Mode, who defined their musical genres and had the songwriting chops to sustain careers long after the novelty of goth and synth pop subsided, but they are icons to those who came after the Baby Boomers. As Jim DeRogatis said in Color Me Obsessed, "You had the motherfucking Baby Boomers consistently getting in your face and saying, 'Nothing you ever see in your life is going to be nearly as good as the Beatles. Nothing you ever experience is going to be nearly as good as Woodstock.' To which you and I were responding, 'Fuck you. We just saw the Replacements.'" But now the motherfucking Gen Xers are saying the same thing to Millennials, but replacing the Beatles with the Replacements or Nirvana.

So get over yourself. Acknowledge that there is good music being made and still to be made, and go try to find some it. If you need a suggestion, start with OK Go the next time they hit your town. Kurt Cobain never got to see them, and he missed out.

50th Birthday Playlist

Another milestone birthday is approaching, so it was time to update the birthday playlist. I had compiled my 120 favorite songs, enough to fill my iPod Shuffle, from throughout my life for my 40th birthday party. My current iPhone holds many more songs than that, but I decided to stick with the rule of 30 songs per decade.

And once again, I have a few observations:

• Because I have kids, I have rediscovered Top 40 radio. With age I've also gotten over a lot of my music snobbery, so I make no apologies for the pop songs.
• The older songs are ones that have taken on greater significance for me in the last decade.
• I'm happy to say that I've found enough new music in the last decade that I had to struggle to cut the list down to 30.

I played my 40th birthday playlist at my 40th birthday party. I won't have that opportunity with turning 50, but I've known all along that I wanted to update the playlist, because the original one is a gift to myself that keeps on giving. I frequently listen to my music on shuffle, so it's like a little surprise party whenever one of my favorite songs comes on.

The additions from the last decade:

1. American Authors - Best Day of My Life
2. Animal Collective - Summertime Clothes
3. Art Brut - Slap Dash for No Cash
4. Barnett, Courtney  - Nobody Really Cares If You Don't Go To The Party
5. Bloc Party - Helicopter
6. Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy
7. Case, Neko - Man
8. Chvrches - Clearest Blue
9. Collins, Edwyn  - Losing Sleep
10. Django Django - Default
11. Escovedo, Alejandro  - Always a Friend
12. Franz Ferdinand - Bullet
13. Fratellis - Henrietta 
14. Frightened Rabbit - Swim Until You Can't See Land
15. Ida Maria - Queen of the World
16. Joy Division - She’s Lost Control
17. Kishi Bashi - It All Began with a Burst
18. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
19. Lekman, Jens - Your Arms Around Me
20. Monae, Janelle - Tightrope
21. OK Go - This Too Shall Pass
22. Pharrell - Happy
23. Redwalls - Modern Diet
24. Ronson, Mark & Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk
25. Savages - She Will
26. Segall, Ty - It’s Over
27. Sleater-Kinney - Surface Envy
28. St. Vincent - Digital Witness
29. Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog
30. Zola Jesus - Vessel

Love Songs for Parents

Pop music is a kids' game. It's not just due to risk-averse radio programmers that older artists' music rarely gets airplay. The emotional turmoil of youth, the extreme highs and lows, lends itself to song more easily to than the stability that comes with maturity. Even the most devout Adele fans have to say to themselves occasionally, "For God's sake, woman, pull yourself together already." Unless you're extricating yourself from the kind of tormented relationship that inspired Elvis Costello to write "Alibi" in his 40s (and his divorce from Cait O’Riordan came as little surprise to anyone who heard that song), it's hard to find music that really speaks to the experience of being middle aged.

But what does cause intense emotion at this age? Parenthood. There are a handful of sappy tracks about parenthood, but the last year has brought two fantastic songs about platonic rather than romantic love. Perhaps their not being explicitly about parenthood is what keeps them from brimming with treacle; one is from a hilarious animated movie about the love between a farmer and his flock of sheep. But they buoyantly capture the happiness, the joyfulness, of being with your kids. Or at least how I feel about being with mine.

The first is a power pop gem from Tim Wheeler of Ash, "Feels Like Summer" from Shaun the Sheep The Movie.




The second is from Michael Franti, who has mellowed from his angry young man days of the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. He's still aggressive, but now he's aggressively joyous in "Once a Day," a song inspired by his son about the feeling the love of those around you.



Especially if you're feeling like the Romantic Industrial Complex is dictating your emotions today, look beyond the partners and paramours in your life (or lack thereof), and embrace all your loved ones, kids, parents, friends, pets and anyone else whose presence in your life makes it better.

Bowie's Lessons on Leadership

• Have a vision and delegate to people with complementary talents to carry it out. NPR’s recent interview with some of Bowie’s Blackstar collaborators highlights his creative process. Get a big idea, then bring in the right people whose skills differ from your own to fill in the gaps of what you can’t do yourself. Give them enough direction to achieve your goals, but trust them to run with it in their own way and don’t micromanage them. Janelle Monáe has already nailed this, but the lesson applies more generally.
• Bravely let your freak flag fly. I first saw Bowie with his shockingly orange hair on Dinah Shore’s afternoon talk show. He was the strangest thing I’d on my TV in the bland suburbs, and perhaps the strangest thing I’d seen in my first decade on Earth. It clearly made an impression. If you’re going to be unconventional, then do it with conviction. Put it out there for everyone to see.
• Know when to act like a rock star, but know when not to. When Bowie was on stage, he was captivatingly charismatic. But when he was off stage, he didn't demand to be the center of attention. My two favorite examples: I worked at Tower Records at in London in the late '80s. When Michael Jackson was in town and wanted to shop there, his minions made arrangements for all the employees to be shooed out right at closing so that he could browse privately with only the store manager present. When Bowie wanted to shop there, he walked in the door in the middle of the day (sadly, not during my shift), selected his merchandise then stood in line with everyone else and to pay for it. And before his health declined, he reportedly got out to little clubs in New York on a regular basis to see up-and-coming bands, taking it in with the rest of the punters and leaving the spotlight to the young performers. Like a normal human being. Because it’s not always about you.
• Pay attention to your colleagues’ health needs, and be a loyal friend. When Iggy Pop’s life was sinking due to the interconnected problems of drug addiction and the Stooges’ demise, Bowie checked him into a residential mental health facility and visited him regularly during his convalescence. Iggy recovered. They decamped to Berlin, where they cowrote “China Girl” for Iggy. In the ‘80s, Bowie recorded the song for his insanely commercially successful Let’s Dance. Loyalty is not just the right thing to do, it can pay significant long-term dividends.
• Be open to what’s new and be willing to embrace it. When promoting Never Let Me Down in 1987, Bowie endorsed Screaming Blue Messiahs as his favorite new band. Paul McCartney was asked a similar question and that time, and he hemmed and hawed trying to think of any young bands before coming up with Dire Straits, who were already old fart music compared to Screaming Blue Messiahs by that point. It’s just one example of Bowie’s keeping his ear to the ground for new sounds.
• Use your clout to shine a light on others. When Bowie was flush with early success, he produced albums for the Stooges, Mott the Hoople and Lou Reed, drawing attention to artists on the commercial fringes. Over the years, he handpicked opening acts to expose them to his sizable audience, such as Polyphonic Spree on some dates on his final tour. He recognized that his big fanbase gave him power, and he could use it to help other artists. Sonic Youth did this on a smaller scale and earned lots of respect and loyalty for it.
• Use your success as an opportunity to take more risks. Having a few hits can be the equivalent of earning tenure. You could keep cranking out minor variations on the formula that made you successful. Or you could use it as the freedom to explore new musical idioms. Bowie’s constant expeditions into new musical territory made each album into an event, not just excuse to embark on a lucrative tour (I’m looking at you, Rolling Stones and Madonna). He went out on limbs and made you care about what he would do next.

Best Albums of 2014 Meta List

I’ve read enough best-of lists over the years that I’ve finally nailed down the formula.

1. The blockbuster album to prove that I’m not an elitist out of touch with what’s popular but I'll rank it low on my list to prove that I’m still cool.
2. The painfully obscure release that demonstrates that I listen to way more music than you do.
3. The bloated reissue that I claim helped me rediscover a classic. The publicist gave me a free copy so that I could encourage you to blow your money repurchasing something you already own.
4. The new album from a veteran performer that shows they are either still relevant or that they were ahead of their time. Bonus points if they’ve gotten a stamp of approval from someone younger and famous; Bob Seger would be on every list this year if Jack White had produced his latest.
5. A bunch of albums that have had buzz all year as the critical concensus so that I can maintain credibility with my peers.
6. The stuff I actually enjoyed and listened to repeatedly throughout the year. But I might not have the guts if it doesn't match the above criteria.

This may also be a preview of my 2015 list.

Concert Review: Bob Mould, Paradise Rock Club

The middle-aged man on stage, with his glasses and close-cropped thinning hair, could have passed for a suburban dad. Had he been out on Spy Pond Field for Arlington Town Night a few hours earlier, no one would have blinked an eye. Then Bob Mould unleashed a glorious cacophony with his guitar and left no doubt that he was someone special.

Mould arrived at the Paradise on Friday to a packed house to support his latest album, Beauty & Ruin. He’s been making the promotional rounds, and as I listened to his new material, I realized how distinctive his guitar sound is, even for someone like me who isn’t a guitar geek, and how much I loved hearing it, even though I’d never been a huge Hüsker Dü or Sugar fan. The album has gotten a good response for Mould’s skill as a lyricist, but live it was all about the guitar: the distortion, depth and din. No angry young man, Mould wielded a smile and an axe, creating a joyous noise.

Bassist Jason Narducy matched Mould in spirit, and the esteem in which Mould holds him was evident from their mic positions. Mould placed himself not in the center of the stage with Narducy shunted off to the side. Instead, each was equidistant from drummer Jon Wurster at the center, except when they frequently flung themselves around the stage.

Punk is about more than a store-bought snarl and Hot Topic wardrobe. Hüsker Dü never fit that fashion mold back in the day, so there’s no reason for Mould to do it now. It’s in blazing his own path, guitar as machete, that Mould has lasted this long, playing to larger crowds than he did 25 years ago and remaining relevant.

The Trouble with Chic

We're midway through the voting process for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and there has been much debate about the relative merits of not only the nominees but also those who didn't get tapped. In almost every case, it boils down to one of two arguments:

• The public loves an artist, but the critics don't. 
• The critics love an artist, but the public doesn't. 

This isn't the issue with Nile Rodgers and Chic, and the fact that I named Rodgers separately indicates the problem. You can't say it's a lack a popularity or influence. Rodgers' distinctive fingerprints are all over not Chic but also his hits with Madonna, David Bowie, INXS, and, most recently Daft Punk. His style is prominent in his work as both performer and producer.

The issue is that Rodgers' credits are too diffuse to merit induction in any category despite the importance of his work taken as a whole. Although Chic epitomized disco and were were heavily sampled in hip hop, but they only had a few hits; the band's career was eclipsed by Donna Summer, whose reign extended well beyond the disco era. To recognize Rodgers' work as a sideman (now called the Award for Musical Excellence) overlooks his work as a producer (now called the Ahmet Ertegun Award) and vice versa.

Nile Rodgers deserves to be in the Rock Hall, but their category structure makes it all but impossible to properly recognize his impact.
 

Why Sound City Makes Me Angry

The Dave Grohl-directed Sound City has been praised as a love letter to rock and roll.

It left me seething with rage.

The film chronicles the Sound City studio in the Los Angeles suburbs. Despite the studio's unassuming appearance, many legendary and successful albums were recorded there, including Nevermind. Their success came down to several factors. Magical acoustics unintentionally made drums sound great. A sweet custom recording console afforded producers precise control. The people involved in running the place had great ears for commerce as well as music.

It's when the studio's fortunes decline that things start to turn ugly. Short version: their resolutely analog set-up was incompatible with the growing use of digital recording and production technology, so artists stopped booking there. They were forced to shut.

It's the condemnation of technology and its broader implications that make the movie intolerable. The talking heads are cantankerously retrograde in the view of music: Real music is purely analog. Using a sampler isn't making music. Software such as Pro Tools and Auto-Tune allows people who have no business calling themselves musicians to make music. Watching the narrow-minded white men outright reject any music that didn't meet their strictly-defined ideals made me seethe. It made me resent Nevermind because it framed it as backwards-looking.

Seeing this made me more annoyed about the casual sexism of the place. The highest ranking woman at the studio is fondly recalled for being hot and little else. The beloved rundown atmosphere included a wall covered in porn. Women were hired as secretaries who could be pulled into duty as back-up singers, but men hired as entry-level runners were groomed to become engineers and producers.

People of color got even less screen time than women.

It reminded me of the disco backlash, which wasn't just about musical purity but a backlash by straight white males, especially aging ones, against the rise of music by people who weren't straight, white or male. Then it reminded me of a strain of straight white male conservative Republicans who are bent out shape by the prospect of their reign of unquestioned dominance being challenged. Guess what, fellas, there's more to good popular music than bass, drums, guitar and vocals. And you sound just as cranky as your predecessors did a few generations back when musicians embraced the technology of the electric guitar. A prior generation no doubt decried singers who needed microphones.

It reeks of tokenism, but at least Trent Reznor gets a chance to advocate for technology, recognizing it as a tool that can enable new kinds of creative expression. But he probably only gets a pass because he also talks about playing classical piano growing up, so he still qualifies as a "real" musician.

A member of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club squeezes in a throwaway line about how apps like GarageBand make recording accessible to many more people than in the past. It's because of people like the pigheaded retrograde gatekeepers that populate this movie that GarageBand and its ilk are crucial to the continued revitalization of music.

The hope in making this movie was probably that the audience would run home listen to the great albums made there by Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, REO Speedwagon(?) or Ratt(???). Instead, it left me filled with the desire to listen to Depeche Mode, Lady Gaga and the Beastie Boys, especially Paul's Boutique, artists who have created great music that embraces technology, music that has looked to the future instead of being trapped in the past.

Concert Recommendation: The Hives, House of Blues, June 23

In the charming Mo Willems' childrens' book Edwina, The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct, the title character goes around town making people happy, blissfully unaware that dinosaurs should no longer inhabit the earth. When a know-it-all in need of an audience explains to her that she should be extinct, she buys his arguments but just doesn't care. She just goes on having fun, and even her lecturer joins her.

Substitute "garage rock" for "dinosaur," and you've got the story of the Hives. They burst onto the scene a decade ago as part of the third wave of garage. The White Stripes appeared to be the only long-term survivors of the fad, and even they've broken up, and not before Jack White repositioned his duo as blues revivalists. But armed with unflagging bravado, especially by satirically arrogant lead singer Howlin' Pelle Almqvist, the Hives have kept chugging along, blissfully unaware that there won't be a Grandchildren of Nuggets compilation. And, like Edwina, they go around making people happy by putting on great shows. "Go Right Ahead," the lead track from the new Lex Hives is their raucous take on ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down," and it is just as energizing as any of the highlights from their breakthrough album Veni, Vidi, Vicious.

The Hives play the House of Blues, 15 Lansdowne St., Boston, (888) 693–2583 at 6:30 on Saturday, June 23.

2011: The Non-Year of the Year of Women in Music

Much has been made of women's achievements in comedy this year. Funny women have written best-selling books and have worked both in front of and behind the camera on popular TV shows and in movies. Many commentaries on this also add that it shouldn't be a big deal that women, who are majority of the world's population, are succeeding in any particular endeavor, but the fact remains that it is still seen as a trend and a novelty.

But the real news is not only that women dominated the world of popular music in 2011 but that their collective achievement doesn't warrant commentary. Taylor Swift was Billboard's women of the year for her phenominal sales, and they didn't name a corresponding man of the year. Adele had the year's top-selling album and is poised to clean up at the Grammys. Katy Perry broke one of Michael Jackson's sales records. Britney Spears was newsworthy only for her ticket and single sales. Nicki Minaj was one of the biggest break-out artists of the year. Not a single male solo artist or band made Entertainment Weekly's reader poll for favorite musician of the year. And none of this has been the subject of trend stories; most people acccept this as unworthy of comment.

It's true that accepted roles for women in popular music are still limited, but it is a sign of genuine progress when the success of so many women to the exclusion of the success of men is no big deal.