Category: Music

Rethinking the Remix

by Administrator, posted in Geek Stuff, Movies, Music

I know it’s hard for you to imagine, but sometimes things over here at The Buffet do not go according to plan. For instance, my mythical interview with my all-time RPG heart throb Robin Laws, the man behind all that is good and right with table top roleplaying games (Can you tell I’m a fan?). I had the heart stopping pleasure of doing a 30 minute phone interview with him. He was absolutely everything I hoped he would be; intelligent, quick witted, and inspiring. At this point you’re probably wondering where you can hear/read this interview. Well, you can’t. In theory it is still locked away in the little device that recorded our interview, but alas it seems to defy transcription. For those of you who feel inclined, you can start a letter writing campaign to my husband to see if you can help him get it into a useable format. For me, the Robin Laws thing is pretty heartbreaking. Even after all this time my gut turns at how utterly unprofessional this is. Laws must have come to the logical conclusion that I am just some crazy hack that just wanted to say I talked to him. Not too far off base.

At least that interview took place. (I swear, I’m not lying!) I don’t have the time to go down the list of the dozens of interviews I’ve attempted that have failed from lack of response from the interviewee. They all started out promising. They all said they would do it. And then, they fall off the face of the earth. Or at least I hope they did because if you can’t find the time to answer 10 softball questions via email, your ass had better be out orbiting the Earth. Out of all the failed interviews I’ve had, after Robin Laws there is only one other that I truly regret not happening.

Last year the folks at Disinformation mailed me a handful of DVDs to review for The Buffet. You actually read, or can now go and read, two of them. However there was one movie, “RiP! A Remix Manifesto” that I found very compelling and a complex mine field to try to explain and discuss, so I approached my contact about interviewing the director Brett Gaylor. My contact at Disinformation told me to go ahead and put together the interview and he would get it taken care of. And then nothing happened. Not only did the interview not happen, but I haven’t received any other promotional items since then. It’s okay, I’m sure if I borrowed my friend’s telescope I would find the guy drifting in space, occasionally bumping into satellites or other missing interviewees.

Without the interview I kind of just gave up on talking about the film. Although I sometimes try to present a neutral outlook on things, I tend to like to know how I feel about something I publish. I like this. This is unfair. I dislike that. The simple fact is, when it comes to the issue of remixing, I am of two minds on the issue.

For those of you who don’t know what a remix is (I’m impressed you found your way to “the internets” and were able to navigate through it’s tubes via “the Google” to find my site), Wikipedia has a pretty concise definition for you. “A remix is an alternative version of a song made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song (film, literature etc.).” And there lies my dilemma.

I worked in music retail for years. Many a time I told a youthful shopper scoffing at paying for a CD how musicians only get around $.05 per album sold. This is why they tour, because unless they want to live on ramen they have to get out there and sell some tickets, and more importantly, some t-shirts. The long and short of it is, what is still considered the industry standard for record labels is a pretty raw deal for the musician, unless they get lucky and blow up. That is changing, but that is a whole different post. I love music. I am passionate about it, and grateful to the folks that make it possible. I buy my album, and my t-shirt when possible.

However, on the flip side, copyrighting has always rubbed me the wrong way. I always like to tell the story of poor, talented, and totally hosed Biz Markie of “Just a Friend” fame. The recording industry used Biz Markie as an example of what happens when you use unlicensed music in your songs. Gilbert O’Sullivan claimed that the Biz’s song “Alone Again” featured an unauthorized sample from his hit “Alone Again (Naturally)”. Biz Markie’s album was pulled, and the fall out greatly hindered his career. By greatly hindered, I mean most of you probably don’t know who Biz Markie is. (In an odd bit of fate, shortly after writing this TMZ actually mentioned Biz Markie!) The ruling of Grand Upright Music, Ltd. v. Warner Bros. Records, Inc. altered the landscape of hip-hop, finding that all samples must be cleared with the original artist before being used. I understand. I really do. I mean, we all remember that nonsense when Vanilla Ice tried to prove that he didn’t rip off Queen’s “Under Pressure” to make “Ice, Ice Baby”. It was painful. They totally robbed Queen. And yet, I can’t help but feel that those sorts of lawsuits create a climate of fear within artistic communities. Sure, Vanilla Ice verses Queen seems pretty straight forward. But how far does this go? At what point does one song end and another begin.

Let’s take this scene from “Rip!” as an example:

That guy at the end with a computer and a dancing crowd is Girl Talk. Actually, his name is Gregg Gillis, but he performs under the name Girl Talk. Girl Talk is central in “RiP!” and with good reason, Girl Talk’s music is created entirely from other artist’s songs. He is a giant lawsuit waiting to happen. Here’s what Girl Talk does:

The question is, where does Elvis Costello end and Girl Talk begin? Can you tell? (By the way, I love his girlfriend laying in bed trying to sleep. You know she’s all like, Gregg, take your laptop and your friends with the cameras somewhere else now, okay?)

As I said earlier, I love music. As a fun challenge I decided to see how many artists I could recognize that went into constructing Girl Talk’s 14 track, 54 minute, album “Feed the Animals”. (I just want to say that I did not cheat and read liner notes or do internet searches or anything. Anyone that knows me personally will tell you that I do not play around when it comes to music, so as much as it pained me to sort of recognize a song but not know a name to add to the list, I did not falter and cheat. That also means I may have gotten some wrong here, but I feel pretty confident.) Here we go: UGK, Twisted Sister, Sinead O’Connor, The Ting Tings, Butthole Surfers, Michael Sembello, Blackstreet, Kanye West, The Band, Steve Winwood, Ace of Base, Cassidy, Kenny Loggins, Busta Rhymes, The Police, Faith No More, Paula Cole, Jackson 5, Queen, Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige, Grandmaster Flash, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Missy Elliot, Digital Underground, Nu Shooz, Public Enemy, 2 in a Room, what sounds like Boy George singing the Cheap Trick song “I Want You to Want Me”, Jimi Hendrix, that song “New Soul” that was in the MacBook ads, Eminem, LL Cool J, Soul II Soul, Beastie Boys, Pras/ODB/Mya doing “Ghetto Superstar” which is ironic since that song lifts from Dolly Parton and Kenny Roger’s “Islands in the Stream”, Diana Ross, Carpenters, Metallica, Styx, Janet Jackson, Snap, Prince, Ice Cube, Tag Team, The Cardigans, Rick Springfield, Big Country, Afrika Bambaataa, Michael Jackson, Roy Orbison, Salt-n-Pepa, Deee-Lite, Nirvana, The Beach Boys, Rick Astley, Kool Moe Dee, K7, Daft Punk, Lil’ Mama, Tone Loc, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, 2 Live Crew, M.I.A., Cranberries, Quad City DJs, Kelly Clarkson, the bass riff that became the intro to the MTV logo back in the day and it KILLS me not remembering where it came from (Metallica maybe?), Soulja Boy, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Foreigner. GASP!

I can easily say I didn’t get even half of what went into making the album. If Girl Talk wanted to create a legal version of the album, he would need to buy the rights to use every song from the 72 artists listed above as well as the probably 100 others. Girl Talk could bankrupt himself just to make one album, let alone the other three albums he’s done. Not to mention if just one copyright holder refuses to grant permission, the entire album would be flushed.

I know, I can hear you now, “But Rebecca, you just said that he used other artist’s work. You actually listed them!” I know! I KNOW! I hate it. I hate feeling all confused and vexed like this. It’s just, yes, he used music from all 72 of the artists I listed, but you can’t even really tell he did. I mean you can, but you can’t. Here, take a look at this video a YouTuber made for the song “In Step”:

As frustrating as it is, I don’t have any apt conclusion to end this article. I am as true blue of a music supporter as you could hope to find, and yet, for my birthday I asked my husband to get me a few Girl Talk CDs. In my defense, Girl Talk is a giant nerd with a laptop that makes totally hot dance music; I am incapable of resisting something that pushes all the right buttons for me.

Do yourself, and me, a favor. Watch “RiP: A Remix Manifesto” and come back here and share your thoughts with me. I need all the help I can get on this one!

Sleigh Bells

by Administrator, posted in Music, Reviews

Back in February I wrote about my observations from watching the Grammy Awards. In a pro-human, patriotic fervor I stated, “Popular culture sets trends or reflects what is trending in our culture, and if the Grammy Awards performances that I saw are in fact to be believed, many musical barriers are being breached. More importantly, these performances are showing that despite bending, blending, or breaking genres, the results need not be a bland homogenous mess.” I swear, if you strained your ears you could have heard the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” in the background.

However, I have to admit that after proclaiming that a new era of genre mashing is upon us and reigning triumphant, I grew concerned that, in fact, we were instead bearing witness to the musical end times; an era that replaces singers with auto tune, musical lineage with rampant commercialism, and professional music journalism with blogging chumps like me. Thankfully, my faith in the musical system has been restored.

The May 27, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone Magazine featured a small article by Jenny Eliscu about a band called Sleigh Bells. It did exactly what music journalism should; get a person excited about music. With only a little more than half a page, Eliscu managed to convince me to hop onto to iTunes to give Sleigh Bells a listen, and once I was there, it took under two minutes for me to click on the “buy album” button. Good journalists have the ability to find the story within the facts that will help readers care about what is going on. The same thing holds true in music journalism. Here are the facts: the Sleigh Bells are a two person band from Brooklyn that have a guitarist (Derek Miller), a vocalist (Alexis Krauss), and an iPod.

From those facts we hear the story of a guitarist who continually fought with his cheap hardware that left his sounds unsatisfying. Out of frustration he kept turning up the master for his recordings and the sounds became harsher and harsher, until it became the sound for Sleigh Bells. We hear about a female vocalist who until recently was a fourth-grade teacher and has now transformed into a dynamic on stage presence despite still being reserved in her day-to-day life. Then we hear how artist M.I.A., of “Paper Planes” fame, fell in love with the group. “When Lil’ Wayne said he was making a rock record, I wanted it to sound like what Sleigh Bells sound like. They’ve got the beats and the 808s of hip-hop, and a hard-core, Slayer-type thing.”

Sleigh Bells’ “Treats” album is tough to describe. It’s got rock guitar riffs, hip hop beats, and pop sensibilities. Obviously this isn’t the first time this trio has been used. There was that annoying trend a few years back where it seemed every rock band also had to have a DJ at a turntable. If you could’ve have known that Sleigh Bells was waiting in the wings, you never would have stood for listening to that crap. (This is assuming you did. If you didn’t, good for you, but quit gloating and get back into this review.)

I view “Treats” as an experience album. It’s hard to explain, but in my head all music falls into these weird personal categories: stuff to dance to, stuff to sing along with, stuff to scream along with, stuff to work out to, stuff to write to, and so on and so forth. “Treats” is an album you press play on and let it swallow you up. Sometimes I quasi head bang to it, sometimes I bust out some of my finest 80’s hip hop booty shakes, and sometimes I just play it for reliably awesome background noise.

One thing I do not do to it is sing. For Sleigh Bells, vocals appear to be just another instrument in the band. Often times the lead singer isn’t singing words and instead is singing rhythmic syllables. For instance, the song “Riot Rhythm” has the rousing lyrics of “ah, ah ah ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah ah ah, ah ah, ah, ah.” Those exact lyrics also show up in the song “Run the Heart”. The lead vocals are mixed at the same sound level as the instruments, so they often blend into the music and other times her voice is run through some effects (no auto tune I’m relieved to say). I hate to say it, but despite dozens or more listenings, I could not tell you the complete lyrics to any of the songs.

“Treats” helps reaffirm my belief that there is something to be gained from musicians blending musical genres together and thinking outside of the box. Yes, it looks like auto tune is here to stay, that the traditional music industry will continue to care more about money than artistic quality, and that amateur music enthusiasts like myself will continue to pretend that we are musical trendsetters. What’s fantastic is that despite all of that, all that which is bad, something truly original and good can still rise up out of that quagmire.

Thank you Rolling Stone for introducing me to Sleigh Bells, I really needed that.

Here’s “Crown on the Ground”, one of my favorites off the album.

Revisiting Courtney Love

by Administrator, posted in Music, Reviews

Okay folks; let me be upfront about this. I love Courtney Love. I always have, and I imagine I always will. I had photos of her on my teenage walls, I wore floral baby doll dresses with combat boots (Which I stand by and would totally do so today if you could still find those dresses and I could find a decent pair of combat boots.), and I drove my college roommate nuts with repeated playings of the Hole album “Live Through This”. So if you are looking for me to be mean, or worse, if you’re looking for an excuse to be mean, just move along. This is not the post for you.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at the new Hole album “Nobody’s Daughter”. For those of you familiar with Love and her body of work, I can give you a really quick sum up. “Nobody’s Daughter” is softer than “Live Through This”, harder than “Celebrity Skin”, and equivalent to Love’s solo album “America’s Sweetheart”. By the way, I really, honestly liked “America’s Sweetheart”. I hadn’t realized until recently that nearly no one else did, including Courtney Love. What’s up with that people?

For those of you who read the previous paragraph and came away with little understanding, or for those of you who actually want to hear my thoughts, let’s continue.

I was psyched when “Nobody’s Daughter” finally came out, but I will admit, my first listen left me feeling confused. Despite what others may say, I love her growl, her not quite ready for pop singing voice, the swath of carnage that she cuts with lyrics, and the screams of a woman who is attempting to purge herself of a rage that never truly goes away. And here she is, still competing with the ghost of her late husband, up to her armpits in debt, having past musical collaborators threatening her with lawsuits, her own daughter filing a restraining order against her, the media constantly republishing her undecipherable blog rants and tweets, and of course, the stints in rehab. When I pressed play on the iPod to give the album a listen on the way to work I literally tightened my grip on the steering wheel, as if the force of her rage would blast me out of the seat. However, I wasn’t prepared for what I heard.

“Nobody’s Daughter” reveals an emotionally exposed Love. The sadness, the melancholy, it’s almost painful. You feel as if you’re somehow violating her privacy by listening to some of the tracks.

This isn’t to say that the album doesn’t also rock out. Both Rolling Stone and Metroland essentially gave the album mediocre reviews, but pointed to a few songs like “Skinny Little Bitch” and “Loser Dust” as being the winners of a not so hot collection. I have to respectfully disagree. After hearing such honest songs like “Letter to God” and “Never Go Hungry”, why would I want to hear standard Hole fare? I mean, if I want to hear that I’ll listen to Hole’s “Live Through This” album. See, that’s the point of having different albums, the artist is not required to make the same album again and again. Why complain about what the album isn’t, when you can instead celebrate what it is? For what’s it worth, I think the best rockin’ out tune on the album is “How Dirty Girls Get Clean”. It’s a Hole song called “How Dirty Girls Get Clean”. Seriously folks, how could that song not be awesome? Here it is live (and this is where I tell you these videos are not safe for work, the f bomb will be dropped):

However, if I could direct your attention over here, you will see a more intimate, emotionally vulnerable Courtney Love, who still manages to rock, if not like she did on “Live Through This”.

Now, if you feel that what you saw wasn’t emotionally raw enough, can I now direct you to one of the earliest live performances of this song?

Yeah, feel it now?

Lastly, since I just really like it, and it’s not a typical Hole or Courtney Love song I want to include a performance of “Never Go Hungry Again”. This was easier said than done because it looks like You Tube is already getting flooded with covers of it. I have it here from the same performance as the most emotionally raw “Letter to God” video just previous to this. For some reason the video is out of sync with the audio, so it’s a little annoying to watch, but go ahead and watch.

I thank you for your time and indulging me in talking about one of my favorite musicians. Sometimes it’s awesome to have my own website.

May Odds and Ends

by Administrator, posted in Events, Messages from Rebecca, Music, Television

Hey Gang! It’s that time again. Where I have all kinds of random things to share so I cram them all into one ill-conceived, but hopefully mildly entertaining, post.

First thing, a reminder that this Saturday is the 6th Annual Oneonta Spiritual Arts Fair. I’ll be there and so should you. Fun fact; there is a game store that sells comics and table top RPG games right by the Unitarian Universalist Society’s building. If you can’t make it, rest assured that you will be missing out on a great time. Also, know that I’ll be writing about the event again this year so if anything crazy happens you’ll hear about it. Unless it would embarrass me, in which case, you’ll never know about it, and you should have driven to Oneonta if you were worried about missing something like that.

Next up, I know I go on and on about them here, but the ladies over at Go Fug Yourself continue to rock my world. Why now? Because they do a better Kanye West than Kanye West does. Behold Kanye basking in the glory of his girlfriend Amber Rose winning this year’s Fug Madness (which by the way, is the only sporting event I care about).

Also, do you remember DJ HipGnosis? He was my partner in crime for my Twitter article. Well recently I got around to listening to what it is my new friend does. Oh. My. God. Love it! If you didn’t check out his work when I published the Twitter article, do so now. If you go here you can download some free remixes that he has done. I’ve been playing those songs to death!

Guess what y’all? My birthday is at the end of the month! Thank you, thank you. Last year I asked my friends and family to donate to a few of my favorite organizations instead of buying me presents. Although I didn’t raise oodles of cash, the folks at Breast Cancer Action, Movember, ACLU, and Grameen America got a little bit of cash that otherwise would have been spent on me. This year I’m asking them to donate to the National Vulvodynia Association. For a while now you’ve read me alluding to health issues, well long story short, I’ve been diagnosed with vulvodynia. It essentially translates to chronic vulvar pain without an identifiable cause. Yes, it sucks so much more than you can imagine. I had entertained the notion of writing this thoughtful essay on my ongoing struggle, yada, yada, yada, but alas, instead I’m giving it this paragraph. Perhaps it’s to represent that my pain is just a small portion of who I am, or, in reality, I don’t want to talk about my crotch with all of you! I love you guys, but come on, it’s my lady parts. Anyway, this year I’m asking my friends and family to donate to the NVA to help them fund medical research. I know money is tight all around these days, but if you or someone you know has a vagina, toss a few bucks to the NVA in honor of my birthday, and I guess my vulva. I’d really appreciate it.

Holy crap! I almost forgot! The April 14, 2010 episode of “The Colbert Report” talked about fact checking the Sunday morning political shows. And guess who got some on air time? Bill Adair of Politifact.com! The Politifact website came to my attention a little over a year ago when I reviewed the “President Obama’s 500 Promises” deck from U.S. Games Systems. I’m happy to see that Politifact continues its work of educating the public on what’s going on behind the “facts” and “figures” that get bandied about on television. Also, I just feel so cool and in the know because I get to say I knew about these guys before they were on “Colbert”. Yep, I’m a real hipster.

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sunday Morning Fact-Checking – Jake Tapper & Bill Adair
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

And on that note, I’m signing off! Have a great May everyone! And as always, thanks for reading!

The Worst Saturday Night Live Performance Ever

by Administrator, posted in Music, Television

I don’t watch the television show Saturday Night Live, hereby to be referred to as SNL. It’s on past my bed time, and there is not a lot of open real estate in my DVR, so SNL just doesn’t make the cut (Don’t worry “Human Target”, mama will always have room in her DVR for you.). It is fairly well documented that I love me some celebrity gossip websites, so generally if something big and/or kooky happens, I read about it.

For days now I keep hearing or reading references to Ke$ha’s recent SNL performance. Finally, and I’ll admit I’m tardy to the party, I saw the performance in question thanks to one of my favorite sites, Ask the Answer B!tch (she’s here to help!). One of her readers posed the question, “Ke$ha was really bad on Saturday Night Live. Has any SNL musical guest been this disastrous?”

The Answer B!tch opened with, “Yes, for the record Ke$ha’s SNL appearance does generally fall under the category of There Are No Words. Some things you just can’t unsee once you’ve watched them.” However, after that she goes on to chronicle some SNL musical performance highlights (or I guess in this case they would be lowlights), including the infamous 2004 performance by Ashlee Simpson.

After days of seeing people allude to this terrible Ke$ha performance culminating with a blog post flat out titled “Was Ke$ha’s SNL Performance the Worst Ever?” I could resist no longer. I watched it.

My biggest concern in watching this is did Ke$ha lip synch? This matters to me because once you have acts like Lady GaGa and Pink doing all kinds of awesome stuff and still singing live, I have trouble accepting lip synching for a single song, on a live television show no less. I’ve watched the video several times, squinting with my nose plastered to my monitor looking for a small microphone being worn at the times she’s not holding the cordless microphone. I’m having trouble deciding. Is there perhaps a flesh toned chin microphone, or does Ke$ha have a mole, or a big pimple? Regardless to it being live or not, the opening features a fantastic voice, one vastly superior to what comes after it. If that was a recording of Ke$ha’s actual singing voice I am impressed. Also, why don’t I hear that voice more?

Of course most of the “Ke$ha performance sucked” commentary stems more from the costuming than concerns about artistic integrity. Oddly, I have no trouble with what I saw. Ke$ha is an intergalactic super hero that has come to fight for your right to party. What’s so hard about that? Let’s get real folks, although catchy, it’s not like the song “Tik Tok” is attempting a cultural revolution or changing the musical landscape. It’s an annoyingly infectious little tune about partying hard. Honestly, her performance may have given the song more depth than it deserved.

I’m curious. My readers are a pretty diverse bunch, what are your thoughts on her performance?

Am I Stupid?

by Administrator, posted in Messages from Rebecca, Music

“Two people unsubcribed from the Buffet today,” I told my husband flatly, “It doesn’t bode well that two people unsubcribed while we’re holding a contest that subscribers are automatically entered into.”

“It’s ‘Kiss with a Fist’,” my husband responded.

“What? You mean the music video from my blog post?”

“Yep, it probably offended them.”

“What?! Why on earth?”

“It’s the violence, it was a knee-jerk reaction,” he guessed.

And that’s when I realized that I must be incredibly stupid.

In my article I described Florence and the Machine’s song “Kiss with a Fist” as “channeling inner rage in just the cutest way”. I found Florence’s description of a mutually destructive relationship excellent. The brutal lyrics teamed up with perky rock and sing song melody was a highlight of the album for me.

And here’s why I’m stupid. Never. Never, ever. Not once while listening to the song, singing along with the song, dancing to the song. Not once did I think the lyrics were about a man and woman actually physically beating each other up. I really never did.

So, am I stupid? A bad feminist? A bad person?

According to Joanna McNaney in issue 46 of “Bitch” magazine I am probably all of the above. In her write up of the song she states, “Yeah, I know – songs don’t hurt people. But in just two minutes and four seconds, ‘Kiss with a Fist’ chips away at all the good that anti-domestic violence organizations try to do for the protection of women on a daily basis.” Later she says, “I realize that it’s possible that ‘Kiss with a Fist’ is supposed to be one big metaphor for a terrible relationship. But what comes across is a song that quite literally spells out that not only should abusive relationships be tolerated, they should be welcomed as an alternative to loneliness. I don’t know about you, but I think I’ll stick with regular kisses and classic rock for the time being.”

First, I can’t help but poke at “Bitch” a little bit by pointing out that the woman in the song deals out just as much punishment as she takes. In terms of violence to violence, the woman is most assuredly equal, or possibly greater, than her partner. It’s silly to point out, since it never occurred to me until now that someone out there might have viewed this song as some sort of how-to manual for beating the crap out of someone, but alas, I couldn’t help myself.

That blurb aside, really? I mean, really? There are people out there who didn’t think the song was a metaphor? I’ll admit it; I can’t decide who the stupid one here is: me, blissfully ignoring a literal interpretation of a song, or them, somehow content to only acknowledge a literal interpretation of the song.

I own Body Count’s first album that features the song “Cop Killer”. I never thought Ice-T was saying, “Hey everyone, let’s all get guns and shoot some cops!” I thought he was expressing pent up outrage for a justice system that is particularly callous towards what happens in many low income urban areas. I own Nas’s “Untitled” album that features the song “Sly Fox”, which has Nas saying he’s going to get a hold of Fox News personalities and throw them off a roof. Again, never entertained the vaguest notion that Nas was literally going to hunt down Bill O’Reilly and kill him. And I own Florence and the Machine’s album “Lungs”, which has the song “Kiss with a Fist” and despite it’s litany of violent acts I never thought that Florence was in a physically violent relationship or thought that actual physical violence was an okay way to be in a relationship.

Maybe I am stupid; however, if the alternative view is smart, I’ll gladly be called an idiot.

Music Matters

by Administrator, posted in Movies, Music

Music matters. I don’t have facts and figures to back up that statement. Sure, I could go online and find them, but you know it’s true, so why fight with WordPress to create a link? Music inspires, educates, and liberates, that’s just how it is, no sense in denying it. Can’t imagine a world without it, and I think I’ve made it pretty clear from previous posts that I wouldn’t want to be in a world that doesn’t have it. I was surprised to learn that from 1996-2001 music was banned by the Taliban in Afghanistan. What is that world like?

Many of you may have heard about the documentary “Afghan Star“. For those of you who haven’t, it’s a film documentary that follows the lives of contestants and producers of a television show in Afghanistan called “Afghan Star”. “Afghan Star” makes “American Idol” contestants look like total wusses. And before you email me compelling stories about the lives of the struggling as to yet already be semi-well-known AI contestants, answer me this; Any former AI contestant have to live under government protection for singing on stage? Yeah, I thought so. Music was banned. However, 60% of the Afghan population is under the age of 21 and the Taliban has lost some of its hold, so that’s right folks, music is back.

“Afghan Star” brings pop music to the people, following the same basic structure that we know from “American Idol”. It’s an elimination based performance contest where people use their phones to vote for their favorites. A third of the country watched the finale of the season followed in “Afghan Star”. This is contestant Setara performing.

Is it just me, or that just damned catchy? I sit and shimmy at my keyboard every time I play it. Notice her jaunty swaying? Well, in Afghanistan that’s the equivalent of Madonna dry humping the stage while rolling around in a bridal gown at the MTV awards. Or perhaps it’s Madonna’s simulated masturbation rendition of “Like a Virgin” for the Truth or Dare Tour? Either way, whatever the most offensive visual Madonna has busted out in public, Setara’s rhythmic swaying is its equivalent.

Setara was doomed to get knocked out of the competition for being so brazen, and as predicted, she was. Although, just like any artist with nothing to lose, she went full out for her farewell performance.

The dancing, and worse, exposing her hair, caused an uproar and death threats. Surprisingly, it was the other female contestant Lima, who was very demure and conservative that ended up living under the protection of her local governor at the end of the film.

But Rebecca, you’re ready to say, that’s all well and good, but that’s one show, and it’s pop music. That’s not really music. One, I’d dare argue that in a country where music has been banned for 5 years, there is nothing more important than a vibrant pop music revival. Second, would a band of pretty Afghan boys in skinny jeans channeling indie Brit pop make you feel better?

In that case, here you go!

That was Kabul Dreams, and they claim to be Afghanistan’s first rock band. I don’t know if that is an entirely accurate claim, but they are a rock band, they are in Afghanistan, and they’re the only one I’ve heard of, so that makes it good enough for me!

There is music in Afghanistan again, and that means that truly anything is possible. That’s what music does, no sense in denying it.

As a quick aside, for those of you who tend towards heavy metal, can I suggest checking out “Heavy Metal in Baghdad”? It’s about Iraq, not Afghanistan, but it follows the only heavy metal band in Iraq. You can watch it for free thanks to Hulu! In fact, if you’ve got one and a half hours, you can watch it here now!

Mini Music Review Madness!

by Administrator, posted in Music, Reviews

I seem to buy music in batches. I don’t know how it happens but somehow it does. Despite the amazing lack of music related posts, I’ve been listening to all kinds of good stuff recently. The problem is, I sit down to write about it and essentially come up with, “this album was great!” Although articles are generally shorter in a blog format, a one sentence music review might be too brief to consider an actual article.

In November I published a review of Passion Pit’s album “Manners”. It was easy to single that one out of the batch because of its quirky nature. I bought “Manners” at the same time as The Gossip’s “Music for Men” and Tegan and Sara’s “Sainthood”. Both of those albums were just as good as the Passion Pit album. However, when pressed to try and write about them I tended to come up with, “The lead vocalist of The Gossip, Beth Ditto, has a huge booming voice that when paired with the soul laced rock of the band creates musical magic,” and “Tegan and Sara create intelligent rock music that makes you want to roll down the windows of your car and turn the volume up.” All three albums were great, but for some reason I just couldn’t make proper reviews out of two of them. Trust me; it’s due to my ineptitude, not a poor quality product from The Gossip or Tegan and Sara.

Then, after my triumphant review of Sade’s new album “Soldier of Love”, which I call triumphant because it spent 3 weeks at #1 on the Billboard album charts, I again find myself in a music review pickle.

My recent batch of albums are varied: Weezer’s “Raditude”, Jay-Z’s “The Blueprint 3”, Johnny Cash’s “American VI: Ain’t No Grave”, and Florence and the Machine’s “Lungs”. Again I don’t know what to say about any one of them to make a proper music review, so I’m giving you my mini-reviews, and perhaps a video or two to round it out.

First up is Weezer’s “Raditude”. I love Weezer. Years ago I read an interview with the lead singer Rivers Cuomo about how he tried to create a mathematical equation for creating great pop music. All that geekiness with an electric guitar? I’ve been in love ever since. That said, I didn’t really care for Weezer’s previous album “Weezer aka The Red Album”. It was more experimental, which as a band was probably a good thing since internet rumor has it that Cuomo had been a bit of a control freak in the past, but not so great for me. I’m happy to say that with “Raditude”, I’m back full on into Weezer. Although I assume Cuomo abandoned his mathematical pop music musings, Weezer still crafts the best pop rock songs around. Whether it’s the anthemic “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”, or the catchy ironic “Can’t Stop Partying” featuring Lil’ Wayne, you’re guaranteed to sing along and tap your foot. Singing along + tapping foot=great Weezer album. Here, tap your foot and sing along!

Next up is Jay-Z. I’m not overly familiar with Jay-Z’s past work, but I heard a few songs off of his latest album, “The Blueprint 3”, and just caught the Jay-Z bug. I found the album on sale cheap and said, what the heck, and picked it up. I haven’t listened to a rap album to death this much since the Nas “Untitled” album! Although lyrically “The Blueprint 3” isn’t as thoughtful as the Nas album, it is loaded with clever rhymes, and the beats, the music with it makes me try to do “The Harlem Shake” while typing at my desk. However, the coolest part of the album is the track “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)”. If you want to feel like a certified bad ass, put on your sunglasses, roll down the windows of your car, and turn it up. Seriously, this is good stuff.

(On a totally random side note, does anyone recognize the chef in this video? I swear it looks like the chef that did the Anthony Bourdain episode where Bourdain decided to work the line at his restaurant after years out of the game. Of course I could wrong, it has been known to happen.)

Since this will be quick, let me take a moment to address “American VI: Ain’t No Grave”. I love Johnny Cash. I say I love loads of artists, but I LOVE Cash. Ask anyone that worked with me during my time in music retail, they will tell you I put up with a lot of crap, but if anyone said anything bad about Johnny Cash they were given a stern talking to. It actually reached the point where some of my co-workers knew my abbreviated monologue on the greatness that is Johnny Cash. Despite his age and health issues, my heart broke a little bit when I heard he died. “American VI” is fantastic. Producer Rick Rubin gave America the final musical moments of Cash’s life. It’s a thing of beauty.

That leaves Florence and the Machine’s album “Lungs”. The album is excellent. I keep reading it being described as Kate Bush meets Bjork. I personally see it more as Siouxsie Sioux meets Ida Maria (As an aside, Florence, if you ever see this, I would love to hear you cover “Kiss Them for Me”.) Florence has an amazing voice; she can do smoky (“Girl With One Eye), she can go with epic storytelling vocals (“Rabbit Heart”), she can rub a little funk on it (“You’ve Got the Love”), and can channel the inner rage in just the cutest way (“Kiss With a Fist”). The Machine is actually a rotating cast of musicians that help create the varying sounds from song to song. The constant on the album is Florence’s amazing voice and intelligent lyrics. I love the album so much I find myself wanting to feature every video I can find of them on You Tube! (By the way, the peeps at Wikipedia say this is a “break up” album. If that is true, this may be one of the best break up albums in recent history. Beating Amy Winehouse’s “Back in Black” is an impressive feat.) Okay, let’s go with adorable rage…..

And epic……

Soldier of Love

by Administrator, posted in Music, Reviews

I’m embarrassed to admit this, however despite owning nearly every Sade album I did not realize Sade was a band, not just a person. I’m totally annoyed at myself for not knowing this basic fact. In case you too weren’t aware, Sade is a band that took their name from their lead singer, Helen Folasade Adu, who is generally called Sade. Curse you Wikipedia! I wish I had never gone to your Sade entry looking for fun facts for this article! Here’s my fun fact, according to Wikipedia, the Sade entry is “a candidate for speedy deletion. It may be deleted after Friday, 19 February 2010.”

With that out of the way, let’s talk Sade. There are some bands that never really change their sound, and most of the time I poke fun at them. I realize now that I’m just being stupid. Many bands and artists that I like tend to keep the same core sound; Flogging Molly, Run DMC, Jack Johnson and of course, Sade. Yes, I’m telling you that the new Sade album is very similar to previous albums. However I’m also telling you that you should go out and buy this album anyway.

Why? Because it has been ten years, yes ten long years since the last Sade album “Lovers Rock”. In those ten years music has experienced many changes, for better or worse: producers leaning heavily on auto tune, rap artists working with live bands, not just two turn tables and a microphone, artists like Duffy and Amy Winehouse evoking the best of the 60’s and 70’s girl group sounds. All of it can cause you to wonder what Sade’s sound will be like in this new environment. Wonder no longer because I’m here to assure you that Sade has chosen to do what they do best. “Soldier of Love” is almost rebellious in it’s maintaining of the Sade status quo.

Smokey voice? Check. Smooth sounds that you can still tap your foot too? Check. Horn section? Check. Songs exclusively about love? Check. Heck, the lead singer even looks the same as ten years ago! Perhaps she got a hold of whatever technology kept Dick Clark from visibly aging for an obscene length of time.

If you’re like me, and you enjoyed previous Sade albums, do yourself a favor and go buy the latest one. You won’t regret it.

And here, submitted for your approval, the title track “Soldier of Love”.

What I Learned from the 2010 Grammy Awards Show

by Administrator, posted in Music, Television

Last night I watched the 2010 Grammy Awards. I know they were on Sunday, but I knew the show would run past my bedtime, so I recorded them. I figured instead of trying to compete to be one of the first blogs to discuss the awards show, which would have been impossible anyway, I would instead be writing fully informed by not only having watched the show, but also having had a full day of reflecting on other people’s opinions.

And there are loads of things I could address here. For instance, I thought Colbert was good, but I was bummed that he won best comedy album instead of Spinal Tap or Kathy Griffin. I found the performance from Green Day with the cast of the upcoming musical “American Idiot”, based on Green Day’s “American Idiot” album, fantastic. However, despite the addition of Sir Elton John, I found Lady Gaga’s performance at the opening of the show pretty average. Not being familiar with Beyonce’s live performances, I was impressed with the sheer abundance of feminine rage that she channeled. And let’s face it, Pink performing like a professional member of Cirque du Soleil while singing live is an act that I’m sure no one wanted to follow.

As you can see, there are loads to discuss without even touching on the fashion of the evening, which I will leave to the capable ladies at Go Fug Yourself, or the potential greater symbolism to be found at the event, which I’m sure The Vigilant Citizen will address at some point.

However, there was one theme to the event that no one seems to have commented on, and that was really driven home by one particular performance.

The song “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, written by Paul Simon and performed originally by the duo Simon and Garfunkel, is now 40 years-old. It has been covered by dozens of artists, including: Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Annie Lenox, and many, many more. Sunday night at the Grammy Awards the song was performed by Mary J. Blige (sometimes referred to as the “Queen of Hip Hop Soul”), Andrea Bocelli (an Italian pop tenor), and David Foster (a Canadian musician, record producer, composer, singer, songwriter and arranger). Although it’s not unheard of for an operatic tenor to perform with a pop artist (I mean who hasn’t Luciano Pavarotti performed with?), this vocal pairing was quite striking.

I still remember in high school when I first I heard about Mary J. Blige. She was a hairdresser from Yonkers, NY who got lucky, and the world of R&B was never the same. Regardless how many powerful female vocalists have come after her, to me there is only one Mary J. Blige. How different her young life must have been compared to Bocelli. Diagnosed with glaucoma at an early age, the Italian lost his eyesight permanently at the age of twelve. Music, if media sources are to be believed, was the only thing that provided him comfort. Although I’ve never seen or heard it anywhere, I imagine that a young Blige, a high school drop out living in Yonkers, probably found solace in music as well. Somehow these two amazingly different people came together and for one moment in time blended their voices together. Bocelli’s booming classical tenor wrapped around the rough thunderous vocals of Blige, and vice versa. Neither performer held back from their personal style, and yet classical and R&B married sublimely. It was one of those moments that made me step back and think, look what we humans can do. Two absolutely different people, coming from totally different backgrounds, carrying all of their own preconceptions, baggage, and scars, met on the common ground of music and created something new.

It’s what I love about us humans, the passion we put into carving out our identity and individuality can sometimes, unbeknownst to us, become a passion for becoming part of a greater group. How else can you explain country cutie Carrie Underwood getting her R&B on while performing “Earth Song”? Or punk/pop/rock drummer Travis Barker taking the stage with Lil’ Wayne, Eminem, and Drake? Popular culture sets trends or reflects what is trending in our culture, and if the Grammy Awards performances that I saw are in fact to be believed, many musical barriers are being breached. More importantly, these performances are showing that despite bending, blending, or breaking genres, the results need not be a bland homogenous mess. That perhaps the Seal of the United States of America just might have it right, e pluribus unum, out of many, one.

You can purchase this song on iTunes with all proceeds going to the Red Cross’ ongoing earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.