Normally, lists of the best or worst of anything offend my sensibilities, but Blender magazine’s fifty worst songs ever seems to nail it, topped by Starship’s “We Built This City.” I hated it way back in 1985, when I liked a lot of awful stuff.
The new issue of Rolling Stone features a series of essays on 50 “legendary” artists by musicians who aren’t quite as legendary. John Mayer contributes a well-written piece on Jimi Hendrix, saying, “He is the common denominator of every style of contemporary music.” That’s a stretch, but he makes a pretty good case.
Most artistically successful groups evolve toward obscurity – think most recently of Radiohead and Wilco – crafting an idiosyncratic vision that wins admirers and praise but threatens to alienate the people who fell in love with the bands in the first place. The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Queens of the Stone Age, on the other hand, have grown by refining their songcraft toward the mainstream.
Badly Drawn Boy, Cat Power, Josh Homme, Killing Joke, The New Pornographers, Bree Sharp, Sleater-Kinney, and Sonic Youth
Although it would appear to be a collection essays about 31 disparate songs, the true subject of Nick Hornby’s Songbook is our relationship with music, particularly as we mature.
As with Tool’s Ænima and Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs for the Deaf, The Mars Volta’s De-loused in the Comatorium is clearly of a genre but towers above it – which is one way of defining “transcendence.” The album, like those two other records, quite simply opens the mind to the possibilities of rock music.
Elliott Smith’s “Needle in the Hay” isn’t about suicide, but it’s certainly a fitting backdrop for one.
New work from Lyle Lovett – he of big hair, golden voice, and cartoonishly ugly face – used to be a cause for celebration for me. From this point on, though, I’m going to approach him skeptically; he only wants my money, and while I’ve freely given it to him in the past, he’s going to have to work for it now.
A Perfect Circle seemed, at first, like one of the world’s most blatant rip-offs. Its leader, Billy Howerdel, was a Tool guitar tech, and its vocalist was none other than Maynard James Keenan. And the sound of the band’s debut, 2000’s Mer de Noms, was Tool Lite – less abrasive and more oriented toward traditional songs, but still strikingly similar.
Andrew W.K. is smart enough to understand not only irony but how it is used by artists as a defense mechanism against criticism. That’s more than you can say about most rock stars. How then, does one explain the music of Andrew W.K.?