Objectively Perfect 3: Fireworks

                        

If there’s one thing more powerful than beer goggles it’s nostalgia glasses. Kickstarter is based on the hope that the vision given by those glasses is powerful enough to overlook how little is in your bank account, and those sights of the future often win out. Hell, my first song on this series was from a damn Pokémon game and, despite how grand it is on its own merits, I’ll admit that my rose tinted view of “Lillycove City” probably helped propel it onto this “illustrious” list.

But it’s a rare song that feels nostalgic when it has no root in your past. I’ve never been a huge Animal Collective fan and I only started to wonder my way into Strawberry Jam this year, so why does it feel like I’ve known “Fireworks” for my entire life? It was released in 2007 and seems like a brother track to another ’07 masterpiece “All My Friends.” “Fireworks” is happy, bitter, sweet, and melancholy all at once. The top level of the song is made of the “ee-ah-ee” vocals paired with chiming piano that starts as whimsical, but drops into more somber waters as the line progresses. Underneath, the distorted chord progression drives the song along just as much as chugging backwards drumming from Panda Bear. Of course Avey Tare’s vocal performance is stunning. It’s surprising his voice can still be intact after the chorus as he flips between chest and head singing along with beautiful vocal lines turning into yelling within seconds.

But the core of “Fireworks” are Tare’s lyrics. There’s a cry in his voice when he sings “I was dreamin’ of just you,” and “I can't lift you up cause my mind is tired, it's family beaches that I desire.” There’s a longing implanted in every note. The verses have the more jaded side of things and the chorus turns into a fantasy world. AC are desperately looking for a celebration in the midst of humdrum days and the chorus serves as an escape, but early on Tare’s delivers his most crushing lines:

“Then I start to feel tragic, people greet me, I'm polite/"What's the day? "/"What are you doing? "/"How's your mood? "/"How's that song?"/Man it passes right by me, it's behind me, now it's gone.”

Perhaps the false nostalgia comes from my empathy towards Tare. People around you trying to be nice and you can only return the kindness with either apathy or lies. It’s a tough spot to be in, realizing that efforts from everyone else can become completely ineffective. The honesty of “Fireworks” makes it weirdly triumphant. It’s acceptance; acceptance that the daydreams take over and numb you to the outside world. And if your daydreams are this spectacular, why wouldn’t you want to stay? 

Objectively Perfect 2: The Rat

                          

In 1977 the Voyager spacecrafts launched off into the outer reaches of space with two golden records. These shimmering audiophile wet dreams held recordings of greetings in various languages and music from around the world. Some of the songs were placed there to show off the genres of earthly music, from Bach to Chuck Berry, but another portion of the music contained in those golden grooves were supposed to represent human emotions. Most famously, Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" was included to represent the human feeling of loneliness. I have my own ideas on what a modern Voyager record should contain and if we’re talking emotions, “The Rat” would be my absolute pick for anger.

The seething rage of “The Rat” is surprising and terrifying for a few reasons. First of all, The Walkmen are known for tugging on the heart strings, not for stomping heads in. Compare the warmth of a song like “Heaven” to “The Rat” and you’d think the band is stricken by a case of schizophrenia. Secondly is the genre The Walkmen play in, they’re no blackened death metal band or a grindcore act, far from it. Their early days were spent in the New York post-punk revival long peers like The Strokes and this is more vicious a song than any of their fellow NYC rockers ever pulled off.  

“The Rat” has focus, a certain intensity. It’s not a RPG going off; it’s a carefully shot sniper rifle; a precision strike of a violent outburst. The opening guitar is something so dark that it creates anxious fear as Hamilton Leithauser’s so-hoarse-he’s-about-to-lose-his-voice vocals are all aimed at one perpetrator. “You've got a nerve to be asking a favor/You've got a nerve to be calling my number.” He doesn’t scream those words, instead you feel like he’s holding back just the slightest bit, which makes it scarier, like he’s two seconds from completely going off the rails. Matching Leithauser in rage is Matt Barrick’s drum work. Barrick is a criminally underrated drummer and this is his finest performance. The never ending run of 16^th notes could be enough, but he madly dashes across his toms and abuses his snares in the seconds between. Combine that with Leithauser’s mad yells of “Can't you hear me? I'm bleeding on the wall!” and the horror of it all goes up another notch. Then it all turns down. In volume at least.

The bridge is only made up of Leithauser and a scratchy guitar, but it cuts even deeper as the band lays down their complaints. “When I used to go out, I would know everyone that I saw/Now I go out alone if I go out at all,” are the only words sung, but it’s clear from Leithauser’s tone that the happy times are a far distant memory and all he can see is darkness in his future. It all fires back up into the blood-lust filled chorus and the guitars swallow the sound with a brooding energy. It’s a song that can turn the brightest days into anger soaked hours. It becomes a visceral thrill, you might be having one of the most relaxing weeks possible, but for “The Rat”’s four minutes you'll be bitter, angry, jaded and ready to go out and kick some teeth in.     

Objectively Perfect 1: Lillycove City

          

I can’t quite explain why I enjoy waltzes so much. I grew up classical music, but I listened and sang to it so often that I soon became tired of chamber ornamentation and for years wouldn’t touch the genre. But in the same way Fleetwood Mac came back into my collection so did classical music. Those early, formative years were so steeped in “The Chain” and “Ave Maria” that somewhere in the reptile part of my brain they’ve become fused to my enjoyment of music. It’s the waltz, in particular though, that I hold an affinity for. It’s so simple at its base, but the bouncy form and light stride are soothing.

As I was getting back into classical music I discovered that many of my favorite video game soundtracks held songs indebted to European composers. I first noticed it with the stunning Mario Galaxy score and I worked my way backwards until I was at the games that enthralled me as a child; the Pokémon series. I played all of them from Crystal onward a truly mindboggling amount, but the one game cartridge that still holds my heart is Pokémon Emerald. Even as I’ve grown and moved away from video games it stands as a touchstone in my nostalgic galleries. This was, in part, due to the music. I didn’t truly notice it at the time, and I certainly didn’t examine the score under close scrutiny, but those bit-compositions were wonderful. One song was better than the rest. One song had such a strong stake in my childhood that I jumped with joy when I found a fully orchestrated version. “Lillycove City” is, and continues to be, one of the best songs ever placed into a video game. The waltz has all the trademarks of a grand ¾ track. It bounces along with a spirited, yet calm, energy and the main melody line has a great habit of sneaking into my mind, making me hum along. But it’s the small immaculately crafted touches on the sides of that main melody that cement this track as flawless. The airy accordion in the back ground floats effortlessly along with the swaying string section, and the composer was obviously had a flexible mind. The track elegantly flows from staccato lines that give plucked violins the spotlight only seconds before languid legato sections sweep in carrying the song away to its climax. At its base the song seems infused with a smile inducing energy that reminds me of Miyazaki films as much as it does European ball rooms. 

Strange Journeys in Criticism

                          



Journalism is filled with grey space. It’s hard to turn out a story that is truly black or white. Wade into the world of entertainment journalism and things get even murkier. For my work I am, on a near weekly basis, sent free music, receive free tickets to concerts, and am allowed to watch/listen to content that hasn’t be released to the general public. This makes skirting the line between Public Relations and Criticism hard. It would be so easy to shower praise on the artists who give me free things so I can keep getting free things and start positive (if unethical) connections. I’m sure it’s the same way for movie and game critics, but the Music Journalism world (and my own world) recently had an event that blurred the line between PR and criticism. A trio of prominent musicians attacked Complex Magazine over perceived “spineless” writing and in my own, infinitely less important, experience a rapper tried to set lines between fan and critic.

To Complex first. Last year the New York based zine featured Australian rapper Iggy Azalea on their cover. A few weeks ago they reviewed her debut album, giving it a mediocre score. Azalea didn’t directly go after them; instead Lorde went to her tumblr and said this:

“bugs me how publications like complex will profile interesting artists in order to sell copies/get clicks and then shit on their records? it happens to me all the time- pitchfork and that ilk being like “can we interview you?” after totally taking the piss out of me in a review. have a stance on an artist and stick to it. don’t act like you respect them then throw them under the bus.”

Azalea bolstered Lorde’s post with these tweets:

To round out the trio, Grimes also agreed with Lorde’s and Azalea’s sentiments.

And now to my own life. Last month I reviewed Cunninlyguists’ Strange Journey Volume 3. I thought it was a decent release and gave it a 3/5. I called it uneven, but I also said that some of the songs were among the best released in 2014. Hours later Cunninlyguists producer Kno went on a twitter rant against me and my publication. He first informed me that Strange Journey wasn’t an album, but a mixtape, so I had reviewed it incorrectly (I won’t get into the semantics of what is a mixtape and what isn’t, but he was selling it for money and it’s listed as an album under rateyourmusic.com so I stand by my review). It soon became clear that he was angrier about the review itself rather than the mixtape argument.

So what do we take away from this? Complex did its own excellent response to Lorde and Azalea by saying this:

“Lorde declaring “have a stance on an artist and stick to it” is a bizarre notion for an organization like Complex, which is to say bizarre for any media organization that claims to have any journalistic integrity. No one should stick to their opinion when new facts (possibly in the form of new music) are made available that can alter your views. Art and artistry are fluid things.”

In Lorde’s defense I have seen publications, most notably Rolling Stone, run a cover of an artist and then trash their work in the same issue. To me that seems cheap, but Complex sums up a different issue often seen in politics. No one likes a flip-flopper, even if there are valid reasons behind personal views changing. The time between Azalea’s cover photo and review was around eight months. In the cosmic sense that’s a short time, but for journalists it might as well be an eon. Tweets, videos, and entire albums come out in the meantime and our constant searching for new information leads to new opinions. To quote The Guess Who “Seasons changed and so have I.” If my musical tastes hadn’t changed I’d still be listening to Aaron Carter and the Ba-ha men because I liked them when I was five (but my deep appreciation of Weird Al from that time period still stands). Kno, rather ironically, went after Lorde, Azalea, and Grimes with these tweets:

Despite this, Kno has a similar fallacy; you can’t be a critic if you’re a fan. I find this laughable as every music journalist/critic I’ve met has gotten into the business because they are fans. Some artist galvanized them to pick up a pen and write (or turn on the computer and type). I am a fan of Cunninlynguists and I continue to be a fan. A week before my review of the new album I saw them live and gave a glowing concert recap over at Deadendhiphop, but because I wasn’t keen on one thing they did (in a massive catalog) I’m no longer a fan. I’m the enemy. Artists like Kno, Lorde, and other seem to want a neutered version of the music press that acts like a PR team. For Lorde, if you ask her for an interview you’d better give her a good review afterwards. For Kno, fans’ can’t have changing opinions. There wouldn’t be a point then. Every album would be a 10/10 and artists would stay in the same lane, never changing, because there’s no one there to point out flaws.