List Shock

Rolling Stone's 100 Best Albums of the Decade list intrigues me. I own 14 of the top picks, and I've heard 21 more and agree with most of them, though I'm strangely surprised to see such indie scene favorites as Arcade Fire and Cat Power sharing top billing along with more mainstream, "blah" (and here I editorialize) choices such as Coldplay and U2. This is the magazine that gives 4-star reviews to bands like Linkin Park while still recognizing rollicking, original stuff like TV on the Radio with similarly high scores. How can I reconcile that?

The publication's schizophrenia is reflected in the list of the voters for the feature. "Howlin" Pete Almqvist and Nicholaus Arson from The Hives along with Mary J. Blige, the Senior Vice President of VH1 and four members of Kings of Leon? Yoko Ono, The Black Eyed Peas' Will.i.am, Lil Wayne and two members of Fall Out Boy? I can't criticize the list of voters - it's as diverse as music itself - but it certainly reflects Rolling Stone's weird desire to (and possibly ability to) hit every base possible with their commentary. Rolling Stone eats up the sort of by-the-numbers rock U2 has been putting out for the last decade or more in almost the same breath that they praise Bjork. I have trouble wrapping my brain around it, or even interpreting what this means. Certainly I don't have a specific point in mind.

Beatles 3000

This is genius - ostensibly a look back at The Beatles from a thousand years in the future, it basically becomes a loving critique of historical specials and unverifiable "experts":

Mstoc site announcement - music reviews, bacon, free happiness for life and more!

This is just a brief announcement that I've become a contributor to music reviews/interviews site Mstoc, a joint project with a good friend of mine that's still more-or-less in its infancy. We're still working out the list of contributors and building a body of content, though I'm actually pretty stoked and I like the initial look of the site (though we'll certainly be making improvements as soon as we have enough work to really showcase). I've completed three reviews so far under my name [Dustin Steinacker] - check it out if you wish, keeping in mind the whole "the site is still in its infancy" thing.

Regular readers may know that I'm something of a music fan. For some time I was a regular contributor to Sputnikmusic.com, an uneven writer who contributed dozens of reviews and was delighted to see them gain hundreds of thousands of hits, often dwarfing the reviews of the staff writers who, I presume, actually got paid for what they did. I even had a lower-key weekly album retrospective on this site which took too much time from my studies and was hence discarded.

I'm pretty excited for this opportunity to work as part of a larger community, doing basically the same thing I was doing but for something quite a bit snazzier, polished and more consistent than throwing music-related blog posts into my usual stream of non sequiturs and populist political ramblings.

Link

Senior Citizens comment on MGMT to hilarious effect

This is genius. Old people watching, and commenting on, one of the most effed up (and, I believe, subtle and evocative, albeit horrific) music videos in recent memory. One of the video's commentors noted the distance between the preceding generations and ours - most young people, raised on irony, symbolism and meta-meanings to things (after all, that kid is really scared) wouldn't bat an eye at this stuff. The sustained look of horror in that woman's eyes at 2:20 is priceless and unnerving.

I laughed harder than I think I have in weeks, though there's that odd idea hanging in the rafters - what if they're all right, and we're sick for producing and watching this stuff? After all, it's not really a matter of being old and out of touch; the folks in the video were literally raised on a different diet of conceptions.

(Oh, and yes - the "mom" is Joanna Newsom, supposedly doing a spot-on send-off of Britney Spears.)

Some Pretentious Thoughts on Hip-Hop

People that willfully overlook hip-hop culture and music are generally uninterested in the same things that they claim the music lacks - subtlety, wit, meticulous construction and originality. Hip-hop may be artificial in some superficial ways - its use of samples, unified, particular slang and occasional braggadocio step on some nerves - though at its best, rap's social awareness, attention to meter and lyricial attention is unparalleled. Rap's voice came almost by definition from the marginalized of society, acolytes of the music who usually arrived at their standing through their hard work and attention to detail - a fact which lent the genre a weight and honesty lacking in the overproduced music of the time of its inception.

Socially-conscious rappers are keenly aware of their flaws, unafraid to be gleefully silly or fatalistically repentant as the situation requires. Most rap incorporates both a reverence for the musical game and a recognition of the evils therein. As AZ said on Nas' "Illmatic":

"We were beginners in the hood as five percenters / But somethin must of got in us cause all of us turned to sinners."

But what the concerned parents and commercial establishment usually overlook is that rap can be some of the most relevant, genuinely artistic music available. Like much that is controversial or worth experiencing, rap flirts between commentary, irony and experimentation, often moving uncomfortably into new territory as soon as you think you have it pegged down. MC Dälek may have put it best in describing his group's jagged, unsettling sound:

"If you listen to what hip-hop has historically been, it was all about digging in different crates and finding different sounds, and finding different influences to create."

Yes, much of rap has lost its roots and turned into yet another arm of the corporate game, as dozens of samey videos straightforwardly extolling the party lifestyle seem to attest. Still, despite its occasional flaws rap still has a role in our society and its musical landscape. As with any genre, it's the consumer's job to poke and prod at different faces of the music rather than blindly discarding an entire genre to knee-jerk reasoning. As popular as rap remains, and as terrible as most of it is (rap's quality ratio is no different than any other genre), this seems important to remember.

1:14 of genius

Gotta love that recontextualization.

Night Music

Last night before going to sleep, I put my iPod on shuffle and lay on my bed in the dark. The thing has an uncanny ability to pick stuff that's invariably fitting to the situation and last night was no disappointment.

Here's what it played last night, soothing stuff I'd almost forgotten I had. You can click the middle mouse wheel to open these up in the background:

The Hardest Walk - The Jesus and Mary Chain
Scenic World - Beirut
Green Gloves - The National
Weird Divide - The Shins
Messiah Ward - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Let's Go Away For Awhile - The Beach Boys
Holland, 1945 - Neutral Milk Hotel
Lawn Boy - Phish (Sorry for the live version)
Mr. Ambulance Driver - The Flaming Lips
As You Are Now - Suzanne Vega
7/4 (Shoreline) - Broken Social Scene
Moth - Burial & Four Tet (9 minutes long and I could listen to it every day)

One Man Band

I can't get over how good this guy is at what he does. I'm posting the link because you really should watch it in higher-definition: link.

"The Metalocalypse Has Begun. . ."

As a huge fan of Cartoon Network's Metalocalypse (and an even bigger fan of the show's fictional band Dethklok and their output), 2007's The Dethalbum was a breath of fresh air. In a world of überserious metal and bland, selfish introspection, Dethklok's pounding, soaring and goofy anthems touched a nerve most groups don't even try for. Once again, a novelty band beat the big names at their own act - The Dethalbum was hilarious, well-written and heavier than it had any right to be.

The songs could be appreciated without any knowledge of the source material, but in context served as a perfect companion piece to the show. Was it necessary to know that "Go Into the Water" was written for fish, or that the band was attacked by missile-bearing jets and a trained assassin during their first ever performance of the song for humans? Or that the lyrics for "Awaken" were taken from a Finnish book of necronamic spells and unintentionally summoned an enormous lake troll when performed (and all during an apology for destroying half of Finland on their previous tour to boot)? No, but knowledge of the episodes lend the songs much of their context and humor. And associating the sarcastic graduation theme "Go Forth and Die" with the accompanying: "Didn't you have anything to fall back on after your band was killed by blackbirds?" seems to make it doubly rewarding.

From a band whose morbid image and unintentional barbarity comes less from personal unpleasantness than a slavish devotion to metal culture, song titles like "Bloodrocuted", "Hatredcopter" and "Murmaider" (also written for fish) are doubly hilarious. Though it seems unlikely that the second Dethalbum (due to be released in less than two weeks) will live up to the first (from the cuts I've heard so far the songs seem far too homogeneous and unmelodic), it's nice to see the show's creators continuing to take the band seriously as real musicians, albeit cartoon ones.


Gotta love that cover art though.

Chumbawamba covers The Beatles' "Her Majesty"

I was charmed silly at this expanded version of The Beatles' Her Majesty, performed by Chumbawamba. Yes, that Chumbawamba.



One of the best-kept secrets in music is that Chumbawamba, the anarchist punk band best known for the misunderstood "party anthem" Tubthumping (you know the song) is actually really good. It's sad that they got pigeonholed so thoroughly by a massive hit, but there are worse fates. Here's another good one.

"White Magic" - More smooth electronic music from Pogo

The guy who did "Alice," the incredible remix track I blogged about a year ago, has a new track: "White Magic," incorporating sounds from the 1963 Disney flick The Sword in the Stone. The track has much of the mesmerizing effect that "Alice" had (and still has), particularly during the chorus. It's definitely a grower, less accessible than "Alice" but still well worth a listen.

My Favorite Songs of All Time

It's good we use a base ten counting system - ten is the perfect number for a list. It includes just enough entries to give a good impression of the subject being "listed," but isn't so large as to cause boredom.

I haven't been much of a presence here lately so I thought I'd throw something neat together that I've been brewing up for awhile. Click the middle mouse wheel to open these links up in a new tab rather than leaving the list:

My Favorite Songs of All Time, Keeping in Mind That This Isn't Necessarily Comprehensive and Merely Constitutes Whatever Songs I Managed to Think Of While Writing This List

10) The Clash - London Calling. A song beyond reproach from an album beyond reproach by a band beyond reproach. One of the reasons we tolerate Green Day today is their occasional parallels with this still-relevant band.

9) The Shins - New Slang. A perfect song for a sunny day, driving at night, birth, death and everything in between.

8) Yano - Banal na Aso, Santong Kabayo. Take my word for it that Yano is the best folk/punk Filipino rock band of all time, whatever you may have heard to the contrary.

7) Mr. Bungle - Retrovertigo. This live version is practically as good as the copy on California. Mr. Bungle released my favorite album of all time in 1999, and experimental pop music has never been the same.

6) The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever. Thank Heavens the greatest pop group of all time stopped caring what people thought of them.

5) Ween - Mutilated Lips. Too bad Ween doesn't write like this anymore.

4) Elvis Costello - Living in Paradise. This song typifies Costello's talents - breezy, astounding pop songwriting, songs that twist and turn without seeming unnatural, and great melodic progression. Paired with The Attractions he was pretty much unstoppable.

3) The Pixies - Monkey Gone to Heaven. I don't really have to defend one of the most influential rock groups of all time, but I still praise The Pixies to high heavens every chance I get. They gave us four unforgettable albums and then retired before they started sucking. How many bands can say that? This song is epic and suitably harsh.

2) Metallica - Battery and One. I'm not really sure that a complete understanding of Metallica, metal or modern music could ever be constructed without these two tracks. "One" is Metallica's apex - a slowly building, melodic wistful tale that builds into a highly enjoyable nightmare. "Battery" represents a significant side of Metallica that we saw more often - riff-based metal constructed with a conscious punk intensity, never straying into the atonal, chaotic regions of much of the thrash of that period.

1) Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb. In the end the edge goes out to this trippy, introspective masterpiece. It's darkly optimistic, lyrically subjective but inarguably significant. Dark Side of the Moon might be a better album than The Wall, but this track from the latter is their finest moment.

The "Zongrila Swirl" - Amazing Recursive Animation

Years ago I found the "Zongrila Swirl" - an amazing recursive animation of the image you see above - and it's made an imprint on me ever since. Long before I read about the ramifications of loops in Douglas Hofstadter's stuff I began to appreciate the concept of representing an infinite process via a finite model (in this case, a simple animation).

Anyway, enough jibber jibber - I've been looking for this animation for ages and I've finally found it again. That link goes directly to the animation, and here's the parent post.

And here's some music to put on in the background. Trust me here. Don't do drugs, kids!

Mastodon's "Crack the Skye" - A plot to write home about

Mastodon's fans already know that the metal group is a little pretentious, in a Dungeons and Dragons sort of way. The band's concept albums have grown increasingly ambitious, though 2004's Moby Dick-themed Leviathan is still my favorite for its mad, raving Captain Ahab (Oh, and the song titles are terrific: "Blood and Thunder", "Iron Tusk" and "Aqua Dementia" all have very growlable names). And it goes without saying that Mastodon's cover art has always been part of the experience:

Awesome, or super awesome?

Leviathan also had the most coherent story; the band's first album, Remission, was about "fire," Blood Mountain was about "earth" and running around from place to place disoriented and confused, and their just-released Crack the Skye (incidentally the "aether"-themed album, proving they've run out of real elements) sees them taking a page from the The Mars Volta school of epic incoherence. In the words of the band's drummer:

"There is a paraplegic and the only way that he can go anywhere is if he astral travels. He goes out of his body, into outer space and a bit like Icarus, he goes too close to the sun, burning off the golden umbilical cord that is attached to his solar plexus. So he is in outer space and he is lost, he gets sucked into a wormhole, he ends up in the spirit realm and he talks to spirits telling them that he is not really dead. So they send him to the Russian cult, they use him in a divination and they find out his problem. They decide they are going to help him. They put his soul inside Rasputin's body. Rasputin goes to usurp the czar and he is murdered. The two souls fly out of Rasputin's body through the crack in the sky and Rasputin is the wise man that is trying to lead the child home to his body because his parents have discovered him by now and think that he is dead. Rasputin needs to get him back into his body before it's too late. But they end up running into the Devil along the way and the Devil tries to steal their souls and bring them down…there are some obstacles along the way."

Crack the Skye is about physics, history and that grand old standby: good versus evil. And, from what I've heard so far, it's also pretty awesome. It doesn't bludgeon you as much as Blood Mountain, and the longer track lengths give time for some really sprawling compositions. It might be their best record so far. [Edit: Scratch that. It's now officially my favorite.]

Sample tracks (just click the "play this track" near the top of the page. Wait until you see the little player bar on the bottom before you click):

The Czar (A little over the first six minutes)
Divinations

Androgynous Vocals Through Pitch-Shifting

I put together a little video detailing how one of my favorite songs changes entirely when you vary the pitch. Check it out:

I love Neko Case's new cover art

I'm not familiar with Neko Case's solo work, and sometimes I honestly forget whether she's the one in The New Pornographers or Broken Social Scene (though both are great bands to be sure - confusing her with Leslie Feist is inexcusable). Still, I know good cover art when I see it.

The Loudness War and Audio Quality

Wikipedia has a good rundown of something I hadn't been aware of in the music business - the tendency to mix up the volume of an album to compete with other records (particularly in lo-fi formats like radio where a "louder" record sounds better. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of some of the dynamic range of the music, when elements that would usually define the highs and lows of the record lose their edge. I'd noticed that that the drums in many older recordings sound crisper - now I know why.

You know the annoying difference in contrast between television shows and commercials? That's the same thing - turning up everything in the mix so that even the quiet bits of tracks seem loud.



Dubbed the "loudness war," this practice began in the early 90s and is now practically the standard. I think that some albums have managed to sound good despite this tendency (mid-period Soundgarden and Faith No More records, for example), but it's never necessary - by turning the volume up on your stereo you can listen to a record at any volume you like without sacrificing crispness. In other words, this practice always results in inferior quality. Unforunately, I don't need another cause right now so I'll leave much of my righteous indignation up to audiophiles.

The Loudness War - Wikipedia
Rolling Stone article on the topic

Semi-Classic Album of the Week #10: Ween - "The Mollusk"

It's been three weeks since I did this feature. I think one could judge my periods of stress and relationship troubles by my periods of inconsistency in following through with projects. Airtight alibi concluded, let's jump right in with:

Ween - The Mollusk (1999)

An album that's pretty hard to discount, incorporating the sensibilities of acid-dropping psychers, iconoclastic noiserockers and classic rock enthusiasts (more like a freaked-out Floyd meets Genesis than the rawer stuff they mimicked later on). The drug elements (or at least the perception of drug elements) seem pretty essential to Ween's mythos; they certainly make no effort to shake the associations, filling their album with warping, inebriated sound effects and high-as-a-kite lyrics.

So it seems fitting that the most remarkable moments on this album are the trippiest - the opening, pitch-shifted piano confidence booster, transcendent, hilarious title track or unforgettable "Mutilated Lips."

They pull off some seriously epic, "in-accordance-with-prophecy" moments as well ("Buckingham Green", "The Golden Eel", "She Wanted To Leave"). Nothing about this album is manufactured - it's tuneful, fresh and exciting. Still, Ween has a way of being crude even when they aren't trying to (I seriously have a hard time not seeing a vulva in that cover art). This arcane sense of ribaldry is undeniably part of their charm, but the more sensitive among you may wish to consider a reburn of the disc sans a coupla tracks before playing it in the car with the kids. Anyway, to each his own - This is a great album I can easily put up with anything else I've reviewed. I should have gotten to it earlier.

My EP is finally finished! (The Black Plaid EP)

My first EP is finally finished! I'm calling it Black Plaid, and it's pretty much the first half of the (free) album I'll be releasing sometime next year. It's a collection of mashups, experiments and a few original compositions. Download it here:

Dustin Steinacker - The Black Plaid EP

(And a link to a ZIP file if you don't have WinRAR)

UPDATED: Listen to it on Soundcloud, the other links have been down for awhile

Tracks and List of Samples

Most of the following samples are highly modified and many are unrecognizable but the full list is included in the interests of completedness:

clickBAWclunk
Originally titled "Malfeasance Toned of Argon", back when I was intending it to be a parody of techno music. It's still kind of a parody.

Samples:

Beat: The Knife - "Like a Pen"
Bass: Public Image, Ltd. - "Albatross"
Sound effect: Battles - "Atlas"
Strings: J.S.S. Bach - Brandenburg Concert 1 (Adagio)
Sound effect and vocals: Subtle - "A Tale of Apes I"

More bass and two loops from "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes
Short Segment from "Moonlight Sonata (Presto) by Beethoven
Short drum segment from "Voodoo Lady" by Ween
Explosion from "We Will Rock You" by Max Raabe Orchestra.

Tales #1: Vine Hilos

Mashup between "Mera Pyar Shalimar" and "The Rose Garden of Mystery" by Secret Chiefs 3

Sound Effects: "Broken Glass Hearse" by Secret Chiefs 3
Drone 1: "Soldier Side" by System of a Down
Drone 2: "Super Are" by Boredoms
African Guitar: "Erdi" by Ali Farka Toure

Tales #2: Abrasions

Mashup between "Facing the Plastic" by Serart and "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" by Serj Tankian

Choir (strangely enough): "Hardware Store" by Al Yankovic

Tales #3: Partisan

Mashup between "Mera Pyar Shalimar" by Secret Chiefs 3 and "Intro" by Sigur Ros

Sound Effects and Choir Aah: A heavily pitch-tweaked "Super Are" by Boredoms

Handmap

Beat and distorted drums: Radiohead - "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors"
Guitar: Dustin Steinacker
Drone: Björk - "Hidden Place"
All unattributed sound effects and tapping: Dustin Steinacker

OlympicArms

Guitar and descending main melody: Dustin Steinacker
Drums: Arcade Fire - "Black Mirror"
Strings: Eels - "Going To Your Funeral"
Sound effects and voices: Grizzly Bear - "Deep Sea Diver"

Fit the First

Rambling hippie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQkDNwId8r4
Intro sound: Ween - "Mutilated Lips"
Guitar, electric guitar and main beat/melody: Dustin Steinacker
Short drum bursts: Gorillaz - "Last Living Souls"
Choir: Taken from a "500 Outer Space Sound Effects" disc I borrowed from the library whose title I have long forgotten.

Vocal samples:

Spiro Agnew ("The hippies and the yippies and the disruptors. . .")
Unnamed news anchor commenting on the Kent State Massacre
Albert Einstein ("I believe that Ghandi's views. . .")
A very old movie whose title I have forgotten ("You think that you are seeing the truth. . .")

Semi-Classic Album of the Week #9: The Knife - "Silent Shout"

The Knife - Silent Shout (2002)

I've loved electronic music for some time now, organic music that incorporates standard instruments in unconventional ways or makes gentle noise sound more musical than most music. But before Silent Shout I never really got into really cold, bleeps-and-bloops electronica. And this is a very cold record - cries for help resonating from ear to ear in crystal-clear sonority.

I still consider this album a musical hug, distant and tortured though it may be. It's just so densely-layered, ingenious and alive that you have to accept its "why'd you kick me?" puppy attitude. The Knife took a sudden turn from sunny electropop to make this record, which sounds all the more jarring and essential by contrast.