album review: 'stars dance' by selena gomez

So for those of you who aren't aware, Chris Brown did the world a much-deserved favour and delayed his album indefinitely. And while I can't say I'm disappointed with that choice, it does mean I have to set aside my monologue surrounding that 'artist' for another day. Also, purely by chance, it means that this review is the fourth in a row I have done featuring a solo female pop artist, which is interesting in its own way, particularly in a comparative sense.

But let's put that topic aside for a moment, and instead talk about cultural appropriation.

Given the cataclysmic flop of The Lone Ranger and Johnny Depp's justly-criticized performance as Tonto (when he is not, in fact, anywhere close to a full-blooded Native American), the discussion surrounding white cultural appropriation has resurfaced again in the media. Many have rightfully said that the role of Tonto should have been played by a Native American, particularly when many Native actors and actresses are not often given the chance to play such a major role and Johnny Depp's eccentric choices were to the severe detriment of the film. Instead of subverting unfortunate or libelous racial stereotypes, Depp may have done the exact opposite.

And speaking as a white, Caucasian heterosexual male entering this conversational minefield, let me lay my cards on the table. Yes, I believe the artwork should be judged on its own merits outside of the identity of its creator (while, of course, keeping in mind authorial intent). I believe there's a standard of quality that should hold up regardless of the race, gender, and sexuality of the author. However, when it comes to enabling opportunities for minority players, I strongly believe that the role should be filled by actors that best fit the story, setting, and tone. In other words, if you're looking to cast a Native American part or tell a Native American story, the person who is oft best served in playing that part or telling that story is a Native American. It adds a certain degree of authenticity and nuance in the details, and in film, is often required to maintain the cinematic immersion. So in the case of The Lone Ranger, it should be obvious that a Native American should play Tonto (as one did in the serials) and thus maintain the verisimilitude of the production. Johnny Depp is a great actor, but it breaks immersion when you see a white guy obviously playing a Native role.

And yeah, I get that some nincompoop is probably going to say this is a double standard, that I'm promoting opportunities for minorities instead of just letting 'quality win out'. And yeah, it's a double standard, but in the era where we have a massive predominance of white, male, heterosexual stories written and told by white, heterosexual men, there is absolutely nothing wrong with introducing variety into the cultural narrative, and it often feels most authentic when delivered by those closest to it. I'm going to go ahead and say this outright: white privilege and the weird defensiveness that surrounds it right now is poisonous, and I'm strongly looking forward to the day when there are no more barriers to entry other than requirements of intellect and hard work. And if this means that Idris Elba continues to play Heimdall in the next Thor movie and we see continue to see a rise of popular cinema highlighting strong performances from other genders, races, and sexualities that might usually be cast by white actors, so be it.

Unfortunately, this cultural paradigm shift is still a work in progress, and there are still plenty of Caucasian artists who want to tell stories appropriate elements, themes, or stylistic quirks from other genres, and here's where we reach the tricky topic of cultural appropriation, in this case discussing music. Now it's true that white acts co-opted rock 'n roll from African-American acts and made it into the commercially successful genre it is today - and really, the sad history of how much black R&B musicians lost in the dawning days of the record industry is absolutely heart-breaking, and it's a goddamn shame more of them aren't remembered today. But even today, we see plenty of musical acts co-opt rhythms or styles that are rooted in a different cultural tradition and incorporate them into their music, and it's an interesting discussion whether or not this is cultural appropriation.

For example, let's take The Talking Heads, one of the most acclaimed acts of the 70s and 80s. If you've listened to their material, you've inevitably heard rhythmic sections that have a distinctly African sound. For those of you who don't know, The Talking Heads were originally composed of three Caucasian students (plus Jerry Harrison from the Modern Lovers). Now, is the usage of African-influenced rhythms in their music cultural appropriation? Well, to be completely honest, I don't really think so, because The Talking Heads grasped and captured the spirit behind those rhythms. They knew what they were doing, and the rhythms fit the tone of their material, particularly on Remain In Light (plus, as I mentioned, they were The Talking Heads and they easily met the standard of quality). But let's fast-forward to today with Vampire Weekend, a band that also uses African-inspired rhythms and claims to draw influence from The Talking Heads. A lot of people would argue their material isn't cultural appropriation because of Vampire Weekend's high quality, but given the weirdly defensive stance the band has taken towards white privilege, it's a little harder for me to defend them.

Look, as long as we have distinct cultures, this conversation will continue. And really, while I could wish that all artists treat their influences with quality and thought, I also know that The Lone Ranger movie exists. 

And finally, we come to Selena Gomez. You may have heard of her from her show Wizards of Waverly Place, or from one of her hit singles, or from her star-making performance in Spring Breakers (which you should all see NOW), but most likely you know her from her on-again-off-again relationship with Justin Bieber. And like with Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus, you probably have dismissed her as a Disney starlet that produces pre-fabricated pop garbage.

Well, you might want to rethink that assumption, because of the three Disney starlets I mentioned, Selena Gomez would probably be my favourite. It's a little hard to quantify why, particularly when it's tricky to tell how much Gomez writes of her music, but I will say that's a passable singer with a lot of energy and personality. It helps that she seems significantly smarter than her peers and has a much tighter control on her image and personal life. And from a little bit of research, it also seems that she has some interest in world cultures outside that of the United States, which occasionally comes out in her music videos. As for her actual songs, her backing band The Scene has a remarkably tight groove that used to balance well against Gomez's delivery. Yeah, she has made some terrible songs, but she has also made some really good ones.

So when I heard that her new album Stars Dance not only ditches The Scene, but also might contain cultural influences (her opening single 'Come And Get It' certainly seems to have something of a Bollywood vibe, and that's not even touching that awful album cover), I had justifiable reservations. Sure, Selena Gomez might be a smart girl (although given that she's giving Bieber another chance, I seriously question her tastes), but without the tightness of The Scene or a strong guiding producer, is she in way over her head?

Youtube review after the jump

album review: 'the blessed unrest' by sara bareilles

The year was 2007, and Billboard's Hot 100 chart was surging on a wave of hits. The pop rock boom of the mid-2000s was at its peak, Justin Timberlake had released his smash album Futuresex Lovesounds and with collaborators Nelly Furtado and Timbaland had taken the charts by storm. Coupled with the creative resurgence of Gwen Stefani, the peak of Fergie's, Akon's and Avril Lavigne's careers, Kanye West's well-publicized rivalry with 50 Cent, and the arrival of soon-to-be megastar Rihanna, it was a year full of monster hits that remain surprisingly solid to this day. Sure, there is a fair amount of junk - mostly courtesy of Nickelback and the post-grunge movement that just wouldn't goddamn die - but the hits of this year aren't just good, they probably can be considered some of the definitive tracks of the decade. And what's more impressive is that so many acts reached creative high-points in 2007, most of which would carry over into the slightly weaker (but still shockingly good) 2008. 

And it's not just that these songs were good (because a lot of them weren't) - they stuck in the cultural consciousness and most remain just as well-remembered six years later. This was the year Carrie Underwood smashed through with 'Before He Cheats', Maroon 5 released 'Makes Me Wonder', Beyonce dropped 'Irreplaceable', The Fray put out 'How To Save A Life', Snow Patrol charted with 'Chasing Cars', and even Amy Winehouse broke through with 'Rehab'. Hell, even the one-hit wonders of the time like 'Hey There Delilah' by the Plain White T's managed to lodge its way into our minds and bury themselves in the cultural unconscious. Even if you weren't paying any attention to the radio in 2007, I can guarantee that most of you recognize the songs I just listed, and frankly, I didn't even touch half of it.

But it's also in 2007 that a newly signed singer-songwriter named Sara Bareilles was asked to finish off her major label debut with a love song. But the songwriting process was going nowhere, and a fit of rage, she wrote one of the defining hits of the decade, a song blasting her label in a fit of angry guitar and pounding piano. And while it wouldn't seriously impact the charts until 2008, Sara Bareilles' 'Love Song' is a staple of the decade and a goddamn masterpiece of pop music. Every element works incredibly well - the sharp edges of the lyrics, the pounding instrumentals that speak to raw frustration, the sheer passion in Bareilles' vocals - and it all comes together into a song that speaks to creative frustration and the drive for independence. And speaking as a creator, I can definitely get behind this particular sentiment.

And thus I had reasonably high expectations when I went through Sara Bareilles' major label releases before The Blessed Unrest, and the underlying hope that 'Love Song' wasn't just a flash in the pan. And for once, things turned out well, with both of her albums being very solid, very well-written pop rock that sticks in the memory (with Little Voice arguably being a touch better than Kaleidoscope Heart). Described by some critics as a blend between Alicia Keys and Regina Spektor (the latter whose album I reviewed last year), Sara Bareilles manages to combine the best elements of both artists, despite them being in a genre for which I typically have a distaste: the 'White-Girl-With-Piano' genre. Now I'll admit my opinions have evolved since I reviewed What We Saw From The Cheap Seats last year, and while I'm still not a fan of the genre, I think I've been able to pinpoint why: there is very little diversity when it comes to subject matter and execution. 

I realize that I'm definitely not the target audience for Sara Bareilles and her contemporaries' work, but I can't help but notice that the genre often fails to stretch itself both in the material and the delivery, which can lead to a certain smug self-satisfaction dominating tracts of the material. It's not just that it feels interchangeable and boring, but that there is no deeper passion underlying the work - and if there is, it doesn't feel authentic. And when some the artists (Regina Spektor and Lily Allen comes to mind) do try to stretch the subject matter, they come across as so insufferably pleased with themselves that it becomes intolerable. 

So what makes Sara Bareilles stand out against the crowd? Well, unlike her contemporaries, she often seems to be trying, incorporating a greater vocal presence and more passionate soul into her delivery. Yes, I'll admit that most of the time the subject matter is small and reasonably simple, but she sells it and it feels real. And in comparison to Alicia Keys, Sara Bareilles is smart enough to delve into a greater spread of subject matter and instrumentation other than just underwritten piano-driven ballads. It definitely helps that Sara Bareilles has a real knack for punchy, sly little rhymes that show some clever construction. No, it's not quite as organic as Kacey Musgraves, but it's close. And really, the harshest criticism I'll make against Sara Bareilles is that sometimes she just doesn't try as hard as she could, which lead to serviceable, but occasionally tedious songs.

So what do I think about her newest album, The Blessed Unrest?

Youtube review after the jump.

album review: 'skitszo' by colette carr

Youtube Review after the jump.

There are two unfortunate truths in rap music: namely, that if you’re white or female, you face a much more difficult road.  If you want to rise to the top and not immediately be deemed a novelty act, you’ll have to establish a presence and achieve some amount of street cred, and do it fast. More than a few white rappers and female rappers have flamed out in spectacular fashion after less-than-impressive debut albums, and even if their mixtapes are solid, they tend to be derided (fairly or not) as a joke to the mainstream public.

So what happens if you’re a white female rapper? Unfortunately in that case, you’ve got the toughest row to hoe of all (no pun intended) – not only are you operating in the extreme minority, there are very few (if any) acts who have achieved success in this vein. I mean, who are your successful white female rappers? Can you think of any off the top of your head? At least with female rappers you have Lil Kim and Missy Elliott and Nicki Minaj, and white guys have the Beastie Boys and Eminem and Macklemore, but in combination as a white female rapper, who do you get?

Well, the first one that jumped into my head was Kreayshawn, and if you look at the sad trajectory her career took after her disastrous debut album, the prospects look bleak at best. What’s all the more unfortunate is that her career charted the same path as most other rappers who get signed and rushed to market before a coherent album is released, which is a single album of sloppy club tracks that showcase none of the girl’s talent before being dropped from the label and consigned to the ephemeral dustbin of pop history. And as someone who actually thought Kreayshawn had real potential, her failure did sting a bit. And of course there was some of Cher Lloyd’s early rapping material, but I don’t like to dignify the fact that exists.

So when I heard that a female white rapper named Colette Carr was dropping her debut album this year, I was more than a little skeptical. Outside of Kacey Musgraves’ mind-blowingly great country debut with Same Trailer, Different Park, I don’t have a great track record looking at debut albums from female solo artists this year. Hell, Skylar Grey had the pedigree of Eminem behind her album and she couldn’t rise above mediocrity. So to say I had low, low expectations when it came to Colette Carr’s debut was a bit of an understatement, and coupled with the fact that it was a debut album comprised of four EPs mashed together with a few additional tracks (which was the same path Charli XCX took with her unfortunate debut), I expected this to be a disaster. And with the, well, let’s call it unfortunate album title of Skitszo, I was fully prepared to be treated to a catastrophe that would end her career before it truly began.

NOW ON YOUTUBE!

So, apparently there is this site you can host videos on, and I figured 'why just read my reviews when you can hear them from me in person'!

Yeah, I know the quality isn't great - that's something I'll be working to improve over the next couple of reviews. In any case, from now on I'll be including a video of me reviewing in person along side each text review (probably at the bottom of the post, haven't quite worked that one out yet). As it is, enjoy my video review of Skylar Grey's 'Don't Look Down' - Lord knows you deserve to enjoy something from that album.

album review: 'don't look down' by skylar grey

The more I think about it, the more I believe that being labelled the 'protege' of a popular artist is a lot worse than one might think.

Sure, you get the immediate hype and buzz from association with your more popular and successful mentor, but like all popularity, it can be replaced by backlash the second you make the slightest mistake. And this backlash tends to be harsher than if you struck out on your own, because there is the implication that you had the backing of a great artists and still struck out. Sure, that might be unfair, particularly when the general public doesn't really know how much influence or control said great artist had over your work, but there is a grain of truth to it.

But if even if you succeed and rise to your mentor's level, the comparison with said mentor will always be invited, particularly if there are stylistic similarities. At best you'll be deemed a 'copycat', an act permanently confined to their greater's shadow. At worst you'll be branded a rip-off, a soulless copy of something greater that came before. And even if you manage to surpass your mentor (as I'd argue Drake and Nicki Minaj have occasionally done with Lil Wayne), there will always be that asterisk associated with your work, that it isn't quite entirely your work and thus ever so slightly not as good. 

So it's not entirely surprising that it's fairly rare a protege of a popular musical act rises even close to the level of their mentor. Sure, Justin Bieber might be more popular amongst his fanbase than Usher is right now, but Bieber certainly isn't getting Usher's level of critical acclaim. And even though 50 Cent definitely had his moment in the spotlight in the early 2000s (his publicity heightened even further by his gutting of Ja Rule's career), he has mostly faded from public view in comparison to his 'discoverer', Eminem (which, frankly, is something I'm okay with, because 50 Cent was never that talented anyway).

Now I'll admit right out of the gate that Eminem remains to this day one of my favourite rappers, and I'm definitely looking forward to his new album later this year. That said, I can't help but notice he has a rather poor reputation in recreating his level of success with his collaborators and proteges (outside of 50 Cent, obviously). As much hype as D12 had in the early-to-mid 2000s, the band never took off with the same notoriety as Eminem had, and while his influence has been a boost to Slaughterhouse's careers, they certainly haven't had that mainstream breakthrough to match their critical praise. Even Yelawolf, who was once praised as the 'next' Eminem, hasn't had the nearly same degree of success (then again, that might have something more to do with his bizarre collaborations with Travis Barker and Ed Sheeran (?)).

And I've got to be honest, I was more than a little skeptical when I heard he was the executive producer behind Skylar Grey, a rising female singer who you might recognize as a co-writer behind Eminem and Rihanna's 2010 collaboration 'Love The Way You Lie', a song I really like but don't quite love. in fact, going back through the writing credits and vocal performances of Skylar Grey, I can't exactly say I've been impressed. I'll acknowledge that her touch is recognizable on her featured tracks ('Coming Home' by Diddy, 'I Need A Doctor' by Eminem & Dr. Dre, and 'Words I Never Said' by Lupe Fiasco), but while I like all three of these songs, I don't quite love them. But I'm fairly certain I know why: Skylar Grey, at least on these tracks, has absolutely no vocal personality.

Now that's a steep charge to level, but go back and listen to all of those tracks. Sure, she's an adequate singer, but outside of a harsher, semi-darker vibe, I don't get much idiosyncrasy or force of personality behind them. There's none of Rihanna's sultriness (well, back when she was good), none of the mostly convincing innocence in Taylor Swift or Carly Rae Jepsen, none of Lady Gaga's haughtiness, none of Ke$ha or Pink's brash attitude or Avril Lavigne's brattiness. She doesn't even have the raw energy that can occasionally make Katy Perry tolerable. Basically, if I'm going to draw a comparison to R&B, Skylar Grey reminded me of Keri Hilson: an adequate singer, but devoid of the flash of the visual presentation, not much more.

But I'm always one to be fair here, so I picked up her major label debut Don't Look Down. Did she manage to grow a personality while I wasn't looking?

album review: 'magna carta holy grail' by jay-z

For those of you who don't follow the Billboard charts and industry news, let me inform you of a recent development that has led to some controversy on music forums. 

Namely, that Jay-Z executed a business deal with Samsung, with the company buying one million copies of the record in order to distribute them to Samsung customers through a downloadable app three days early. In terms of a marketing strategy, it's kind of brilliant, and exactly what you'd expect from Jay-Z, but it led to an interesting controversy, for Jay-Z argued that every sale should be counted through the RIAA charts, giving an instant platinum record before a single CD hit shelves or iTunes. Through this move, Jay-Z would have the sort of instantaneous sales boom that would immediately outstrip his frequent collaborator Justin Timberlake on the Billboard 200 charts, a number one platinum album that sold at a speed unprecedented since the late 90s boy band wars.

Given this completely unprecedented business move, the RIAA moved swiftly to respond - although not precisely the way one would expect. In order to accommodate Jay-Z's scheme, they made it clear in a recent press release that platinum records could indeed be issued before the 30 day evaluation period in order to reflect the changing digital sales climate. Billboard, on the other hand, wasn't nearly so gracious, already stating that Jay-Z's plan would not be permitted to impact the charts. But then again, this is Billboard, whose choice to include YouTube streaming in response to PSY's 'Gangnam Style' about six months too late led to the motherfucking Harlem Shake leaping to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and staying there for five goddamn weeks, so I have no illusions regarding their competence.

But all of that said, I really do admire the business logic behind Jay-Z's scheme here, and the win-win-win spirit in which it was designed. He gets another platinum record, potent sales gains, and a boatload of cash (he's releasing the album on his own label), while Samsung gets an exclusive ad campaign that can potentially rope in new subscribers eager to grab Jay-Z's newest hit, and Samsung customers get the album a couple days early and for a reduced price. To be honest, I think Jay-Z gets the best deal of the three, but that doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Unlike will.i.am, whose marketing strategy seems to be to annoy everyone attempting to hyperlink his name or get his album/songs to trend on Twitter, Jay-Z has enough business sense to utilize old school deals with modern delivery methods. If will.i.am is the 'marketing savant', Jay-Z is the Forbes-topping CEO.

And make no mistake, that's not just an appraisal of the man, but his music as well. Jay-Z may have started in the same pit of gangster rap as Nas (who he held an intense rivalry with for several years), but he always aimed higher, with a crisp professionalism that definitely makes him stand out among his peers. He's called himself the 'new Sinatra', and as treasonous as this might sound, I definitely buy it. Like Justin Timberlake, he has the same blend of class and respectability, and with the intelligence to recruit top-of-the-line producers and performers for his material. His frequent collaborations with Kanye West might not make much sense until you realize that Kanye's one of the best names in the game when it comes to production, and Jay-Z knows he can exploit that while lending Kanye some dignity and class the younger artist has always craved, to say nothing of friendship. And while I wasn't a big fan of their collaboration album Watch The Throne, I was definitely appreciative of the elements that worked and how Jay-Z was more on point than he's been in a long time. And this isn't even touching his relationship with Beyonce, one that makes all too much sense when you consider the thesis of both their respective discographies: 'I'm better than you in every single way'. 

So if I have so many good things to say about Jay-Z, why is that I haven't ever really been able to connect with his music? Well, as I said with Justin Timberlake, sheer unbridled arrogance can really put me off if it isn't delivered with the talent to back it up - and make no mistake, there are swathes of Jay-Z's discographies where he hasn't been trying as much as he could have. And while I will admit Jay-Z's refusal to deal with stupid people or incompetence is admirable (particularly the persistent rumors that he was responsible for sabotaging Chris Brown's career for 2009 and 2010 after the assault on Rihanna, who was one of Jay-Z's proteges), it would help Jay-Z's case more if he managed to keep some distance from the collaborators who can't exactly deliver at his level (the collaboration album and tour with R. Kelly spring to mind). 

But it's not just that. As I've said before, I like when artists delve deeper, actually go for some challenging material that might expose vulnerabilities or humanity in the respective artists. It's ultimately why Kanye West, despite all of the many, many problems I have with him, remains interesting enough to entice me to listen to anything to which he's attached. Jay-Z, on the other hand, always seems to be holding the audience at arms' length. He doesn't open up or reveal much about himself beyond the positive or shallowest of subjects. Sure, he'll talk about major issues and he tends to have a greater breadth of songwriting topics than most (as I've said before, the man is seriously smart), but I don't really feel like I know Jay-Z in the way I know other rappers. Sure, he's has personality and some foibles, but outside of that, it can be hard to relate to the problems of a man who is stupefyingly rich and married to Beyonce. And you can definitely tell that Jay-Z is forcibly creating this distance, which makes it hard for me to get past the mask, presuming there is one.

So what does this mean for his new album, the intriguingly-titled Magna Carta Holy Grail?

album review: 'born sinner' by j. cole

I feel like I owe a bit of an apology to J. Cole.

See, last December, I placed Jermaine Cole's breakout single 'Work Out' on my list of the Top Ten Worst Hit Songs of 2012, and going back to revisit that song today, I can definitely see why. Sure, the production is top-of-the-line, but the beat is annoying as hell, the subject matter is reprehensible, and J Cole's voice was pretty damn nasal (not quite as bad as Kendrick Lamar's, but that's a conversation for another day). But if I'm going back to the song now, I'd have a hard time calling branding worse than 'Payphone' by Maroon 5 or '50 Ways To Say Goodbye' by Train. I'll definitely be reevaluating my placement of the song at the end of the year, but until then, I don't think I was entirely fair to J. Cole, calling him a Drake-wannabe and taking inspiration from Chris Brown.

And to be blunt, that's not fair to the guy for a number of reasons. For starters, 'Work Out' had seven writers, one of them being Kanye West (who I can and will promptly blame for some of the douchebaggery on display on that track) and for another, it's the sort of single that all rappers jumping onto mainstream radio are expected to make (it's kind of terrifying how often this happens). Hell, I'd bet that half of Macklemore's success is linked to the fact that he broke onto mainstream radio using themes that flew in the face of the modern rap scene. But in late 2011, I completely get why J. Cole released 'Work Out', and given that it was the only song I knew by the guy, I passed judgement early without listening to his debut album. 

So when I not only heard that his first album tackled difficult subject matter (that popped up in later singles, I'd come to discover), but that his second album was coming out, I figured I'd take the opportunity to get a little deeper into an artist I may have unfairly dismissed as a sellout. And I'm glad I did, because Cole World: The Sideline Story is actually a pretty damn solid rap album, clicking in all of the right areas that would make me highly appreciate J. Cole as a legitimate talent. His instrumentation tends towards old-school sampling and classical instruments (which is always a plus for me), and his choice of guest stars (including his idol Jay-Z) is well-timed and chosen in a way not to overshadow him on his debut (a lesson that even veteran rappers don't always follow). And while he owes a lot of his rapping technique to Jay-Z and Kanye West, on his best tracks he emulates the best traits of both rappers (the class and dignity of Jay-Z and the uncompromising honesty of Kanye). 

But what really put J. Cole in my good books was the lyrical subject matter, mostly because he nails a very precise balance of sticking to 'traditional' rap topics and adding enough nuance to elevate the material, mostly in the way he includes real empathy for everyone involved. And that's not even talking about the rap tracks where he jumps headlong into subjects most rappers wouldn't touch - like abortion - and it's here where J. Cole really shines, injecting smarter social commentary and nuance into the discussion than the entire Republican party could every imagine. It's also indicative that J. Cole (who also handles the majority of the production on his album) should be left alone to do his own thing with his album, and the solitary example where there was major interference was 'Work Out', easily the worst song on the album.

So, with all of that praise, where does J. Cole stumble? Well, if I was being harsh, I'd say the biggest flaws come through in J. Cole's performance, specifically in his delivery and occasionally his lyrics. Now, don't get me wrong, the subject matter is often incredibly solid, but too often there are double rhymes and the occasional songwriting slip-up that take me out of the experience. And like most rappers, J. Cole sounds at his best when he's got a lot of energy, and while his weariness does occasionally pay dividends on some tracks, too often it can make them a little tedious to listen through. A bigger problem, however, is that J. Cole doesn't quite do enough on Cole World: The Sideline Story to distinguish himself from his main influences. A lot of the instrumentation in particular is very much reminiscent of early Kanye West albums, and while J. Cole does differentiate himself in his lyrical content, he could do more to evolve his sound.

But then again, that was his major label debut, and one had to expect that J. Cole would have to make something mostly conventional to sell it to the record label (although considering the mutating state of rap music and the record labels' increasing desperation for hits in the face of acts like Macklemore, I bet J. Cole could have afforded to go for broke and they still would have bought into it). So in following most acts, I expected the major innovation to come on J. Cole's second album, unfortunately released on the same day as Kanye's insane Yeezus. So how does it fare?

album review: 'rise' by skillet

You know, religious-themed music didn't use to suck.

I mean, look at Johnny Cash or Elvis - both men made pretty solid albums exploring religious themes and styles in a mature, usually intelligent manner. And religious themes tend to crop up all over the place when one examines more gothic acts like Depeche Mode. Hell, Nick Cave has spent most of his career delving into various facets of religion, particularly in his most well-known song 'The Mercy Seat'. But all too often, whenever religion tends to crop up in music, the quality tends to drop exponentially (see the few albums Bob Dylan released when he embraced Christianity in the early 80s). Why is that?

Well, I've got a few ideas. For starters, I think one needs to consider the direction in which these acts are discussing religion and God. To me, the best of them deal with the very human experience of trying to contextualize one's beliefs while living in a very secular world. To me, that's potent material for songs, stuff that can make one think and question their beliefs. And if anything, the best religious-themed music tends to revolve around questions of faith and belief and yearning, trying to find what is at the meat of our human experience.

But you rarely see material that has the balls to ask these questions, and that's where the majority of Christian music tends to lose me in a hurry. At the upper end of quality in this group you tend to see a great of quasi-spiritual satisfaction, worship music without the drama of actual conflict. Now I have issues with this sort of music - basically, I'm not the biggest fan of mellow music as it is, and when you add the subtext of 'I got all of this because I accepted Jesus as my saviour', it can get more than a little insufferable. But on the other hand, it's essentially harmless, and if people are using said music to find solace in religion, I don't really have a problem with it.

No, the Christian music I and most critics take issue with is the stuff with the harder evangelical bent, which combines the subtext above with 'I've accepted Jesus as my saviour... and now YOU should too or you're going to hell for all eternity'. It's confrontational, in your face with its self-righteousness and complete lack of tact, thought, or humility - and as a Catholic, this really bugs the shit out of me. To me, religion should be about acceptance and love and tolerance and compassion and giving - not exclusionary pontificating and hatred. And yeah, the hypocrisy rings high and loud when these acts preach family values or attempt to cast themselves as the underdogs against the rising 'feminists and homosexuals'... and then get caught abusing drugs or getting blown by groupies in the back of a van (hi, Scott Stapp, you worthless piece of shit!). To me, these groups represent the worst of the evangelical movement, particularly in recent years, as they attempt to use the fandom of their music to convert people to their own breed of Christianity. And it really smacks of disingenuous motives when you realize that these bands stand to profit heavily off of their audience's religious fervour.

But those are moral objections to thematic elements in their music - what about the bigger picture? Well, as much as I'd like to say that these acts only signed to Christian labels when no other label would take them (that's untrue and a little unfair), my issues with Christian rock tend to come back to lyrical subject matter. Too often, the acts refuse to actually delve into the implications and deeper meaning behind their material, instead relying on shallow platitudes, emotionally-manipulating tragedy porn, or evangelical fervour. And the really frustrating part is that too much of the material quickly begins to repeat itself, with few new ideas other than an unearned, rather intolerable defensiveness against the rational progression of music and society as a whole.

And look, I'm not saying that on a musical level these guys aren't talented. Hell, I'll give Icon For Hire, an alternative metal act that exploded in 2011 with their debut album Scripted, a lot of credit for having extremely solid guitar and vocal work (to say nothing of lyrics that were actually had the balls to ask questions of religion and go deeper, which earned them praise from Christian and non-Christian review outlets). But too often you get acts like Creed or Evanescence (okay, Evanescence technically only signed to a Christian label and never really had evangelical music, but I really hate Evanescence) that are so dour and humourless and teeth-grindingly tedious that cast a pall over the entire genre, so much so that the majority of mainstream critics won't even touch Christian-themed music anymore, or any band signed to a Christian label.

But as I'm sure you've all realized, I'm not most critics, so let's take a look at the new album from the Grammy-winning Christian Rock act that Icon For Hire opened for a few years ago, Skillet. Starting in 1996, Skillet are widely considered to be one of the better Christian rock acts, and while I've never heard a single song of theirs prior to this album, their last album went platinum in the United States and sold over a million copies. If anything, that would suggest the band does have crossover potential into the mainstream, particularly considering that last album came out in 2009 (in an era where true platinum records were becoming something of a rarity).

And I've got to be honest, I've always been a little fascinated by the Christian metal scene. Just on a conceptual level, Christian metal is a study in dissonance, a genre ostracized by the Christian rock scene for embracing a 'darker' musical aesthetic and roundly disliked by the mainstream metal scene for their evangelical subject matter. In Skillet's case, the band has a reputation for industrial metal of all things - which, I should remind you, includes acts like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry - so I was definitely intrigued when I heard about the new album. I was less intrigued when I discovered that a song on their last album featured on the soundtrack to Transformers III, but hey, if that's not proof of their crossover potential, I don't know what is.

So what do I think of their new album, Rise?

album review: 'in defense of the genre' by say anything (RETRO REVIEW)

I have to be honest, it's not often I do real 'retro reviews', and there's a very good reason for that. As much as I could go on and on about certain acts and how much I like their material, I feel that without the appropriate context/situation, there's isn't much of a point for me to talk about these acts. It'd be rather self-indulgent, and while I don't exactly have a huge problem with that, I'd prefer to actually talk about something that is relevant to the conversation today.

Now that's not saying I won't do retrospective reviews - far from it, actually. In fact, I think I can definitively nail down three reasons why I would do a retro review of an album or a movie: it relates to a current subject in a direct manner that allows me to fuse the review with an essay; it's something I didn't get a chance to cover earlier in the year and I want to cover it so I'm prepared when year-end rolls around; and finally, on request (and even then it's iffy, because there are some acts I will refuse to touch on principle).

And even with that, I haven't written that many retrospective reviews. There were the Nolan-Batman retrospectives (here and here), the reviews of James Blake and Tegan & Sara earlier this year (the latter of which I remember most for my essay on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope), and the two reviews I've written on request: that of Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album and that of an album by The Beards. Completely unsurprisingly, the two albums I reviewed on request were not even close to good, which makes sense in a twisted sort of way. After all, the Internet likes to give critics shit to review so we can fly into highly entertaining rages.

I want you all to understand that to clarify that when I got the request to review In Defense of the Genre, the collaborator-studded album by Say Anything, I stepped in with high hopes but extremely low expectations. As a band with no real pop success to speak of - albeit some measure of critical acclaim, but that can mean anything these days - I had actually never heard any of this band's material before beginning this review. Keep in mind that when I started listening to the pop-punk and emo music of the 2000s, I jumped onto the bandwagon in 2007, which was in the peak of mainstream success but not critical acclaim (as I've said before, I spent the majority of the mid-2000s listening to power and symphonic metal). I might have been listening to Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco and the occasional MCR or Jimmy Eat World track, but I certainly wasn't familiar with the more underground segments of the genre, so I was very unfamiliar with Say Anything. So as usual, I opted to examine the albums leading up to In Defense Of The Genre so I might have an idea about what Say Anything was like. What I did I think?

Well, I have mixed feelings. Say Anything burst into the indie scene with Baseball, an album that the band has never really been proud of and have refused to play tracks from for a long time. On the one hand, I definitely understand why: if we're looking for albums that embodied the teenage emo aesthetic, Baseball would immediately jump to the top of that list. With the haphazard production, sloppy but occasionally excellent guitar work, and raw anger and petulance in Max Bemis' vocals, Baseball would be indistinguishable from a dozen other emo bands of the time, but what impressed me was the genuine emotion in Bemis' delivery and the sharper-than-average songwriting. The band had a certain degree of wit around them that I can definitely see elevated them over their peers - within their genre, of course. And that's where the biggest problem with Baseball comes up - it's painfully high school when it comes to subject matter, filled with all of the associated drama from that period. And while I definitely can see why disaffected teenagers would love the raw, unbridled anger in Say Anything, anyone with an ounce of perspective would find Baseball more than a little juvenile. 

But on the other hand, I will give credit where it's due - Say Anything definitely captured that spirit with their opening album, and while the band might have lacked nuance, they made up for it with passion. So unsurprisingly, they got signed and released their second album ...Is A Real Boy, which managed the impossible: not only did the band preserve their sound and wit, they actually got better. In fact, ...Is A Real Boy really nailed down in my mind what Say Anything did well, namely they fused intelligently biting lyrics with real passion. I'm not reminded of any of the traditional L.A. emo bands but instead of The Barenaked Ladies, both in the acrid dark humour of the lyrics and the simplistic yet extraordinarily catchy melodies (plus, they reference Nick Cave multiple times, which is automatic bonus points from me). 

But what I find most fascinating about ...Is A Real Boy is the theme - while Say Anything could have chosen to focus inwardly about Max Bemis' own neuroses (and he did have them, as he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, actively abused drugs, and was eventually checked into a mental institution), they instead directed their attentions at their genre. Of course, they were an emo band so most of the songs were written from the perspective of the band, but they still had a much stronger tendency to focus outwardly. In short, much of their material was targeted at the music industry and the toxic culture surrounding it, and they had the smart songwriting to disguise their words behind some surprisingly intricate metaphors. And when they weren't attacking the industry, they were writing very literate, occasionally high-concept material like 'Yellow Cat (Slash) Red Cat' (one of the major highlights of the album, a nuanced discussion of human complacency), 'Every Man Has A Molly' (the nasty aftermath of airing dirty laundry through music - take notes, Taylor Swift), 'I Want To Know Your Plans' (probably the closest thing to an honest love song Say Anything ever wrote), and 'Admit It!!!' (my other favourite track, a brutally articulate spoken-word-filled diatribe against hipsters that's eons harsher than anything I will ever write).

So it isn't surprising in the slightest is that Say Anything very quickly built some major artistic clout in the industry, particularly around the L.A. emo scene, and combined with Bemis' growing reputation as a mad genius, it's not a surprise he managed to rope in twenty-three guest vocalists for his newest project and the topic of my review today. In Bemis' own words, the album had a twofold purpose: an autobiographical exploration of his mental breakdown and recovery; and a tribute to the other emo bands and genre Say Anything liked. Do they succeed?

album review: 'omens' by 3OH!3

Let's talk about the concept of liking something.

I know, it sounds incredibly basic and simple, but the more I dive into the critical analysis of works - particularly of satirical material - the more I find that the rote concept of liking something has become stupidly convoluted. Let's attempt to make this conversation a little simpler and disregard the mouthbreathing assholes who make comments like, 'If you like something / are a fan of something, you can't be objective!'. This line of argumentation is really goddamn stupid, mostly because it has its roots in a weird place: a desire for 'objectivity' that seems to be linked to the belief that 'human connection = bad' and that 'critical opinions = bad', mostly on the principle that nobody can be truly objective about anything, so thus everything is subjective and thereby illegitimate, with the illegitimacy easier to spot if you show any vestige of emotion towards something you might like.

Okay, this is horseshit, and for some very basic reasons. It's a nastier version of 'everyone's a critic', except that the purpose of a critic is never just a simple yay or nay, but to elaborate why a work of art works or doesn't work. If something can induce an emotion, subconscious reaction - either positive or negative - it is the critic's job to interpret that reaction, and use his human experiences to describe that context. As I've said before, I tend to use personal pronouns more than most when writing about my opinions on various albums - and the reason for that is because ultimately my reviews come from my point-of-view and I'd like you all to understand the context in which I deliver my opinion (you can debate all damn day whether it's 'informed' or not). To me, this sort of 'you're a fan, your opinion is illegitimate' might have some weight if the critic cannot articulate why he likes/dislikes something in a clear manner, but too often it's used as a defensive mechanism by people who want to be heard, but are too lazy or stupid to put anything thought into their argumentation. 

And thus, as a critic, I feel a certain degree of responsibility to not only convey my honest, unfiltered opinion about why I might like or not like something, but the rationale behind my liking of that material. I want to understand why I like something, to perhaps uncover something about myself I never realized, or about how that artist managed to affect me. That's also why you'll never seem me appreciate something 'ironically' or just to be contrary. For example, let's talk about my favourite musical of all time, Chess. Are there problems in this musical? Oh, absolutely - most of the various rewrites have serious structural problems, it tends to be a little broader than it should be, and one could argue that given the end of the Cold War, it has lost some of its relevance to the modern age. But despite all of that, I still love it because all of the things that work about the musical outweigh the flaws and it has the balls to embrace intellectual sincerity and end on a downbeat note. I could definitely go at greater length why I love this musical, but the point is that I'm definitely still a fan even though I can point out the flaws.

But too often in modern society, we're told that if we want to be a fan, we should shut off that critical voice. Indeed, we must show unequivocal support to an artist or be roundly castigated by the fans the art touched on a visceral level. Most of these fans aren't going to put the thought into contextualizing why they felt the way they did - and to some extent, that's okay. Film Critic Hulk actually wrote a superb essay on the subject on the levels in which we experience art, and I highly advise you all check it out, but he made two points I'd like to emphasize. Firstly, it's okay to view art in on a purely visceral level - it's not inherently worse than the critic who's looking for deeper themes and meanings. But the second point - and the one I feel is paramount - is that there should be a degree of awareness why we feel the way we do. To quote, 'GOOD MEDIA CONSUMPTION IS ABOUT AWARENESS... BUT GOOD MEDIA DIALOGUE IS ABOUT CONTEXTUALIZATION.'

Now, I'm sure some of you are wondering why on earth I'm talking about this at all. Well, the frustrating aspect of this whole conversation is that the accessibility of certain art can be limited by the choices of the artist, and the intentions of said artist can be misinterpreted - often completely in the wrong direction. This is a particular issue when it comes to satirical material, which is often designed to make a point regarding the genre or subject matter, and does so by apeing some of the conventions, aesthetic, or tropes of said genre or subject matter. I wrote extensively regarding Pain & Gain and how the audience probably will not get Michael Bay's point in that film: that he's not looking to glorify the lifestyle on screen, but to viciously satirize and condemn it - and yet, because of the way he presents the material, most of the audience won't get that message.

Now this leads to a very interesting conversation, as you can say the best art is meant to be enjoyed and experienced in a variety of ways. But if the artist set forth with a determined message in mind and the audience takes in the exact opposite of that message because they're experiencing it on a different level, is that a failure on the part of the artist? Keep in mind I'm not exactly a fan of the 'Death of the Artist' theory, but one has to acknowledge that sometimes the artist isn't intimately linked or aware of all of his/her influences in the artwork - even the best artists can fall prey to this. 

So ultimately, who is right? Well, as a critic, I'm not sure I can give you a direct answer to that question, because it's extremely difficult to see other perspectives outside of your own. I totally understand why people look at songs like 'Fight For Your Right To Party' and see them as glorifying the frat-boy douchebags who embraced the motto, instead of the Beastie Boys' true intention of satirizing that movement. Similarly, I get why some people think Ke$ha is a vapid bar slut, when in reality her music is satirizing the vapidity and emptiness of that lifestyle. But in both of these cases, I can definitely see the argument that one can experience the same visceral pleasure on either levels - and in the end, I can definitely see The Beastie Boys and Ke$ha being okay with either interpretation.

So with all of that in mind, let's finally talk about 3OH!3, the electro-pop 'crunkcore' act that is trying to do what The Beastie Boys and Ke$ha are doing, but can't quite make it work.

I should explain. Having their major label debut in 2008, the duo 3OH!3 struck up controversy with their hit song 'Don't Trust Me'. When accused of misogyny by critics on that album, 3OH!3 immediately made a defense that they were intending this material to be read ironically. Yeah, that song is misogynist and sketchy and goes way darker than it can believably pull off, but if I squint and turn my head sideways, I can sort of see what they meant. But here's my big problem with that defense: they may have intended to have that song be viewed ironically or on a different level, but viewed in that context, there's nothing that can be gained from the song other than the transgression, and that makes their justification seem hollow. I'll immediately confess I have something of a weakness for loud, obnoxious party music and crunk, but the fact 3OH!3 never could even resonate at that superficial level suggests that the duo can't back up their irony defense.

So why don't I like them? Well, besides the cowardice of hiding behind the irony shield - something Ke$ha, I should add, has never bothered to do, instead letting her fans interpret her material in multiple ways - they really don't distinguish themselves from the rest of the electro-pop slurry that clogged up the radio in 2008-11. Sure, they're obnoxious, but the problem is that they aren't looking to say anything with that obnoxiousness, and their songwriting lacks the sophistication or chops to rise above shallow party jams. And even on that standard alone, viewed from purely an alpha-male douchebag viewpoint, the beats are glitchy and haphazard, neither of the duo have great voices, the production is a mixed bag, and the lyrics are asinine. I'll admit they aren't quite at the level of gutchurningly stupid, worthless sound like brokenCYDE, but I don't really see anything unique that 3OH!3 provide to the modern pop landscape, particularly considering the club boom is over. 

And I really quite surprised that somehow they managed to pull another album together, ominously titled Omens. What do I think?

album review: 'dancer and the moon' by blackmore's night

In the fall of 2012, many mainstream music critics were hailing the new indie rock explosion, and at the forefront of that wave we had acts like Mumford & Sons and The Lumineers and Phillip Phillips. Now, granted, I was never a huge fan of any of these acts, but I understand what they do and they occasionally managed to impress me. Yes, even Mumford & Sons (I stand by my criticism of the act that they really don't contribute anything to music as a whole, but they certainly don't embarrass themselves that badly unless you dig deeply into their lyrics).

But what I took a little umbrage to at the time was the genre classification of the majority of these acts, and how people were calling them 'folk rock'. It wasn't that I disagreed, per se - indeed, if I were pressed to come up with a genre classification of these acts other than indie, I'd probably call them contemporary folk rock and run with that. But what annoyed me a bit was the level of mainstream acclaim these acts received. Once again, I wouldn't call any of these acts bad, but at least to me, they sure as hell didn't represent the folk rock with which I was most familiar.

And with that, let's talk about Blackmore's Night.

As I mentioned before, when I was younger, I skipped straight from pop music and Eminem to power and symphonic metal, and in the process of using that old, unreliable bit of vapourware Limewire, I came across several songs that were mistakenly noted as Nightwish songs. As most of you probably remember, getting accurate song titles and band names in the days of Limewire (to say nothing of album names) was a nightmare, and pre-Wikipedia (this was around 2005), it required a fair amount of legwork to figure out what these songs actually were. Eventually, I managed to discover that these songs came from a  medieval folk rock act known as Blackmore's Night, founded by former Deep Purple virtuoso guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and his wife Candice Night. 

And as a teenage fantasy nerd, I immediately fell head over heels for Blackmore's Night. Almost all of the elements clicked - Ritchie Blackmore's impressive guitar work, Candice Night's ethereal voice, the backing instrumentation was properly modulated to build to impressive crescendos, and the lyrics were steeped in fantasy and Wiccan culture. They immediately set in my impressionable mind the definition of what I thought folk rock was, and that definition persisted until my uncle introduced me to Bob Dylan. 

So coming back to Blackmore's Night as a more mature music critic, does the band hold up to my expectations? Well, for the most part, yes. As with Deep Purple, the instrumentation is easily the biggest strength of Blackmore's Night, and Ritchie Blackmore's guitar work has remained as solid as ever. And I must admit a certain fondness for Candice Night willowy, ethereal delivery that perfectly matches the quasi-mystical feel the band is attempting to cultivate. Unfortunately, while the band does have an impressive repertoire of material in myth and legend to draw upon, they do occasionally repeat cliches between songs a little more than they should. And while they are more innovative and interesting songwriters than Deep Purple, I would hesitate to put them on any sort of pedestal here. It also doesn't help that they've done some pretty hit-and-miss covers over the course of their careers (the most egregious example being of 'Times They Are A Changin', which is just awful and embarrassing).

But if anything, I think the biggest 'barrier to entry' with regards to Blackmore's Night is the fact that they're a bit difficult to take seriously, specifically due to their genre. As much as I have issues with Game of Thrones, I will admit that the one net positive the HBO series is doing is increasing the mainstream public's tolerance for fantasy in their pop culture (a process begun in most cases by The Lord of the Rings films). But even with that,  it can be tough to buy into an act that sings about magic and fae and fantasy with wholehearted sincerity, and Blackmore's Night doesn't have an ounce of cynicism or winking in their subject matter. They believe what they're selling, and thus it's absolutely no surprise that they only tend to play live at Renaissance fairs and smaller, medieval-themed venues - which also puts a definite ceiling on any mainstream success they're aiming to have. But then again, I'm not sure Ritchie Blackmore is actively looking for mainstream success in the same way he was with Deep Purple - to him, Blackmore's Night is a passion project, and he's not going to turn it into work.

So with all of that in mind, how is their discography? Well, I'd describe all of their previous albums as good, but I'd have a hard time calling them great, mostly due to inconsistency. Typically per album you'll get three or four great songs and a whole lot of passable material, but not much more. Their most recent album Autumn Sky (released in 2010) was probably on the lower end of that spectrum - not as shaky as their debut album Shadows of the Moon, but not as strong as Village Lanterne (yeah, they spell 'lanterne' with an extra 'e' - they're that kind of band).

So, in the past week, they released a new album, Dancer And The Moon - how does it fair?

album review: 'yeezus' by kanye west

I think it's necessary to discuss my original plan for how I was going to write this review, both so you can get a glimpse of my process and so I can add a bit of context to this whole thing.

You see, the second I heard that Kanye West was going to title his next album Yeezus, I got the immediate idea that it might be kind of fun to frame the review like a letter to Kanye West, to discuss his ego exploding out of control in a way that can only lead to cataclysmic disaster at some point down the road (bear in mind I still suspect this'll happen at some point - hell, I've been predicting it since My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy). You know, frame it like an intervention, a bit like the way I wrote my little letter to Taylor Swift that doubled as an a review of her album Red.

And make no mistake, I would have had plenty of material for this letter, because Kanye West's career has been one of the most intriguing adventures to watch for the past several years. He burst onto the scene as a hit producer and made three reasonably solid rap albums that I like a fair amount to this day. Granted, I didn't think they were anything all that special - Kanye's gift for sampling and production always made his instrumentation a treat, but his weaker flow and clumsy lyricism never really impressed me all that much. In that, I was content to slot him into the list of acts I considered good, but not great.

And then something happened to Kanye West. His mother passed away, his relationship ended badly, and the resulting crises of faith and loneliness drove Kanye to make one of the most influential hip-hop albums of the past five years, 808s & Heartbreak. A choice to dive straight into introspective, autotune-layered electropop split his fanbase violently and was hastily predicted by most to be a flop, but the subsequent critical acclaim and surprisingly strong sales proved them wrong - mostly because the album is incredibly good. Kanye's choice to use autotune as more than just pitch correction and instead use it to emphasize his loneliness and the isolating feelings of grief do wonders for the atmosphere of this album. And in contrast to the majority of fans and critics, I found 'Robocop' (which had a bizarre yet compelling tonal juxtaposition between lyrics and instrumentation) to be my favourite song on the album. There was grief there, but there was also light at the end of the tunnel, as it felt Kanye was finally gaining some context and moving towards something brighter.

That didn't happen, after an infamous incident with Taylor Swift, Kanye descended deeper into the nightmarish rabbit hole and made My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which achieved incredible critical acclaim, with many critics declaring it his magnum opus. It took the mad genius of Kanye's production and married it to eclectic samples, a host of guest stars, and lyrics that didn't just expose Kanye's insanity, but brandished it proudly before the masses. 

Now I've had a, well, let's call it complicated relationship with this album. When I originally reviewed it on Facebook, I pissed off a lot of people by saying it's really not all that great, and certainly not the perfection that so many critics had claimed it was. And while I tend to revisit the album about once a year - sometimes you need unfiltered insanity and darkness - I'm increasingly convinced that while the album contains some of the greatest highs of Kanye's career (seriously, 'All of the Lights', 'Hell of a Life', 'Power', even 'Dark Fantasy' and 'Blame Game' are mindblowing), but ultimately doesn't work as a whole. Yes, the instrumentation and production are top-notch, but I've always had issues with Kanye's flow and there are enough awkward lines to knock too many of the songs off their pedestals. And this isn't even factoring in the extremely hit-and-miss guest star inclusions, none of which I feel really add much to the album.

And that isn't even touching album themes and the twisted pathology lurking inside this album. I will definitely admit that as a slice of the insanity inside Kanye's head, it's something entirely unique, but whenever it tries to build towards a theme or a coherent driving mechanism, it feels unfocused, indulgent, and oddly sloppy at points. Kanye tries to come across as an alpha-male douchebag or seductive predator on this album (and I can't help but admit there are moments here that the asshole I was throughout 2010 and early 2011 fucking adores), but it's undercut at every turn because there's no perspective and Kanye is too honest as a performer to embrace something remotely untrue. Instead of a coherent and focused work, we get Kanye attempting to explore his darkest neuroses and eventually finding them hollow and token. It reminds me strongly on a thematic level of Nick Cave's darker material, but while Kanye only found sadness and emptiness at the base levels of his psyche, Nick Cave actually found something darker, creepier, and genuinely gripping when he looked, a real horror - and his masterful skill was making all of us realize that we had that darkness too. But with Kanye, we don't get that connection in the same way, and I left feeling oddly distant from the album at the end of it. And considering how damn hard Kanye was trying to put it all out there and create that connection to curb his loneliness (seriously, go back through his material in recent years, it's a definite undercurrent that Kanye feels he has no true peers - although I'm conflicted whether or not his choice to expose his inner demons was the best way to win people over, which might have been part of the point, loneliness being his punishment), I can't help but feel it doesn't quite work for me.

So after two albums of material (a collaboration with Jay-Z in Watch The Throne, which was solid enough but didn't really stick, and Cruel Summer, a label launchpad collaboration that just did nothing for me whatsoever), Kanye was finally back with a new album titled Yeezus. Frankly, when I heard the title, I was just expecting a continuation of the shallower themes in My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, just blown up to eleven. And given his material throughout 2012 and especially on Cruel Summer, I wasn't expecting much other than Kanye to wallow in his own ego. Hence, the 'intervention-review'.

I didn't get what I was expecting.

movie review: 'man of steel'

I like Superman more than Batman.

I'll give you a moment to go find your socks that just blew off, but let me also explain why, because it's key to certain elements of this review and why I don't think the rebooted Superman works all that well (spoilers, I'm not the biggest fan of Man of Steel, if you want the review in a sentence). This mostly has to do with certain misconceptions regarding the character and the mythos surrounding Superman, and I'm going to try and clear some of those up (yes, it's going to be one of those reviews).

To wit, when Siegel and Shuster created Superman, they were very much aware of the mythological parallels to the character such as Hercules and Moses, and they created him as a character who fought for social justice, an immigrant from another planet fighting for our world. It's also been theorized that Superman was considered a surrogate father figure, particularly to many of the young boys who read the comics in the 40s and 50s while their real fathers were engaged in the Second World War and the Korean War, not to mention the loss of Siegel's father in a robbery years earlier. Many, many writers who would follow them would take their own stabs and defining Superman, but in the end, a core distillation of Superman's role and values crystallized, as they did with Wonder Woman and Batman. 

Batman was the spirit of justice, Wonder Woman was the spirit of truth, and Superman was the symbol of hope.

I want you all to consider this for a moment. Superman is the symbol of hope, an alien from another planet, yet raised with our values and having a much stronger connection to Earth than he ever would the destroyed Krypton. He is a man who gains the most power not on his homeworld but on Earth, thanks to the yellow light rays of our sun. And yet he chooses not to represent himself as some ubermensch, some titan of power that rules us, but as a figure to which we all can look up. Many, many authors have played with the Christ symbolism in connection to Superman, and while I will argue there's definitely a grain of salt in that comparison, I don't think it quite encapsulates the other elements of his character - namely, his more human side. There's a degree of humility in Superman's choice of a secret identity - an unassuming reporter working for a newspaper, where he could inform the American public and ensure his travels could get him in places of danger that he could stop in his alter ego. His relationship with Lois Lane plays a big part in this story, both as a 'grounding' facet of his character and as a very real emotional link, showing his connection to us and our world.

Now, maybe it's just me, but that's potent material for writing a powerful story - but yet so many people don't see these elements in the character. Many tend to consider him a 'boring', 'stupid' character, overloaded with powers and strengths that make him invincible, and obviously a character without weakness can't have any notable threats. They don't understand why he doesn't just kill Lex Luthor or General Zod or why he doesn't enact the same brand of justice for which Batman is emblematic. Or, in a complete misunderstanding of the character, they point to things like this:

Yeah, it's a load of shit. As I stressed above, Superman is a person who has a much stronger and much more potent connection to his human roots than his Kryptonian ones. He was raised in Smallville, a little farm town in Kansas to be a good, compassionate, altruistic person (which is often where the 'stupid' adjective gets applied in the false equivalency where 'good'='dumb', which pisses me off to no end), and while he is aware his powers make him different from humanity, he does not think they place him above us. And from that, you can sketch out the best Superman stories, where it doesn't matter if he has incredible powers, but the ultimate futility of his task. He can't save everyone from everything, but he's going to try his damnedest anyway. He knows that people look to him as a symbol of hope, as someone whose values they want to emulate, and thus he must balance his very human desires with his chosen duty. He knows that people will look at him with fear and anger and jealousy and distrust, but he rises above that because he believes we all can be better.

It's no surprise kids fall in love with Superman. He's the adult who can fly and fight bad guys and shoot lasers out of his eyes, and he's going to do it no matter what and with a smile on his face once the bad guys are gone - in short, he's the idealized father figure for many of these kids. And yet the funny thing is that once those kids get past the teenager stage (where they all tend to embrace Batman over Superman because Superman 'isn't cool') and become adults, they tend to like Superman again, but for different reasons. They see him as the character who has to balance his love life and his job, who has to face impossible odds and somehow prevail, and who through all of it remains a good person. They don't care about his power set or his less-than-stellar gallery of villains - most can see past that and see someone deep down they want to emulate, an ideal to aspire towards.

That's potent stuff, there's real dramatic material there that has resonated time and time again, with the same archetypes stretching back through history. There's a reason Superman has persisted in the modern collective unconscious for as long as it has, perhaps putting the lie to Lois' first article in Superman Returns, 'Why The World Doesn't Need Superman'. And thus my interest was definitely piqued when I heard Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan were teaming up with a stellar cast to retell the Superman origin story yet again. And believe it or not, I immediately thought that while the choice of a director was solid (Zack Synder, despite all of the problems with him, has a gift for comic-book-esque shot composition and 'epic' scale if the script can support it), the problems might come from Nolan and his writing team. They understood Batman (mostly), but Superman's a tougher character to nail down and requires a bit more maturity and careful forethought. Could they pull it off?

album review: 'damage' by jimmy eat world

Ugh, I hate this. 

I hate that this is a factor in my enjoyment of songs, because it makes me look like the most nitpicking, audiophile asshole, the kind that bitches against iPods because of mp3 compression and only listens to FLACs, or the kind that remixes and remasters songs in his basement and because of that has an inflated feeling that 'he just knows music better'. Let me make this absolutely fucking clear - I completely get why people like listening to music at high bitrates, and I would be lying if I didn't say that I'd take the sound of good organic vinyl over some YouTube rip any day of the week. And yeah, I will completely stand behind artists like Nick Cave when he says that Henry's Dream didn't come out properly because of the shoddy production, and I will wholeheartedly support his choice to make a phenomenal live album where he basically replayed the album properly.

But with all of that in mind, music should be about music, not production. While there is a fine art to good production and mixing, it's arguably the least important element in comparison to the instrumentation and lyrics. The notes being played and the words being sung are the creative element, the raw spark of art - production and mixing are the editing desk, the polish, the filter from which the art is passed to us. It shouldn't matter if 'Satisfaction' by the Rolling Stones is played mono or stereo or if it was run through a high pass filter or the reverb is a little too high on Jagger's microphone, it's still 'Satisfaction' by the fucking Rolling Stones. 

But as much as I don't like it, I can't help but admit that production and mixing matter. They might be the least important element in this process, but they're definitely an element in this process that is disastrous to overlook. And not for the first time, I can't help but feel that if an element of the production for this band had been improved, I'd like them a lot more.

So with that, let's talk about Jimmy Eat World, yet another entry in the list of acts that I can definitely acknowledge is good and that I can kind of like, but I can never quite love, no matter how hard I try. But unlike a case like Radiohead, I can pinpoint exactly where Jimmy Eat World doesn't work for me: the vocal production and placement in the mix has never consistently worked.

Let me expand. The band burst into the underground in 1994 with their self-titled debut, which was decent enough to score them a small cult following that was quickly squashed by their 1996 follow-up Static Prevails. Now, there are a slew of other problems with Static Prevails beyond the vocal production mix, mostly in that the songwriting was pretty lousy and the instrumentation wasn't as polished, but most of these problems were cleaned up by the 1999 album Clarity. And yes, I'll be the first to acknowledge that the best elements of Jimmy Eat World's sound - the extremely solid guitar work, the bigness in their sound, their heartfelt (if occasionally self-obsessed) lyrics - were all here. But as much as I tried, I could never get over the fact that lead singer Jim Adkins' vocals were buried midway in the track behind the guitars, and were more often than not barely audible. 

That was the other factor that always annoyed me about Jimmy Eat World, namely that the vocal performance was never very strong, as Adkins' vocals always struck me as rather thin. Fortunately the band compensated for that on their next release Bleed American, pulling the vocals more to the front of the track and adding reverb and backing vocals to support Adkins, and sure enough Bleed American was their strongest album yet. They'd follow it with Futures and Chase This Light, both albums I really like but don't quite love, mostly due to the swarm of little irritations that always seemed to leap to the forefront of my mind, mostly surrounding Adkins' vocals and the occasional sloppy or immature bit of songwriting (the worst thing I'll ever say about the instrumentation is that on a few occasions it got a little cluttered or repetitive). And yet always the persistent problem I had on all three of those albums is that every so often - often enough to be noticeable and frustrating - the vocals were just drowned out entirely behind the roar of the guitars, and while I'll admit that this will always be a pet peeve of mine, it rankles here all the more because of how much Jimmy Eat World consistently got right.

And then they released Invented in 2010, and... well, I'll be more polite to it than some of the more rabid fans and say it was uneven. Sure, the trademark elements of Jimmy Eat World were here, and the vocals were high enough in the mix that they could usually be pulled out, but the attempts to add electronic elements and a female backing vocalist did nothing to help matters, and the songwriting hadn't improved (both in technical proficiency or subject matter) since Chase This Light in 2007. But it was on Invented they let lead guitarist Tom Linton sing lead vocals, and it was here that my problem with Jimmy Eat World finally crystallizes - the vocal production on Jim Adkins' voice never fits with the production of the rest of the track. Sure, his thin tenor matches the subject matter of the songs fairly well (Jimmy Eat World has always been one of the wussiest bands in alt rock and power pop, and that's saying something), but in comparison to the crashing, epic sounding guitars and pounding bass and drums, he always sounds drowned out, which ultimately comes down to an issue of vocal production. In comparison, Tom Linton's rasp might have less range but the vocal production done for his part of the mix flows much better.

But now it's 2013, and Jimmy Eat World have been active for over nineteen years - surely on their most recent album Damage they will have figured out the vocal production balance, right?