|
 The
Major Lift
By
Erik Hage
In
the mid-’90s, legendary reclusive novelist Thomas Pynchon,
who makes Cormac McCarthy seem downright social (and J.D.
Salinger seem only a bit shy), penned the liner notes to a
CD by the New York City band Lotion, a good (not great) indie-rock
band who soon dissolved into some obscure back annals of alt-rock
history.
The idea of Pynchon, nearly 60 years of age at the time, getting
excited enough by an unremarkable rock group to pen some golden
prose in their CD sleeve absolutely fascinates me. I think
it says less about Thomas Pynchon and more about the effect
of rock music on the individual. Is it somehow undignified
for such a reclusive giant of literature to come out of hiding,
excited by a soon-to-be-forgotten rock band? (He allegedly
even hung out with them in the studio.) I’m not so sure.
A couple of months back, I signed on to write a book about
the writer Cormac McCarthy. After writing about music for
so long it seemed a somehow “mature” move—and it has turned
out to be a rich project. But I can’t stop thinking about
Pynchon and those liner notes. And I wonder what tunes Cormac
McCarthy listens to in his flatbed pickup in those private
moments when the air-guitar case snaps open and the hands
patter out Neil Peart drum volleys on the thighs. (I envision
McCarthy rockin’ some Merle Haggard and hope that Salinger
pops Ella Fitzgerald on the old Victrola.) I’ll bet even T.S.
Eliot ponced around air-conducting in between the creative
fits that produced “The Waste Land.”
 Popular
music is not high art; it hits us in the viscera, tickles
our excitement cortex like no other form and makes us behave
downright undignified at times. Which brings me to AC/DC,
because here is a band who rule the viscera and who
can rock over any ivory tower. In fact, I think Angus Young
is every bit as much the master of a distinct style as Pynchon
and McCarthy.
Just as you can spot one of those antiquarian and powerful
Cormac McCarthy sentences five miles off, there is no mistaking
“Rock ’N Roll Train,” the opening track of Black Ice. This
is the discrete language of AC/DC cast across four decades:
An unfussy drumbeat like someone pounding in a steel rail;
clotted, ass-shaking guitar brawn; and that undeniable harpy-from-purgatory
screech. AC/DC have made some pretty crummy albums in recent
decades, but Black Ice recaptures their power through
a bit of self-plagiarism, often slightly scrambling famous
gestures from the past. It’s a romp through the id locked
in the band’s typical paradoxical tangle of pugilism and sex.
This is the best AC/DC album in a long time—and undignified
as hell, thank you. My pick here is “Stormy May Day,” where
something borrowed is tagged to something new in the form
of a burning slide-guitar skirmish.
 With
songs from his back canon such as “I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper)”
and “I’m So High,” T-Pain is also the architect of
a distinct style, though you shouldn’t expect anything terribly
enduring from Thr33 Ringz. This is the usual R&B/hip-hop
traffic jam of guest appearances, with Lil Wayne, Ludacris,
Kanye West, Rick Ross, Akon and many others showing up. As
a singer, T-Pain relies to the point of distraction on that
auto-tune electronic voice-filter that Cher made famous in
1998, and this album moves from uninspired (“Can’t Believe
It,” on which Lil Wayne is forced to rap through that voice
device) to pretty bad (“Change,” featuring Diddy, Mary J.
Blige and Akon, sounds like a boy-band demo). How this manages
to be crude and sappy at the same time is the true accomplishment,
and the only excitement here comes from the Ludacris spot
“Chopped N Skrewed,” with its experimental, loosely staggering
beats. This whole “guesting” phenomenon has spiraled way out
of control in the R&B/hip-hop universe. In fact, it’s
an affront these days not to have every single acquaintance
in the studio.
On the other side of the coin, there’s the fiercely individualistic
path of Morrissey, who holds the key to a Smiths reunion
but won’t allow it to happen at any price. His ex-cohort,
guitarist Johnny Marr, has long endured a series of ill fits
for his talents in the meantime (except his noble, low-profile
work with Modest Mouse). But the two did come together to
choose songs for the new Smiths compilation, The Sound
of the Smiths. This has been preceded by many other compilations
(based on just four studio albums), but for a new generation,
the disc is a perfect collection. Longtime fans should buy
the two-disc deluxe version, which is padded out with 20-plus
rarities and live cuts. Most poignant for me this time around
is the instrumental “Oscillate Wildly,” with its dark, dancehall
piano, low cello throb, and all of those glistening Marr guitar
strings.
 In
a Brit-pop equation of diminishing returns you would have
the Smiths, then James, then Travis. The latter, Scottish
group never really built upon the promise of their late-’90s
hit “Why Does It Always Rain on Me?” But they’ve stuck around
in a quiet way while colleagues like Coldplay took on the
world. Ode to J. Smith finds the typically mellow,
poppy band reveling in deeper guitar bite. “J. Smith” is the
best example, marrying a rock-opera-like character sketch
to some ripping guitar and wild changes. But while the dynamics
generate great excitement, the songwriting doesn’t hold up.
The titular track is noteworthy; the rest, not so much.
Back in America, rockers Hinder have released Take
It to the Limit. This growly, I-feel-it-so-much, “Today’s
Rock” radio stuff is always lost on me. On 2006’s “Lips of
an Angel,” the herniated vocal intensity of Austin Winkler
made Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger sound simply uncommitted. I’ll
ignore the Eagles platitude of the album title and try to
describe the music: Imagine that a B-Level Hollywood movie
calls for a party where a there’s a hair-metal band playing.
Now imagine that some B-Level songwriters are brought in to
quickly pen some “hair- metallish” tracks for said faux band.
Voila.
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