|
 The
Major Lift
By
Erik Hage
Green Day insist on calling their new album a “punk rock
opera.” So where there was once the Small Faces’ Ogden’s
Nut Gone Flake, the Pretty Things’ S.F. Sorrow,
and the Who’s Tommy and Quadrophenia is now
21st Century Breakdown. Listening to the album, I can
feel the occasional theatrical shift—such as in the title
track, for example—but Green Day don’t really have a “rock
opera,” punk or otherwise, in them. The Who, for all of their
relative primitivism, had a broad palette of sound, and a
songwriter in Pete Townshend whose emotional and poetical
range of expression is far beyond what Billie Joe Armstrong
and his brethren can muster. (Such is the Who’s influence
of late that Green Day have recorded the band’s mini proto-opera
“A Quick One, While He’s Away” as a bonus track.)
My point is that it’s probably not a good idea to draw attention
to the album in that context, especially because of the ambitiously
adolescent lyrics (“My generation is zero/I never made it
as a working-class hero/21st century breakdown/I was once
lost but never was found/I think I am losing what’s left of
my mind/To the 20th- century deadline”). Armstrong’s staccato
delivery has always been such that you only catch phrases
here and there, which works with the band’s brawling pop attack
to make powerfully packaged little statements.
But that shortfall of ambition aside, this is another set
of strong songs from Green Day. The Paul McCartney gestures
of the ballad “Last Night on Earth,” or the Rent-like
opening of “Viva La Gloria” make me wince, but when the band
unleash their grand, machine-like pummel, things work well
because, as is their trademark, they tether that to an unerring
sense for pop hooks. (“Before the Lobotomy” also comes off
a bit peculiar, as if Armstrong should be singing it on the
edge of the stage, in a spotlight, with hands over his heart
and Playbills in the audience’s collective lap.) But
producer Butch Vig proves to be a worthy collaborator when
bringing out the same old shit at which Green Day have always
succeeded, as in the drilling fuzz-blast of “Know Your Enemy”
and “Christian’s In ferno.” (By contrast, if you hear a piano
intro, run: “Restless Heart Syndrome” is an embarrassment
in its opening stages.) The good news, though, is that Green
Day aren’t writing for the people who have been following
them all along, but for the latest crop of teens susceptible
to their perennially appealing pseudo-punk. Why else would
a 37-year-old singer name-check the “Class of ’13” in the
title track?
 The
New York Dolls released their first album in 1973,
when Billie Joe Armstrong was a year old. Produced by Todd
Rundgren, it took the vision of the Rolling Stones and dragged
it through the gutter at 50 miles an hour, knocking over every
trash can in the way. It’s good-time rock & roll that
anticipates punk (and some hair metal), so consider the band
more of a bridge than true proto-punkers. (And throw away
your rock histories when it comes to New York punk—Television
were postpunk before punk even fully broke. Historical linearity
is a distortion.)
But the Dolls are back, Todd Rundgren at the producer helm
again, with ’Cause I Sez So. Or are they? The Dolls,
championed by Morrissey, have been in the midst of a several-year
comeback, but currently—via death’s unmistakable attrition—they’re
down to just singer David Johansen and guitarist Sylvain Sylvain.
(Check out the remarkable 2005 documentary New York Doll,
about late bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane, if you haven’t.)
What’s most surprising about this album is that there seem
to be no preconceptions about what the Dolls should or should
not sound like. The title track, as well as “Muddy Bones,”
and “Exorcism of Despair,” roar like the days of old. But
elsewhere something like refinement creeps in, such as in
the bouncing pop of “Lonely So Long” or the noir-ish spaghetti
western “Temptation to Exist.”
Along the way, the current lineup apparently decided to put
together the strongest set of songs they could muster, without
an expectation to sound like the Dolls are supposed
to. Jo hansen has a hand in every track, sometimes co-writing
with Sylvain, sometimes with the newer members. But it all
works, and works well. (This lineup’s first album, in 2006,
sought to capitalize too much on the expectations of old;
this one gets it right.) My only complaint is that they took
their greatest recording ever, 1973’s glorious “Trash,” and
retooled it as a reggae track. Bad idea.
 The
Eternal, Sonic Youth’s first album for Matador
Records—and their first with ex-Pavement bassist Mark Ibold—does
echo the past, but in a good way. It seems less indulgent
than recent work, and calls to mind the tauter statements
from Goo (1990) or Dirty (1992). My only
full-on exception is to the lengthy “Anti-Orgasm,” which sprawls
out in oddball parody (perhaps intentionally). Despite what
anyone says, however, I have always found Sonic Youth to be
a band of extraordinary moments that are often very far apart.
(I think the haze of “cool” that surrounds them sometimes
forms a protective layer over their frequent misfires.) But
there are many “mo ments” here to glory in: the mounting groove
of “Antenna,” occasionally undercut by shimmering and shaky
ephemera; the hallmark unhinged barreling of “Sacred Trickster”;
the pointed guitar-skronk of “Calming the Snake”; and the
truly worthwhile 10 minutes of “Massage the History,” which,
working in somewhat acoustic tones (and gentle noise), finds
a lavish subtlety not always easy to come by for the band.
There’s undoubtedly enough here to make a strong recommendation
for fans of the past or even someone wanting to jump in for
the first time and discover what the Youth have to offer.
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