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The
Major Lift
By
Erik Hage
As
the mainstream record companies’ grip on music gatekeeping
steadily loosens due to the egalitarian influence of the Internet
and social media—as well as, well, taste—what’s most evident
is that they have less of an idea than ever as to what will
succeed. (Susan Boyle, up the charts with a bullet—yeah, like
anyone predicted that.)
So it’s interesting to watch them formlessly ranging around,
searching out new commercial avenues. Looking at the Island/Def
Jam roster, for example, I’m befuddled: There are the big
names of course (Bon Jovi, Kanye, Mariah, Rihanna, etc.),
and then there are a slew of acts that I’ve simply never heard
of—acts that, by all appearances, see Maroon 5 and Train as
legitimate influences. Most galling to me, however, is the
Bravery, an act most of us have heard of and who continue
to inflict the most shallow, derivative, and largely stupid
brand of dance-rock upon both suspecting and unsuspecting
listeners, a point that Stir the Blood certainly drives
home.
Bands such as these—that is, those who are mistaken in some
quarters as credible due to the degree of downtown, boho posturing
and “alt” sheen—are far more offensive to me than a room full
of Jonas Brothers. Three albums in, the Bravery sound somewhat
like the Killers—if that band were forced to share one brain.
They produce a soulless, uninspired and inanely repetitive
brand of music (whereas the Killers aren’t bad). “Slow Poison,”
with its mindless dance drive, is not only one of the silliest
singles in recent memory, but Sam Endicott’s vocal performance
is one of the truly worst since the Red Hot Chili Peppers’
Anthony Kiedis warbled about being “Under the Bridge” or Sugar
Ray’s Mark McGrath last stepped away from a microphone. Or
take the delightful opus “Hatef—k,” which surfaces again and
again on the refrain “there will be no tenderness.” But Endicott
reserves his most yelpworthy performance for the spacey, synthed-out
“I Have Seen the Future,” yet another unlistenable track.
Def Jam has a better album on their collective hands with
Rihanna’s new one, Rated R. There’s an interesting
range of ideas at work here, from the turbulent electronics
and rap singing of “Hard” (with Jeezy as guest), to “Fire
Bomb,” which is really a pure pop ballad (with nary a touch
of R&B), to the slinky opening incantation of the techno-riddled
“Mad House.” But what makes this album work is the humanity
behind it—and that is often the all-too-important missing
piece on hyper-subsidized and -produced albums of this ilk.
Rihanna has avoided commenting to the press on her relationship
with Chris Brown in the wake of the much-publicized domestic-violence
incident, but at times here she tackles it head on, giving
the album a leg up on the typically insipid themes that crop
up on many R&B albums. “I’m torn apart and you know/What
you did to me was a crime,” sings Rihanna on “Cold Case Love,”
while “Russian Roulette” uses the deadly title game as an
analogy for an abusive relationship. This is by no means a
great album, but it’s certainly a noble stab, and only a slight
miss, in that direction.
As for Lady Gaga, her zany fashion sense and the crass
debate over issues of her genitalia have largely obscured
the fact that she is a fourth-rate Madonna, with the hourglass
on her fame trickling away sand like nobody’s business. And
this is a harsh truth that the new EP, The Fame Monster,
does nothing to alleviate. For some, this is joyous disco
trash; for me, it raises the question as to whether Madonna’s
old stuff (circa 2000) is really worth revisiting period,
let alone in someone else’s idiom.
Timbaland,
the producer who for nearly a decade was a standard bearer
for about as much credibility as one can muster in the greater
hip-hop/R&B universe, also seems to have an expiration
date on him. His newest solo release, Shock Value II,
didn’t attract the kind of talent he can usually pull down
(save a pallid Justin Timberlake being called in for a favor
on the unconvincing “Carry Out”). He’s also apparently trying
to tap into some of that preadolescent cash by having Miley
Cyrus chirp along to the fairly innocuous and uninventive
“We Belong to the Music.” Elsewhere, the Fray pretty much
take over “Undertow,” making it sound like a Fray song and
not a guest spot, while that despicable modern rocker Chris
Daughtry howls all over “Long Way Down” and Nickelback’s Chad
Kroeger, uh . . . Chad Kroegers his way through “Tomorrow
in the Bottle.” This is a surprisingly uninventive album from
a producer to which that term has never applied.
I wish I could end on a lift this month, but I just finished
listening to This Is War, the new album by actor Jared
Leto’s band 30 Seconds to Mars. The iTunes review of
this album is really my favorite bit of purple prose in a
long time: “The star of this post-grunge/industrial/prog-rock
hybrid is Jared Leto, who holds forth with messianic fervor
amidst waves of synthesizers and volleys of guitars. Leto
and his bandmates revel in spiritual extremes—songs like ‘Hurricane,’
‘Kings and Queens’ and the title track depict ceaseless battles
between the forces of light and darkness.” Hoo boy, that’s
good stuff.
But
when I listen to this album, I get something altogether different—I
hear a band crying for help. I hear a band saying, “Please,
don’t hate us. We really don’t know how not to suck.” Top-dollar
producers Steve Lillywhite and Flood only give the band’s
cries more breadth and scope. Here’s looking to February.
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