Often, when a band jumps between genres, it betrays a lack of self-awareness—a sign that they have no idea what their voice sounds like.
But on As Tall As Lion’s swan song, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Alternative
Record #440: Ben Folds Five – Whatever and Ever Amen (1997)
I grew up in a blended family—between my siblings and step-siblings, there were five teens and tweens that our parents had to wrangle together.
Finding something that seven people all agree on is a trial of Herculean proportions. To that end, Whatever and Ever Amen was a godsend in my family.
Record #425: Brand New – Science Fiction (2017)
Last week, my friend Dan texted me. “Jesse Lacey, man.”
I didn’t need to try very hard to figure out what had happened. The fallout from the #metoo movement has gone Scorched Earth on the entertainment world. It was easy to put two and two together.
The next day, I got an email: my vinyl preorder of Brand New’s newest album had finally shipped. I had been eagerly awaiting it, but now, it sort of tied my stomach in knots.
But at the same time, I still really wanted to listen to it. I enjoyed it enough to buy it, after all.
I didn’t need to try very hard to figure out what had happened. The fallout from the #metoo movement has gone Scorched Earth on the entertainment world. It was easy to put two and two together.
The next day, I got an email: my vinyl preorder of Brand New’s newest album had finally shipped. I had been eagerly awaiting it, but now, it sort of tied my stomach in knots.
But at the same time, I still really wanted to listen to it. I enjoyed it enough to buy it, after all.
Record #359: David Bowie – Blackstar (2016)
Death has a funny way or altering an artist’s work. Often when a musician dies close to the release of an album, listeners pore over the lyric sheets as if with a magnifying glass, instilling even the most circumstantial phrases with a sense of gravitas the artist didn’t intend. Joy Division’s Closer will forever be heard through the filter of Ian Curtis’ suicide. Johnny Cash’s American V: Hundred Highways will forever feel like a sage elder handing down his last piece of wisdom.
In the same way, it is impossible to separate Blackstar from Bowie’s death.
In the same way, it is impossible to separate Blackstar from Bowie’s death.
In this case, however, that’s by design. David Bowie knew he was dying. He knew this would be his last album. And it is just as mercurial and forward thinking an album as the man was himself. Nearly fifty years after releasing his debut, it would have been perfectly acceptable to release a sort of retrospective sounding disk, echoing any of his past versions: Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, The Man Who Fell to Earth, or even the blue-suited dancefloor master that dominated the 80s. But Bowie has always been one to sidestep expectations, and releasing a genre-stretching magnum opus two days before his death is the perfect Bowie move.
The sounds on here run the gamut from dark jazz with ominous saxophones and skittering drums to to frenetic rock and roll, coated with the occasional Broadway dramaticism. Girl Loves Me pairs industrial bass thuds with one of the strangest melodies Bowie has ever sung (and the most surreal lyrics–“where the fuck did Monday go?”). I Can’t Give Everything Away waxes melodramatic over an electronic pop beat. There are shades of Berlin’s fierce adventurism and Ziggy’s theatricality, but this is largely new territory for Bowie. And if anyone can use their impending death to usher in a new period of their work, it’s David Bowie.
The sounds on here run the gamut from dark jazz with ominous saxophones and skittering drums to to frenetic rock and roll, coated with the occasional Broadway dramaticism. Girl Loves Me pairs industrial bass thuds with one of the strangest melodies Bowie has ever sung (and the most surreal lyrics–“where the fuck did Monday go?”). I Can’t Give Everything Away waxes melodramatic over an electronic pop beat. There are shades of Berlin’s fierce adventurism and Ziggy’s theatricality, but this is largely new territory for Bowie. And if anyone can use their impending death to usher in a new period of their work, it’s David Bowie.
Record #349: Jesu – Conqueror (2007)
Jesu’s career is what happens when a member of a celebrated metal band (Godflesh, in this case) embarks on a sensitive singer-songwriter solo career but forgets to change his sonic palette.
That might sound reductive, but it’s why this album works so well. Thousands of musicians have sung these sorts of songs on their acoustic guitars (see: Bon Iver, Iron & Wine, Bright Eyes, James Taylor, Phosphorsecent, Fleet Foxes…that’s without even trying).
But few had the inspired idea of pairing those gentle melodies with huge walls of crunching metal guitars, glistening synths, and crashing drums. Justin Broadrick’s is a gentle voice in the eye of a hurricane, creating one of the most spellbinding records to ever come out of the metal camp.
But few had the inspired idea of pairing those gentle melodies with huge walls of crunching metal guitars, glistening synths, and crashing drums. Justin Broadrick’s is a gentle voice in the eye of a hurricane, creating one of the most spellbinding records to ever come out of the metal camp.
Record #278: Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy (1985)
The Jesus and Mary Chain were not the first band to turn their guitars into an onslaught of feedback and sing surprisingly sweet pop songs without affect (see also: The Velvet Underground, The Ramones, Sonic Youth).
But something about JMC’s debut pricked a hole in the swelling bubble of likeminded artists that became the shoegaze scene. Continue reading
Record #253: Beck – Morning Phase (2014)
To say that Beck is one of the most celebrated artists of the last twenty years is a bit of a misnomer. Beck is in fact three or four separate artists fighting for power. You have the hip hop ironist (Mellow Gold, Odelay, The Information), the rock & roll archivist and experimentalist (the Record Club, the Song Book), pop classicist (Guero, Midnight Vultures), and space-bound, heart-rending singer-songwriter (Sea Change). Of all of Beck’s faces, his earnest face has always been my favorite. Sea Change is one of my favorite records of all time, its tender ballads paired with Nigel Godrich’s ambient production. And as much as I love The Information, and Guero and the like, I’ve long wished for a return to Sea Change’s earnestness. This year, Mr. Hansen delivered.
Record #237: Jeff Buckley – Grace (1994)
I’ve sat staring at the blinking cursor for about twelve minutes trying to decide how to start this post off. Because what can you say about Grace?
Record #166: The Flaming Lips – Embryonic (2009)
As I mentioned earlier, Embryonic was the first Lips record I ever heard. Admittedly, it’s hardly the most conventional place to start with their expansive discography–far removed from Yoshimi’s space folk and The Soft Bulletin’s wide eyed optimism, and even further from the trippy drug punk from the earliest days.
Record #164: The Flaming Lips – The Soft Bulletin (1999)
Too often, The Soft Bulletin’s significance is attributed to the creative leap forward it was for the Flaming Lips. It marked the moment the acid-dropping punks decided to get serious and make some seriously beautiful pop music.
And while that’s true, it discounts the strength the album holds on its own…
Personally, the first Lips record I ever heard was 2009’s Embryonic, which played more like the psychedelic soundtrack to a 1950’s sci-fi horror movie than anything the Flaming Lips would have turned out.
And that, along with “Do You Realize,” “She Don’t Use Jelly,” and the Postal Service’s cover of “Suddenly Everything has Changed” were my context for hearing this record.
And I instantly loved it.
The urgent, overdriven drums, the synth strings, the sprinkling harp, the extended instrumental passages, and Wayne Coyne’s shaking, wild-eyed voice that ties everything together. It’s an album of unveiled optimism, young love, friendship, and occasionally drugs (this is the Flaming Lips, isn’t it?) that begs the listener to live and be alive, even in the face of hopelessness.
And fourteen years later, there hasn’t been much to rival moments like the opening strains of “The Race for the Prize” or the instrumental groove in “The Spark that Bled” or the closing crescendo of “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate.” It’s an absolute classic, regardless of its context in the Flaming Lips’ or anyone else’s discography.