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Steven Page (with the Art of Time Ensemble)’s “A Singer Must Die” – The Weekend Review

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By Chris Moore:

RATING:  3.5 / 5  stars

According to Wikipedia, A Singer Must Die falls under the “orchestrated pop” genre.  If that is accurate, then this is my first orchestrated pop purchase.

And it’s a good one.

Along with the Art of Time Ensemble, Steven Page arranged and performed ten covers — if you include the Barenaked Ladies’ “Running Out of Ink” — that run the emotional gamut and mark a departure from the instrumental sound we’ve come to associate with Steven Page, both as a member of BnL and as the main force behind the Vanity Project.  Here and there throughout his recorded career, there have been strings or horns, but this is the first major release on which he is backed almost entirely by the orchestration of an ensemble.

And yet, the overall tones, themes, and vocal textures are still very much the Steven Page we’ve come to know, particularly in the music he has written and performed this decade.  Page always seemed to be the more serious one in his often comedic BnL partnership with Ed Robertson — the “It’s All Been Done” to Robertson’s “One Week,” if you will.  Throughout this decade, though, Page’s preferences have swung even more to the extreme, considering the beautiful, heartbreaking ballads of Maroon (2000), the topical tracks like “Celebrity” and “War on Drugs” on Everything to Everyone (2003), and the sober “Bad Day” on the otherwise upbeat Snacktime! (2008).

In a sense, the conception of this project could be traced as far back as the 2007 Barenaked Ladies Are Men track “Running Out of Ink,” on which Page voiced the narrator’s social and personal downward spiral made all the more distressing by a loss of creative energy, the bag of of all he’s ever written being tossed off a bridge, bleeding ink, and sinking out of sight by the close of the song.

Now that Page has struck out on his own, the pressures described in that song must be an even more real force for him.  As a solo artist, he will either sink or swim as a result of his efforts alone, and that must be a frightening, if thrilling, experience after two decades in a five-piece band.

A Singer Must Die carries all the maturity and experience you would expect from an artist who has spent more time in the headlines than on record the past few years. The drug-related arrest.  The breakup.

Enough.

At last, Page is back on the top of his game, having released a record that relaxes and frets, breathes and pants for breath, escapes and runs head on into pain and sorrow — an excellent record.

Steven Page (with the Art of Time Ensemble)'s "A Singer Must Die" (2010)

Steven Page's "A Singer Must Die" (2010)

The piano and string-heavy “Lion’s Teeth” kicks off the album on a suspenseful note, tension building with every second that passes.  Page builds up to a near-scream as he sings, “And my arms get sore, and my palms start to sweat; and the tears roll down my face ’til my cheeks are hot and red and soaking wet…”

He goes on to sing, “There’s no good way to end this — anyone can see there’s just great big you and little old me.”

What a way to kick off his first individual effort following the break with BnL!

The greatest strength of A Singer Must Die is the arrangement of tracks.  The opener is followed by the initially calm and beautiful opening verses of Elvis Costello’s “I Want You.”  Fiona Apple set the bar high for cover versions of this track, and Page was up to the task, even if the middle to end of the song suffers from some self-indulgent orchestration.

Next comes a track that surprised me — I never knew I could enjoy a Rufus Wainright song.  Sounding like it came from an early twentieth century crooner’s repertoire, “Foolish Love” further advances the feeling expressed on “I Want You,” if from a different angle.

Thanks to the Art of Time Ensemble, “Running Out of Ink” is even more manic and frantic here than the original Barenaked Ladies version was, and this is saying something.  For me, this is the thematic centerpiece of the album, a song originally co-written by Page himself.  Throughout rock music history, the greatest songwriters have turned to covers when they were themselves “running out of ink.”

Thankfully, Page is not, as he has set the release date for his first solo album proper for later this year.

“A Singer Must Die” and “Taxi Ride” are excellent companion pieces, the former expressing the dangers of self-expression with fitting sarcasm and the latter expressing a bittersweet departure that includes near-hallucinations and the sad, pleading, distressed vocals that few can pull off so convincingly and expressively as Page can.

If “Taxi Ride” is the low point, emotionally speaking, of this record, then “Tonight We Fly” is just the pick-me-up that it needs.  This is a case of perfect lyrics, perfect performance, and perfect timing.

“Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure” is easily the most heartrending track on A Singer Must Die, and is an exemplary case of Page’s ability to translate a fairly straightforward indie rock track by the Weakerthans into an emotive, beautiful masterpiece.  If there is one track that makes me think of the sad (if not so shocking) news of Page’s departure from BnL last year, this is it.

“For We Are the King of the Buidoir” is, unsurprisingly, a wonderfully quirky song originally written and performed by the Magnetic Fields.  Again, timing is everything as Page’s spot-on rendition of this little gem is right where it needed to be, as a transition between the solemnity of “Virtute” and the frenzied madness of “Paranoid Android,” in and of itself a perfectly placed cover of the Radiohead classic.  After all, what better way to conclude a post-breakup solo album than with lines like “ambition makes you look pretty ugly, kicking and squealing” and “when I am king, you will be first against the wall with your opinion which is of no consequence at all”?

I will be the first in line for Steven Page’s first solo album of original material when it arrives later this year, but for now, A Singer Must Die has served to at least whet my appetite for new material from a man who is arguably one of the most talented singer/songwriters of the past two decades, alongside others like Ben Folds, Elliott Smith, Jakob Dylan, Eddie Vedder, and Jeff Tweedy who have shaped the sound of modern rock music.

If A Singer Must Die is a necessary transition effort before an entirely original release, then it is a promising one.  The choices here are excellent — both obscure and ambitious — and the performances are first rate.

In the end, though, a singer’s death may be compelling, but his imminent rebirth is all the more exciting…

Arcade Fire’s “The Suburbs” (2010) – The Weekend Review

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By Chris Moore:

RATING:  4 / 5 stars

In the barren land of the contemporary concept album, the band that tries is king.

The Suburbs is the year’s only true concept album, as demonstrated by the thematic threads woven through songs, the reprises and continuations of songs across the disc, and the packaging.  And, although it never quite attains the cohesion and creativity of Relient K’s 2009 offering Forget and Not Slow Down, the expansiveness of 2008’s Coldplay record Viva La Vida (or Death and All His Friends), or the dramatic force of 2008’s other great concept album, the Counting Crows’ Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings, it certainly carries the torch into the coming decade as 2010’s concept album du jour.

Arcade Fire have long held indie credibility and respect, clarifying via Funeral (2004) and Neon Bible (2007) that they value record-making over single production.  Each of their first two albums made the cut on numerous “Best of” lists, not only for the year they were released but also for the decade.

So the fact that The Suburbs is an even more complex and keenly rendered effort is saying something.

This album has a sound all its own, one that is clearly Arcade Fire but also fresh and unique to this record.  For instance, as strong a composition as “(Antichrist Television Blues)” is, it would sound incomplete, empty even, were it to be placed on The Suburbs, an album characterized by a fullness of sound heretofore unachieved by the band.

What is perhaps most detrimental to the overall quality is the length of individual songs, most of which brush past the four minute mark.  Arcade Fire has never shied away from breaking the three minute ceiling, and yet there is such a homogeneity of sound throughout that the duration of individual tracks causes the listening experience to blend together.

One might argue that this is a strength, that this provides cohesion that elevates the effort as a whole, yet it is difficult to argue this when many of the strongest individual songs — tracks like “Wasted Hours” and “Month of May” — have significant thematic value while aurally distinguishing themselves and remaining in the three minute range.

Perhaps this homogeneity is an intentional compositional decision on Arcade Fire’s part, meant to help convey sonically the boredom, fear, and regularity of suburban life that The Suburbs exposes and explores lyrically.

I can certainly respect this as a creative decision, though it doesn’t change the fact that, for as good a record as this is, I simply haven’t revisited it as often as other discs from 2010.

The Suburbs cover (Arcade Fire, 2010)

The Suburbs cover (Arcade Fire, 2010)

As the cover’s vibrant but sun-spotted, seventies-esque image of a residential home with car parked out front suggests, The Suburbs comes across quite convincingly as a historical document of the rapid post-World War II expansion of suburban areas, often referred to as sprawl.  The hauntingly emotive “Sprawl I (Flatland)” aptly captures the claustrophobic nature of the neighborhood.  As Win Butler sings, “The cops shone their lights on the reflectors of our bikes / and said, ‘Do you know what time it is?’ / — Well sir, it’s the first time I’ve felt like something is mine, like I have something to give.”  Anyone who grew up in the suburbs will remember this urgency of exploration, of attempting to find a place in the larger world you felt existed but could never quite access.

Butler continues, “The last defender of the sprawl said, ‘Well where do you kids live?’ Well sir, if you only knew what the answer is worth I’ve been searching every corner of the earth.”  This motif of authority, of the norm-protectors and upholders of the public safety blurring the line between security and apathy, is touched on across the record.  As in suburban life, the authority blends into the background but is always there, threatening to impinge on the processes of youthful discovery.

On “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” Butler’s wife and bandmate Regine Chassagne takes on the role of an eighties performer, voicing over a bed of synthesized sound that, “They heard me singing and they told me to stop, quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock.”  Here, she sings more directly of a fear of purposelessness, of the constrictive nature of the city lights.

As she goes on to sing, “Living in the sprawl the dead shopping malls rise like / mountains beyond mountains and there’s no end in sight. / I need the darkness.  Someone, please cut the lights!”

These two tracks provide a fitting wrap-up before giving way to “The Suburbs (continued),” a minute long reprise of the title track, which nicely fades back into the opening (and title) track.  The waning whisper of “The Suburbs (continued)” aptly makes one thrill at the returning vitality of “The Suburbs,” luring the listener back into this locale, “waiting in line for a number,” not understanding, like a “Modern Man,” getting “Ready to Start,” admiring the “Rococo” arrangement of images and sounds across The Suburbs, traversing the loneliness of the “Empty Room,” the feeling of living underground in a “City With No Children” in “a garden left for ruin by a millionaire inside of a private prison,” adding up both half lights to find “(No Celebration)” but a prayer “to god I won’t live to see the death of everything that’s wild” instead, witnessing a “Suburban War” where “the music divides us into tribes” and “all my old friends, they don’t know me now / all my old friends are staring through me now,” reliving the passion and violence of the “Month of May,” reminiscing about “Wasted Hours” that passed “before we knew where to go and what to do,” remembering how “I used to write letters” and “We Used to Wait” for a letter to return though “sometimes it never came,” and ultimately ending up back in the “Sprawl” — the “Flatlands,” the “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” all amounting to a concept of “The Suburbs,” taker of all the time that “I’d only waste… again.”

For keenly recreating the texture and the mood of the suburban life and all its benefits, shortcomings, and ramifications, Arcade Fire deserves praise for The Suburbs.  In a sense, they have created an aural landscape that is difficult to revisit for too long or too often, which suggests an interesting question as to the divide between music as entertainment and music as art.

Regardless, they have also created an outstanding concept album.

The TOP TWENTY-FIVE SONGS of 2010

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The TOP TWENTY-FIVE SONGS of 2010

At last, we arrive at what is, for me, the most difficult and perhaps the most controversial list of the year: the best songs.  Without fear of exaggeration, I can honestly tell you that I’ve revised this list a minimum of eight times since I first wrote it.  After all that effort, I’m no closer to feeling like I’ve assembled the perfect list.

Thankfully, that is not — and should never be — the point.

I recently read an anti-top ten list article posted by musician/writer John Roderick, and retweeted by Steven Page.  His essential arguments made sense to me on an intellectual level.  After all, music can’t be quantified.  And it is in our contemporary nature as a society to want all things quantified and commodified.  This is, at best, a misguided — and, at worst, corrupt — frame of mind.  If we are to believe that numbers may be accurately assigned as signifiers for people, even for songs, then something deeper, more intuitive has been lost.  This is not the Age of Reason; we do not function solely on the basis of our minds and logical thought, nor should we desire to.

This being said, I wouldn’t want to live in a world without the top ten list!

The top ten (or twenty, or fifty, or whatever) list is not supposed to be a perfect, accurate interpretation of the worth of the year’s songs.  If that were even possible, that would be boring.

The point of the top ten list is, as writer, to wade waist-deep into the year’s music — that which you love, that which you hated, that which you’d forgotten about, that which you’ve been convinced to give a second chance — and to try to make some sense out of the glorious sonic confusion.   As a reader of the list, the point is to feel your soul confirmed in some choices and to rage on fanatically against the injustices of inferior albums being raised to undeserved heights.

This is the urgent, enjoyable culmination of twelve months of experiencing new music.  While others were mindlessly soaking in sounds through the radio’s narrow blinders, you were out there on the front lines, listening to full albums, making yourself vulnerable to disappointment in the face of new releases by artists you love, and endeavoring to hear bands and artists you never imagined yourself even listening to — never mind liking(!) — in the past.

This is the process we go through, and the top ten list celebrates that process.  I may develop a more effective rating system — a good friend suggested developing a five-prong rating system for next year — but, for this year, I developed my list keeping in mind: how often I listened to the song, how strong the songwriting is (lyrically, composition, etc.), instrumental performance, vocal delivery, innovation, and overall effect.  I could write a 500 word post on why “You Run Away” is my number one song, so I’ll limit my comments to what I’ve already written above.

Go ahead: sift through my flawed list.  Love it, hate it, but for goodness’ sake, don’t agree with it entirely.  And if you must, feel free to comment below.

1)  “You Run Away” – Barenaked Ladies

2)  “Uncharted” – Sara Bareilles

3)  “You Wouldn’t Have to Ask” – Bad Books

4)  “Tighten Up” – The Black Keys

5)  “Four Seconds” – Barenaked Ladies

6)  “Written in Reverse” – Spoon

7)  “The Difference Between Us” – The Dead Weather

8 )  “Hurricane J” – The Hold Steady

9)  “Still Your Song” – Goo Goo Dolls

10)  “Claire’s Ninth” – Ben Folds

11)  “21st Century” – Locksley

12)  “Wasted Hours” – Arcade Fire

13)  “Fire with Fire” – Scissor Sisters

14)  “Little Lion Man” – Mumford & Sons

15)  “Fistful of Mercy” – Fistful of Mercy

16)  “Basket Case” – Sara Bareilles

17)  “Taos” – Menomena

18)  “Gasoline” – The Dead Weather

19)  “Summertime” – Barenaked Ladies

20)  “First Kiss on Mars” – STP

21)  “Champaign, Illinois” – Old 97’s

22)  “Half Crazy” – Jukebox the Ghost

23)  “As I Am” – Goo Goo Dolls

24)  “Thieves” – She & Him

25)  “Out Go the Lights” – Spoon

Honorable Mentions:

“Dark Fantasy” – Kanye West

“I Can Change” – LCD Soundsystem

The Weekend Review: February 2011 Report

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By Chris Moore:

Don’t be shy; step right up for this, the second Weekend Review of the new year.  It’s long in coming, so each weekend until we catch up, I’ll be bringing you these month-at-a-glance reports.  I’m very happy with the focus and concision of the new format, as you’ll see below.  However, it appears to be less than iPhone-ready, so I’m working on ways to fix that.  After all, there’s nothing worse than visiting a site on your iPhone and coming to the realization that you won’t be able to read it properly.  Well, I suppose there are probably a few things worse than that, but what I mean is that there’s just no excuse in the 21st century for websites NOT to work smoothly on mobile devices, so please know I’m working on that.

I hope you enjoy reading, and hurry back this week (and, of course, next weekend) for all-new music-related content on the Laptop Sessions cover song music video blog!

 

The People’s Key
Bright Eyes 

Producer:
Bright Eyes &
Mike Mogis

Released:
February 1, 2011

Rating:
2/5 stars

Top Two Tracks:
“Triple Spiral” & “Jejune Stars”

 This being my first Bright Eyes album experience, I must say it’s a mixed bag: lyrically excellent, yet musically ranging from masterfully beautiful to far too weird to be listenable.  I didn’t expect the sort of alternative country sound I’d heard from Conor Oberst’s Mystic Valley Band when they opened for Wilco a couple summers ago.  However, I certainly didn’t expect the sort of spoken word nonsense that stretches for MINUTES across the beginning of the first track (which is a shame, as “Firewall” is actually quite a strong song otherwise) and resurface elsewhere. 

On paper, it is understandable why Oberst added Denny Brewer’s “shamanic vocals,” as the liner notes refer to them.  After all, they add a certain inimitable spiritual, existential ambience to the record.  They also grow old quite quickly and distract from the excellent music being laid out and the even more profoundly impressive lyrics being voiced throughout, especially on standouts like the driving  rock track “Triple Spiral” and the early gem “Jejune Stars.”  The latter track lyrically raises issues (and the bar) that will stretch throughout the remainder of The People’s Key, as Oberst sings, “Come fire, come water, come karma, we’re all in transition / The Wheel of Becoming erases the physical mind / Till all that remains is a staircase of misinformation / And the code we inherit, the basis, the essence of life … / It’s just so bizarre, is it true what we’re made of? / Why do I hide from the rain?”  He is referring, of course, to the fact that our bodies are made up – by an overwhelming percentage – of water, yet we carry umbrellas and seek shelter from the rain.

Elsewhere, though, the songs drag a bit, as on “Approximate Sunlight” and “Ladder Song.”  All in all, this could have been an outstanding album rather than one I pay a complisult (see: Community; combination compliment & insult) by writing something like:

The People’s Key falters and falls short at various points, yet there are a series of truly first-rate tracks, like the closer “One for You, One for Me,” which make the album worth the purchase, if you’re willing to skip a few tracks and fast-forward through several others.

 

Yuck
Yuck 

Producer:
Yuck

Released:
February 15, 2011

Rating:
3.5/5 stars

Top Two Tracks:
“Shook Down” & “Suicide Policeman”

 Yuck is one of the pleasant musical surprises of 2011.  The band’s debut album is a distorted, grungy, feedback-ridden gem that sparkles as often as it crackles. 

What is most impressive about Yuck is their sense of ebb and flow, clearly evident through the arrangement of tracks here.  The smoother sound and brighter vocals of “Shook Down” slip in after two tracks where the garage rock mentality ruled and where even the vocals were run through with distortion.  Then, by the end, that pedal-processed guitar sound sneaks back in just in time to make the transition to the dirty-sounding “Holing Out.”

This is the sort of well-planned craftsmanship that helps to hide the fact that this is a first album.  If nothing else, Yuck is one of the noisiest, most energetic rock albums of the year.  It isn’t perfect – the noise overtakes the tracks here and there and the quality fades noticeably by the end – and, in fact, the final two tracks are wholly unnecessary and should have been cut entirely, shipped off to bonus track land.  (Which reminds me, if you buy this album – which you should, I highly recommend it – don’t waste your time with the bonus track editions.)

In modern music criticism, I feel as though something has been lost, namely a sense of appreciation for the rock essentials: riffs, solos, catchy choruses, snappy lyricism.  Yuck has all these components.  Although I was initially put off by the level of grunge that absolutely pervades several tracks, I’ve come around to the careful sonic mastery displayed by the band more and more with each listen.

The final verdict?  Not perfect by any means, but one of the most exciting releases of 2011.

 

The King of Limbs
Radiohead 

Producer:
Nigel Godrich

Released:
February 18, 2011

Rating:
4/5 stars

Top Two Tracks:
“Codex” & “Little by Little”

 Even longtime Radiohead devotees appeared thrown by this release.  The sessions for the record were announced… a whole week before its release, and the band decided to release the album a day early because… well, why not?  With all the moves that make them an interesting band for reasons outside the music, Radiohead ushered The King of Limbs into their long tradition of norm-breaking practices. 

The music itself is strikingly sparse at times, but this does not – and is surely not meant to – conceal just how much attention has been paid to subtlety.  The percussion is particularly notable this time around as clicks and clacks and clangs and taps abound.  Additionally, there is a riff-driven feel at times, though not in any traditional sense.  In many ways, this is another of those albums from Radiohead that are clearly produced using fairly standard instruments, yet where just how to reproduce these sounds and songs would prove elusive.

Truth be told, I am not a fan of Radiohead: I fall firmly into the category of liking OK Computer and thinking much of their other work is seriously overrated.  That being said, In Rainbows (2007) changed my mind a bit – and even made my top albums of the decade list.  The King of Limbs continues my reappraisal of the band, particularly when the breathtaking, heartbreaking beauty of a song like “Codex” and the oddly catchy nature of tracks like “Morning Mr. Magpie” and “Little by Little” are undeniable.  The acoustic loop on “Give Up the Ghost” and even the nearly-instrumental “Feral” add texture and unpredictability to the mix, as the lack of a clear single or rock sensibility threaten to flatten the record.

All told, the eight tracks of The King of Limbs offer the perfect length for an album of subtleties and stripped-down, built-back-up beauty like this; any shorter, it couldn’t be called an album, and, any longer, it would lose its momentum and appeal.

And so, for the first time in my life, I offer up to you a review of Radiohead that includes my seal of approval.  It’s not the most rocking record, but that’s not the point.  It is, however, a starkly beautiful album of subtle complexities and unique qualities, quirky enough to be interesting but not so much as to be alienating.