The Foo Fighters' self-titled debut (1995)
(July 4, 1995)
Review:
Top Two Tracks:
“This is a Call” & “I’ll Stick Around”
This is the third in a five part series dedicated to the top five rock artists of the decade, 2000-2009. The criteria used to determine this list were: (1) Quality of Music, (2) Quantity of Released Material, (3) Diversity of Media, and (4) Roles of Artists/Band Members.
By Chris Moore:
Easily one of the busiest figures in contemporary rock music, Jack White has made it his business to write, record, perform, and produce music every chance he gets. There is something breathtaking about the apparent ease with which he has transcended genre lines and brought the influences back to his own music. It is equally impressive to consider how many directions he has been pulled in during this decade, and yet how strong his contributions have been to each of his numerous ventures.
I, for one, wasn’t sure what to make of this straggly-haired ax-grinder when I first heard of him in the wake of the White Stripes’ breakthrough effort Elephant in 2003. I’ll never forget tuning in (on the advice of a friend) to Late Night with Conan O’Brien during their week-long tenure promoting this aforementioned album. “Seven Nation Army” may have been overplayed for some, but I loved its gritty, riffy simplicity, punctuated by White’s lead vocals and Meg White’s wonderfully boneheaded drumming.
With each new White Stripes album I’ve heard, I’ve realized more and more the degree to which Jack and Meg — particularly Jack — are experts at finding their comfort zones, then burning them down. In the Raconteurs, he contributes a very big, very characteristic guitar sound, somehow crafting a new landscape without plagiarizing his White Stripes sound. And the Dead Weather, his second side project, is something else all together, a sound that White pulls together with his drumming rather than his guitar work.
Taking these three bands into consideration, then throwing in his solo work and other one-off collaborations for good measure, there is simply no way to avoid giving Jack White a respectful — if not awe-filled — nod for his exemplary contemporary rock music created this decade.
BLACK & WHITE & RED ALL OVER
Any music promoter will tell you that it’s not simply the sound of a band that is important, but also their image and general appearance. Jack and Meg White have excelled with this other half of the equation, always dressing in red, white, and black, as well as seeing to it that their album artwork follows suit. Their music may draw comparisons to acts of the past like Led Zeppelin, but this is no retro act. In their continually developing sound, and equally in the way they dress and act, the White Stripes are one of the most interesting bands of the decade.
How to go about describing such a band in a few paragraphs?
I’ll start with words like quirky, bold, frenetic, complex, basic, and that’s just to begin with. Since 2000’s De Stijl, the White Stripes have released four more albums: 2001’s very promising White Blood Cells, their major label debut Elephant in 2001 (a.k.a. their personal catapult into the pop culture lexicon), 2005’s piano-driven masterpiece Get Behind Me Satan, and most recently, a return to distortion drenched guitar in the riff-laden reveries of 2007’s Icky Thump. By the time they released their first live CD, Under Great White Northern Lights (2010), the White Stripes had developed quite a catalog to draw from.
That they are able to achieve their sound with just two band members is intriguing. Granted, Meg White suffered a breakdown that resulted in the cancellation of some tour dates in 2007, but there have been confirmed reports since last year that they are already at work on their seventh album.
A SIDE PROJECT, A SIDE PROJECT FROM THE SIDE PROJECT, AND MORE!
Jack White’s work in the White Stripes is substantial enough to be considered notable, but it is his wide variety of ventures outside the scope of his primary band that cinch his position at the upper part of the contemporary rock music ladder. His five contributions to the Cold Mountain soundtrack in 2003 suggested that he had more to give than could be satisfied in one band alone. He has since gone on to produce and play on a laundry list of other albums, including Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose. More recently, he wrote and recorded an outstanding duet with Alicia Keys for the James Bond film Another Way to Die, the first duet in the Bond series.
With all the writing, performing, and recording White has done since the early nineties, it is interesting to note that his first official “solo” work was released in 2009 — the single “Fly Farm Blues.”
In addition to these one-off efforts, White has joined not one but two side projects. The first, the Raconteurs, formed in 2005 along with power pop rocker Brendan Benson (sharing guitar duty), bassist Jack Lawrence, and drummer Patrick Keeler. After their 2006 debut Broken Boy Soldiers, they followed up quickly with the phenomenal Consolers of the Lonely in 2008. The latter is easily one of the best rock music albums of the decade, and it is an outrage that I passed over it for my Top 50 Albums of the 2000s list. This is the Jack White music that I am perhaps most drawn to: tight, fully-produced, riff-driven songs with an abundance of crunchy guitars, a rockin’ rhythm section, and catchy leads.
As if that weren’t enough to keep him busy, White co-founded the Dead Weather in 2009 with the Kills’ lead singer Alison Mosshart, guitarist Dean Fertita, and Raconteurs bassist Jack Lawrence. This is an altogether different venture that features a grungier tone than the Raconteurs or even the White Stripes. The songs are a bit longer, and could be described as a set of almost-jams. After I heard their interpretations of Bob Dylan’s “New Pony,” a so-so deep track from 1978’s Street Legal, I was hooked.
In summary, this decade has seen Jack White bring the White Stripes to worldwide rock music fame, form not one but two side groups, release his first single as a solo artist, and contribute to a myriad of other artists’ albums and soundtracks. At the time of this writing (early 2010), there is a May 11th release date set for the follow-up Dead Weather album, confirmations from White that the White Stripes will be releasing an album in the near future, and whispers of an all-out solo record from the man himself.
Hands down, Jack White is my pick for the number three rock music artist of the 2000s for all the right reasons: the sheer quantity of music produced, his development of a signature guitar sound, and his collaborations with other artists (Dylan, Beck, and more in addition to those mentioned above). It’s a no-brainer, my friends.
By Chris Moore:
RATING: 4 / 5 stars
Having never heard a Shins album (or even as much as a thirty-second preview clip of a Shins song), I came to Broken Bells with no expectations or preconceived notions of how it should sound. To be fair, that isn’t entirely accurate. Seeing Danger Mouse’s name in the mix made me wonder just how experimental, or just how “far out,” this would be. When my wondering gave way to actual listening, I found something I hadn’t expected.
Simply stated, Broken Bells is a beautiful collage of influences finely knit together with unique modern qualities that set this record distinctly apart from the jurisdiction of terms like “retro” or “derivative.”
Still, never in one album have I found such a wide range of interesting influences. Here and there, a pinch at a time, I have perceived subtle flecks of styles from the Beach Boys to Elliott Smith to Weezer to Phantom Planet and back to the Bee Gees, or perhaps the Scissor Sisters. As was the case with his collaboration with Beck on 2008’s Modern Guilt, Danger Mouse’s more synthetic sounds and beats are finely balanced out by the more conventional instrumentation and sensibilities of the Shins’ lead vocalist and guitarist James Mercer. Between the two, Broken Bells is a celebration of many sounds that have come before, newly contextualized and altered here to create something new, something all their own.
This is also the rare record that only gets better as it stretches out. Without question, the first two tracks are the standout efforts of the album. That being said, the album does lag a bit after them, particularly after “Your Head is On Fire” fades out. However, as the second half of the album kicks off with “Trap Doors,” it is only onward and upward from there. By the time “The Mall & Misery” closes the album, it would be difficult to deny another go-round kicked off by lead single and opening track “The High Road.”
Broken Bells' self-titled debut (2010)
“The High Road” is an excellent choice for leading off the album, as well as representing it as a single. Danger Mouse’s synthesized sounds somehow manage to appear random while obviously being the result of a very purposeful pattern. Under all the layers lies a fairly straightforward piano ballad, a simplicity that is realized in the stripped-down outro.
From the piano and vocal fade follows the acoustic and vocal intro to “Vaporize,” another standout track on the album. This is where Broken Bells start to lay out some of the themes that will follow in the songs to come. As Mercer sings, “Common fears start to multiply; we realize we’re paralyzed.” He continues, “It’s not too late to feel a little more alive.”
What an excellent lyrical anchor for an album that is all about shaking up the format.
“Your Head is On Fire” is a particularly fascinating track. It kicks off with instrumentation and a vocal arrangement that strongly conjures seventies Beach Boys (my favorite!), with a particularly heavy emphasis on sounds characteristic of Dennis Wilson’s solo effort Pacific Ocean Blue. By the time the acoustic guitars strum in, the song proceeds to a second movement, but it does return for one more retro romp in the outro that would have felt right at home on SMiLE.
The following two tracks — “The Ghost Inside” and “Sailing to Nowhere” — carve out a clearer idea of what the Broken Bells sound is going to be. Although they are strong tracks, they are the sort of fare you might expect in the half to three-quarters swampland of your typical record.
Instead, Broken Bells comes alive with new vitality in that region, kicking off with the steady beat and buildup of “Trap Doors,” followed closely by the multi-movement “Citizen.” The latter peaks with an essential question: “From the moment that we’re born, ’til we’re old and tired out: Do we ever know?”
The opening piano riff of “October” may conjure Phantom Planet’s “California,” but it quickly progresses into the multi-vocal attack that Broken Bells have asserted as their own throughout this record. And the pace isn’t lost on the low-register vocals of the next track, the beat-driven “Mongrel Heart.”
The aforementioned “Mongrel Heart” blends seamlessly into the album’s final stop. “The Mall & Misery” is an exercise in perfect timing, another gorgeous mixture of beautiful acoustic guitars, lush harmonies, and a bed of beats and other synthesized sounds. “Use your intuition; it’s all you’ve got,” Mercer declares. Every lyric resource on the Internet seems to disagree with me, but I read the refrain as “I know what I know will not fill a thimble.” I won’t even share what the misconception (?) is; I’m quite attached to what I’ve heard. At the close of the stylistic odyssey that is Broken Bells, what a fitting final thought.
All in all, Broken Bells’ self-titled debut is a sharp, vivid album that presents a series of interesting lyrics and sounds mostly by way of tight but thoughtful little pop songs, the pieces which work together to form a greater whole.
And that’s more than enough to hook me.
By Chris Moore:
RATING: 4 / 5 stars
History will record the New Radicals as a one hit wonder. At best, their legacy will live on in their hit single “You Only Get What You Give,” which nicked the top 40 in the U.S. and reached #5 in the UK.
Not bad for their first single.
Even Gregg Alexander, the New Radicals’ core member, realized what he had found himself in the middle of, touring in support of the song in the late nineties. He is on record as saying the business of promoting a one-hit wonder — his words — was just not for him. To a certain degree, I understand this. After all, anyone who has spent any time reading about musicians knows what happens to the careers of most bands that top out early. Some recover, but most are left clinging to their fleeting fame. Even those who continue to put out excellent music often face a dwindling fanbase, as the masses return to the radio for the next big thing.
And yet I am left wondering what Alexander and company would have produced for a follow-up. New Radicals is an outstanding debut effort that covers a vast amount of ground lyrically and instrumentally, dipping into several genres for inspiration. Floating amidst it all, I can’t help but notice the echoes of Mick Jagger and some very Beck-esque inflections in Alexander’s leads. It isn’t often that a band so masterfully blends influence and originality. And the New Radicals are an original band, there is no question there. For one thing, they aren’t shy about pushing the envelope lyrically — theirs was a special blend of catchy, infectious rock and roll that even my younger self, frightened of straying too close to vulgarity and blasphemous ideas, couldn’t resist.
This is, after all, an album that starts with a woman muttering, “Make my nipples hard…”
I didn’t even know what that meant when I first heard the album!
Twelve years and what feels like a lifetime away, New Radicals continues to provide a provocative listening experience.
New Radicals' "Maybe you've been brainwashed too." (1998)
Despite the unexplained reference to the female anatomy, the first track unfolds into an upbeat rocker that careens between alternative rock and purposeful homage to the Rolling Stones. Five minutes does seem a bit lengthy for the somewhat repetitive content of “Mother We Just Can’t Get Enough,” but it does lay the groundwork for one of the central themes of the album — disgust directed at greedy institutions.
Next comes the aforementioned single “You Only Get What You Give,” a piano-fueled power pop number that functions as a personal mantra of sorts. According to Wikipedia, the media was quick to pick up on the celebrity allusions in the bile-spewing rant in the outro, to which Alexander pointed out that they entirely ignored the more significant references to health insurance, the banking system, and Y2K hysteria.
This only confirms his perspectives on the media and corporate America that are expressed across multiple tracks. (This was further confirmed by the fact that I used to pass shifts at Staples Copy Center singing along to “You Only Get What You Give” when it played once every four hours or so on satellite radio — unedited! If I needed any confirmation that people, especially groups of people like corporations, don’t listen to lyrics, that was it.)
“I Hope I Didn’t Just Give Away the Ending” builds up until Alexander, sounding like he’s out of breath, cusses and stretches out the final line, “I think I just gave away the ending…” The energy of this track is infectious; on a couple occasions, it seems like he is referring directly to the listener.
The fourth track, “I Don’t Wanna Die Anymore,” takes the tempo down a notch, but still maintains that same energetic high that started with the opener; the outro here finds Alexander screaming like he’s auditioning for a hair metal band. Still, the song certainly makes up in emotional resonance what it lacks in subtlety.
As the album stretches out, the instrumental and vocal ranges of the New Radicals become clearer — of course, it doesn’t hurt that Alexander has outstanding musicians like co-guitarist Rusty Anderson (more recently known as Paul McCartney’s guitarist) along for the ride. “Jehovah Made This Whole Joint For You” is a fantastic track, even if I can neither offer an explanation for the lyrics nor entirely forgive boneheaded lines like “She’s into some real deep shit.”
What is perhaps the greatest shame surrounding the mid-tour breakup of the New Radicals is their abandoned second single, “Someday We’ll Know.” This should have been an instant classic, a beautiful ballad that stretches the songwriting formula previously established on this album. Instead, the song was forgotten in the aftermath of the band’s dissolution. Still, it has been revived by several different acts; the Hall and Oates cover on 2003’s Do It For Love is by far the best.
Other songs approach the mastery of “Someday We’ll Know,” including the somber, foot-tapping “In Need of a Miracle” and the deep track gem “Flowers.” These are the tracks that I first fell in love with in 1998, and they continue to draw me in over a decade later.
“Gotta Stay High” is a pretty song, a nice inclusion on the release that may not reach the heights of the others, but is strong all the same.
However, there are some low points on this admittedly imperfect release, foremost among them being “Technicolor Lover.” This is the sole track that doesn’t involve any of the other band members, and it shows. “Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too” may create a hypnotic bed of vocals and music that works with the theme, but that doesn’t make it a great track.
It all wraps up with the heartbreaking “Crying Like A Church on Monday,” a song that involves a religious symbol in a fitting metaphor that doesn’t involve an attack on the institution. It is a sensitive, vulnerable closing to an album that bursts at the seams with angst, anger, and disgust. It is yet another reason why I will continue to wonder what that second New Radicals album may have sounded like…
For now, I’ll just have to cling to the most well-known post-New Radicals song that Gregg Alexander wrote but did not perform — “The Game of Love.” Yup, the same “The Game of Love” skyrocketed to popularity in the form of a Santana and Michelle Branch duet.