Category: Music

So I was listening to some Ani DiFranco during a long vehicle voyage this month, when I struck it. No, not a motorcycle, since I was heading out of Milwaukee and every Harley-Davidson in the country was on the other side of the highway. I struck upon why I can listen to Ani when she covers some of the same themes I have maligned Matchbox Twenty for covering over and over.

For example, the failed relationship between a person and a woman. Ani DiFranco covers this ground in her song “Marrow” while Matchbox Twenty did it in their hit “If You’re Gone“. Both songs depict the member of the opposite sex in a less than flattering light, but not with the same skill:

So Ani’s got a little more lyrical depth. Matchbox Twenty’s collective emotions run from A (self-pitying emotions when dumped, a la “Rest Stop” or “If You’re Gone”) to B (self-pitying emotions when you don’t belong, such as “Bent”,”Crutch” “Disease” or “Unwell”).

Ani DiFranco can capture the ins, from “Shameless” to “Hell Yeah” to “Shy“, and the outs, such as or “Out of Range“. No one’s better at capturing the worst, most poignant song, the love song about a couple who almost made it, such as “School Night” or “Both Hands“, or the songs about love yet to be resolved (“The Diner”). I won’t even begin troubling you with her political or girl power lyrics.

How about the music pacing and variation? Oh, yeah.

Face it, Matchbox Twenty, or matchbox twenty, or m20 or whatever the hell they’re going to be for their next album, has two speeds: Slow Moody Grunge Lite, like “If You’re Gone”, and Regular Moody Grunge Lite, which is everything else that moves a half speed faster.

Ani, on the other hand, varies tempos and even styles. From I-Wish-I-Were-At-A-Slam “Coming Up” spoken word to “Little Plastic Castle” I-Am-A-Folk-Song-Ha!-Tricked-You-I-Am-Ska, Ani varies the rythym and tempo as well as the theme.

Ani DiFranco’s a grown up, and a person who’s, for lack of a better term, thirtysomething can listen to Ani. Her many albums provide enough variation that an aging Gen Xer can wallow in self-evaluation with her, without riding the path enough to rut it. Ani’s music grows with us, and we with it.

If someone reading this feels like it, pass the memo to Robbie and crew. I don’t think he’d listen to me if I told him.

Also, please, no one mention to the Republican National Committee that I even know who Ani DiFranco is. I so treasure those personal mass mailings from Dick Cheney.

That’s what I could think of off the top of my head.

I have so much good bar bet trivia roaming in my head, I should go to bars and bet more frequently.

When the Barenaked Ladies sing “If I Had a Million Dollars“, do they mean a million American dollars, or a million dollars Canadian?

1. Why would a dream leave the building, and would it use a door? Does this personification of the concept of “dream” work in the complete context of the poem?
2. What aspects of modern life command common people lie to face down on the floor and to not move, it’s not kidding this is a real gun? How does this compare to Thoreau’s assertion that most men lead lives of quiet desperation?
3. Does the juxtaposition of metaphors identify the harried nature of the contemporary world, or is it a feeble attempt to force rhymes?

Some people seem to think that the Goo Goo Dolls’ song “Iris” is a love song.

Personally, I think it’s begging for a restraining order. Hell, I creeped out women with mere sonnets describing their beauty, much less anything with the lines of

You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll
Ever be
And I don’t want to go home right now

Or

When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

John Hinckley, Jr., might have hummed this tune were it around in 1981.

Remember, dear reader, the number 1 hit song from C+C Music Factory was not entitled “Everybody Dance Now” even though that’s what “Zelma Davis” shouted several times during the song, between Freedom Williams’ rapping. The correct title for this song is “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)“. Please remember to request it by its full name the next time you’re in a honky tonk.

Tidbit: The reason I enclosed Zelma’s name in scare quotes is because VH1.com asserts that she merely lip synched vocals performed by others. Talk about a thing that makes you go hmmmm.

As I noted in a previous post, Jewel’s new album let me down. However, the Ad Report Card column at Slate has recognized that she’s a marketing boon even as she decries marketing.

Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, conspirator Randy Barnett has an interesting musing on young tribute bands. He wonders, who really reflects the true nature of the songs: tribute bands who are the same age as the band they cover when that band was popular, or the Band, which by now contains replacement members and old men?

On Tuesday, over on Politiblog, Jared M. enumerated the ways Fred “Wimp Biscuit” Durst (whose personal site is not ihatefreddurst.com as you might expect) and Johnny “Boy Named Goo” Rzeznik schnucked up the Pink Floyd classic “Wish You Were Here” (scroll down–I linked to the lyrics for the whole album Wish You Were Here so you could get the feel for the whole album) for a tribute concert of some sort.

Here’s what I said in the comments for the post on Politblog:

The easiest way to wreck a good Pink Floyd song, or any song, is to make the personal political.

The best Pink Floyd songs conveyed personal experience. Think Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here (which, of course, contains “Wish You Were Here”, and The Wall.

Other, more self-consciously Save-The-World-By-Espousing-My-Whack-Job-Ideology work, notably The Final Cut, didn’t resonate because those works preached.

You can follow the trend in Roger Waters’ own work, where The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking tells a personal story of love loss and redemption, but Radio KAOS is some unlistenable parable and Amused to Death explains why the West, particularly America and Great Britain, are militaristic punks (don’t get me started on the contradictions in its messages).

David Gilmour, on the other hand, has his moments of protest, but his solo work and his Momentary Lapse of Reason and beyond Pink Floyd show that he knows that people connect best to personal messages within the music, not politics and preaching, and especially not hectoring.

So Durst and Goo have shown their tone-deafness to the reason “Wish You Were Here” resonated with listeners in the first place: it was a song from a narrator to a friend, not a manifesto.

Their update pays homage to a recognized and revered old song, but they’ve entirely missed why it’s recognized and reverered. They’ve tried to ride the coattails of the song, and the song just shrugged the jacket off, leaving them standing there with neither recognition nor reverence.

I just wanted to repost it here because:

1. It’s a long post, almost an essay.
2. I am too lazy to write essays on my own site tonight.
3. I figured some of my fans (one or two of the three or four) might have listened to Pink Floyd once or twice.

Consider it a manifesto to songwriters and poets everywhere. Get your message across by singing individual experiences to individuals, not by thumping your bleedin-heart-containin’ chest.

Since I know I am The Formerly Blue Haired Guy‘s source for Jewel information, I must point him to a revealing admission about her affinity for the long guns on Instapundit.

Easy, honey! I am doing it for Hans!

Quick! Someone stop that racoon, it’s stolen Cyndi Lauper’s song “I Drove All Night”!

Wait a minute! That’s not a racoon! It’s Celine Dion in her Vegas eye makeup!

Unfortunately, she doesn’t realize that song belongs to Cyndi Lauper.

Put down the song, Celine, and raise your five-octave voice out of the range of human hearing.

As some of you might know, I purchased the new album from Jewel Kilcher, 0304, when it came out three weeks ago. A member of my adoring public (which means if it ain’t you, it’s the other one) asked for a full review of it since I, after listening to it once or twice, gushed enough to convince him to buy it. He hasn’t spoken to me since. Let this be my apology.

Jewel’s got a new sound, as you have read elsewhere. Her other albums have been folksy, with her voice and subtle acoustic guitar giving her a subtle, breathy sexiness in her love songs (think “Morning Song”). When I first heard 0304, with its dance beats and a more confident sexuality in songs like “Leave the Light On”, “Sweet Temptation”, or “2 Become 1”, I thought, wow! It was something akin to seeing the little sister of your bestest buddy blossom from a cute kid into a woman.

Unfortunately, after a couple more listens, the song “Yes You Can” sticks in my head. The song’s a celebration of dance club/rave culture casual sex. Suddenly, it’s akin to seeing the little sister of your bestest buddy blossom from a cute kid into a woman who happens to be a prostitute. Ick.

Maybe prostitution’s a good analogy. After all, she’s changed her music and her image to target a demographic instead of trying to please her core audience with some expansion (Dr. Thomas to emergency, please; Dr. Thomas to emergency).

She’s sacrificed some of her other, more thoughtful songs about things aside from chasing members of the opposite sex. No “Hands”, no “Down So Long”, no “Who Will Save Your Soul” (her best song, period). The album changes pace (allowing listeners to recuperate for a minute and slam some ginseng and saw palmetto) with “America”, but I saw the same Songwrite-By-Numbers kit in K-Mart.

So I’m disappointed with the album, but it’s not all bad. Jewel can carry a playful dance number when she uses her manic voice. You know the one I am talking about. The less breathy (although still breathy), with clear, aggressive notes (“Who Will Save Your Soul” and “Hands”). When she tries to mesh her plaintive voice (“Adrian”) into the bubbles of notes and backbeat, it fails. Fortunately, she stays away from the bleats. After all, the albums all about coming together for a night, not breaking up badly.

I give it a two of four whatevers, and I am disappointed because I expect a little more from Jewel. I listened to Pieces of You over and over again, for crying out loud. I hope it’s only a departure, as do many of the reviewers on Amazon. I guess it will depend upon whether her new audience is bigger than her old audience.

UPDATE:

Maybe it’s not a good gamble to demand renegotiation on your recording contract, threaten to return to Australian serials, and hold your breath for more money since you’re a big star based on your 1998 album Left of the Middle and your two hits, “Torn” and “Wishing I Was There.”

It might be more of a bluff than you think, and if they call you on it, your career might be in real trouble.

All right, for the last time, let’s get this straight. Although it’s easy to confuse them, Extreme did the song “More Than Words“, which does, in fact, differ from the Alias song “More Than Words Can Say“.

Of course, anyone can confuse two sweet-sounding power ballads from late 80s hair bands. And Alias and Extreme, or was it Extreme and Alias? But remember, although Alias was truly a one-hit wonder, Extreme was a two-hit wonder. They also charted with “Hole Hearted” off of the same album (Extreme II: Pornograffitti) and made a valiant attempt to follow that album up with III Sides to Every Story (how clever!), but to no avail. “Hole Hearted” is the better of their two hits, in my opinion.

So keep it straight from now on. I don’t want to have to discuss this with you again.

The new album, 0304, from Jewel comes out tomorrow, June 3, 2003. I have a wallet with $16 in it all ready.

The first single, “Intuition”, sports a more techno sound than her previous works, but it’s still her sweet, breathy vocals. Innocent, playful, and yet suh-exy.

I have been a fan since Pieces Of You, which I gained after leading a friend on a trip to numerous record stores to find it on a winter evening. Finally, we found it, and we listened to it several times consecutively. I ordained myself Paladin of Jewel and have had to defend her honor, or at least her vocal talent, on many occasions. Of course, since she’s no Sarah Brightman (or Sarah McLachlan, for that matter), so it’s been easier to resort to righteous violence than to offer evidence to her vocal prowess, so I have had to smite many a man, woman, and schoolchild to preserve her rightful head of the pantheon of pop.

Here’s CNN’s take on her album: “Jewel: Sexy dance diva?” I hope I can sleep tonight, and that the anticipation will not keep me tossing, turning, and upsetting nestling cats.

And for those of you wondering, Jewel’s official score is MOT-MCBDFHM (Much of That, Minus a Couple Bags of Doritos For Her Munchies).