Music

TRACK MARKS BEST OF 2014: “Lazerray” by TV on the Radio

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This week, SportsAlcohol.com writers are recounting the best music of 2014. Today’s Track Marks focus on individual songs from albums that didn’t make our collective top five, but did appear on our individual best-album ballots.

TV on the Radio seem like super cool guys; are they secret sci-fi/fantasy nerds? What “Wolf Like Me” did for werewolves, TV on the Radio’s “Lazerray” does for lasers; the band clearly gets most amped when it’s singing about stuff that sounds like they’re free-associating off of the DuckTales opening credits. I feel like with all the talk about the tragic death of bassist Gerard Smith and Seeds being their attempt at a healing comeback, the driving ass-kickery of this song has been kinda slept on, even though it’s up there with “Wolf” and “Caffeinated Consciousness” as some of the most awesome stuff TV on the Radio has ever put recorded. It’s OK that the rest of Seeds doesn’t sound like this, because it’s quite beautiful, and how could anything really sound like this for a whole album? Those sweet horn accents that come in around the 2:15 mark sound all the sweeter because they come in there like it’s the only point where they might be able to get a word in edgewise. When I saw TV on the Radio over the summer, they were kicking ass throughout, but when “Wolf Like Me” came on, people lost their shit and started moshing like twenty rows back. I can’t imagine this won’t happen with “Lazerray” in the future, especially if solar flares can mosh.

Music

TRACK MARKS BEST OF 2014: “Nothing But Trouble” by Phantogram

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This week, SportsAlcohol.com writers are recounting the best music of 2014. Today’s Track Marks focus on individual songs from albums that didn’t make our collective top five, but did appear on our individual best-album ballots.

Full disclosure: I am in the tank for Phantogram. Even though they hail from Greenwich, NY my hometown of Saratoga Springs has claimed them as their own (same county). We don’t have much of a music scene to speak of, so we get excited every time a local act breaks out onto the national stage. It’s only happened a few times in my life.

I am also in the tank for high energy track ones. “Nothing But Trouble,” the leadoff song to Voices, Phantogram’s sophomore full-length, is maybe my favorite one of the year.

The beat shows the influence of their touring with a live band to great effect. The bass line uses their standard fuzzed-out synth sound, but it moves a little more than usual. The drums go beyond standard loops to include fills you don’t often hear in songs like these. While there’s a lot of growth in their songwriting, the lyrics feature psychedelic abstractions that would feel as comfortable in early Phantogram cuts like “Mouthful of Diamonds” as it would in a classic Guided By Voices tune.

As always, Sara Barthel’s vocals are an ethereal eye in the storm, but her partner in crime Josh Carter is in the spotlight a little more than usual (especially when they play this song live). His underutilized voice provides backing in the second half of the song and his guitar closes everything out with a rare solo. The way it breaks out of nowhere in a pretty dance heavy track, it’s almost Prince-like.

This all comes together in one song. If reductive, lazy critics are still calling Phantogram trip-hop, they should probably listen to “Nothing But Trouble” a few more times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVuo6h5cwk4

Music

TRACK MARKS BEST OF 2014: “Goshen ’97” by Strand of Oaks

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This week, SportsAlcohol.com writers are recounting the best music of 2014. Today’s Track Marks focus on individual songs from albums that didn’t make our collective top five, but did appear on our individual best-album ballots.

Here’s how I heard about Strands of Oak and came to buy their newest album Heal:

1. A friend sent me a link to the song “Goshen ’97.”
2. I listened to the first thirty seconds of “Goshen ’97.”
3. I bought the album.

I’m not sure I’ve ever gone from literally never having heard of a band to buying their album that quickly. Such is the power of “Goshen ’97,” a song where the guy from Strand of Oaks sings about being a teenager, singing Smashing Pumpkins by himself, and futzing around with a tape machine. This sounds gently nostalgic on paper, whereas in the song it sounds approximately as triumphant as punching through a fucking volcano.

Due respect to the dude from Strand of Oaks, but the music video for this song is all wrong. One of the biggest opening stomps in any rock song I’ve heard in ages, and the video opens on an image of the dude sitting on his bed, smoking, mostly naked, and looking sad. Even when it cuts over to some roller-skaters, Mr. Oaks is still just sitting there like he’s fucking Sam Beam or something. I know the song goes, “I was lonely but I was having fun,” but the video seems like it only heard the first part. Eventually there’s some slow-mo thrashing, but no, I’m sorry, it’s not enough. This video does the worst thing any music video can do: it fails to capture exactly how I personally feel while listening to this song. For me, “Goshen ’97” is the sound of the exhilarating desperation of being alone. It’s just you, some guitars, and possibly the volcano you just punched through.

Music

TRACK MARKS BEST OF 2014: “Blue Moon” by Beck

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This week, SportsAlcohol.com writers are recounting the best music of 2014. Today’s Track Marks focus on individual songs from albums that didn’t make our collective top five, but did appear on our individual best-album ballots.

I know I’m in the minority on this but I like Beck most when he’s mopey. Sea Change was a very meaningful record to me in high school; to paraphrase Rob from High Fidelity, it takes a very particular kind of person to think they’ll be alone for the rest of their life at twenty-five, so it must take an extraordinarily neurotic one to worry about that at sixteen. But for whatever reason, I felt less lonely when I listened to “The Golden Age.” I suspect it has something to do with the fact that Beck, for all the gimmicky (and wonderful!) singles he released in the nineties, has a warm and inviting voice when he’s crooning. Morning Phase, his 2014 record, is full of that sound, and no song on that record more so than “Blue Moon.”

The song feels in many ways like a continuation of “The Golden Age.” They share a similar rhythm, which lacks the urgency of his more aggressive singles but is buoyed by a dreamy tempo that’s perfect for driving at night with the top down. “Blue Moon” has more playful instrumentation, with the main theme provided by a plinking charango and a swell of soulful “ooh-ooh’s” carrying along the chorus. I could listen to the jumpy clavinet progression near the end for hours. It’s so lush and swoony that you’d be forgiven for ignoring the lyrics, which invert the Rodgers and Hart classic of the same name from a singer finding solace in the skies above into a naked plea to the people who surround him. “Don’t leave me on my own,” Beck entreats, and by the time the song is over we’re sorry to go. While the rest of the album plays in a pleasant earthy register it’s with this song that it truly hits the stratosphere.

Music

TRACK MARKS BEST OF 2014: “Scapegoat” by The Faint

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My love for this song is boundless, but my reasons for loving this song aren’t very deep. It’s just a burst of energy. The drums start off running; the vocal kicks in and match their pace. Just when I think I’m going to start to get tired of the shouty vocal, the melody suddenly gets catchier. (“We don’t even need to know each other.”) Then it takes a break for some laser noises and the chorus, and it’s over in two minutes.

I can’t pretend that I relate to what this song is about. Clearly there’s some control issues going on. (“We’re not actors in your movie.”) There’s also some betrayal. (“You say you’re a scapegoat…no! Turncoat.”) I don’t fully feel the nuances of all of this, but it’s loud and it’s angry and it always makes me want to stand up and run around, and sometimes that’s really all I need.

Music

TRACK MARKS BEST OF 2014: “Backseat Shake Off (Kendrick Lamar vs Taylor Swift)” by The Hood Internet

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This week, SportsAlcohol.com writers are recounting the best music of 2014. Today’s Track Marks focus on individual songs from albums that didn’t make our individual best-album lists.

I know what you’re thinking, reader: “Rob, a mashup was one of your favorite songs of 2014?! There are less embarrassing ways to relive your college years.”

Fret not, reader. I have so many great reasons to include The Hood Internet’s latest.

I wanted an excuse to post this video.


“Backseat Shakeoff” was released at the tail end of the media’s coverage of the  mutual admiration society between Kendrick Lamar and Taylor Swift. This appeals to a very particular demographic AND I AM PART OF IT. I wish I had something more insightful to add beyond “I think it’s cool that Taylor Swift is into Kendrick Lamar and vice versa” on this point, but  I’m not sure what to add on this point.

Just Enough T-Swift

 


Maybe Jesse and I are just clueless old men who just don’t get the success of Taylor Swift’s march towards world domination, but we’re totally the type of dudes who love great pop music to the degree people question our sexual orientation. I’m serious. Jesse and I did a radio show during summers in college and we’d throw in some Mandy Moore and Atomic Kitty in between the de rigueur Guided By Voices and Built To Spill. We would sometimes get phone calls full of homosexual slurs.

This is a roundabout way of saying that I really like the idea of Taylor Swift transitioning from country to pop superstardom, but the tunes don’t always grab me. “Shake It Off”, the lead single from her latest album, is a mixed a bag. The Hood Internet take the good parts for their mashup by just using the beat, the first verse, and one chorus. The pseudo-rap, spoken word breakdown and troubling music video get left on the cutting room floor.

Kendrick Freaking Lamar

I was late to the party on Kendrick Lamar, but I am here now. While it works well in the context of the full album, “Backseat Freestyle” is (to me) one of the less interesting songs on his breakout good kid, m.A.A.d city. I know it’s one of the clear singles from that record, but it lacks the nuance and insight of Kendrick at his finest. That being said, “Backseat Freestyle” is the obvious choice to mash up with “Shake It Off”. While most of Kenrick’s songs could be described as downbeat, this isn’t one of them.

Music

TRACK MARKS BEST OF 2014: “Bright Eyes” by Allo Darlin’

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This week, SportsAlcohol.com writers are recounting the best music of 2014. Today’s Track Marks focus on individual songs from albums that didn’t make our individual best-album lists.

I’m pretty in the bag for any song that has the same bones as “Bright Eyes”: a sweet, upbeat tune that trades off boy and girl vocals. But “Bright Eyes” is an especially well done version of this kind of thing, even without any of the direct references to Bonnie Tyler or Connor Oberst that the title promises.

The subject is pretty typical for a song with boy/girl vocals: One of the singers is looking for a romantic relationship, but the other demurs. (“You go to great lengths to tell me this is not a romance.”)

The charm of “Bright Eyes” is that it’s the most positive version of this situation possible (and sounds like it). It’s not really an unrequited romance. It’s more a friendship that’s on the cusp of tipping over into something else, but luxuriating in the pleasure-delaying moment just before it happens: “What’s the hurry? Don’t you see, the best part’s in not knowing. We can take our time; you don’t have to worry.”

The chorus asks “Do you believe in fun?” then answers, “I surely do.” And it certainly does.

Music

TRACK MARKS BEST OF 2014: “Lariat” by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

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This week, SportsAlcohol.com writers are recounting the best music of 2014. Today’s Track Marks focus on individual songs from albums that didn’t make our individual best-album lists.

I contend that Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks is one of those bands, like the Strokes, that manages to have one amazing song—and possibly only one amazing song—on every album. On Wig Out at Jagbags, that song is “Lariat.”

“Lariat” might even be better than most of the other album highlights in that it actually seems to be about something. (I love “Gardenia,” but I still swear that it’s just a string a disparate commonly used expressions, like “curb appeal” or “damning with faint praise.”) Even better: That something is music.

I like hearing about Malkmus’ “Mudhoney summer” or living on the Grateful Dead. I might not agree with his assertion that the ’80s was the golden age of music, but I’m pretty sure the statement “we grew up listening to the music from the best decade ever” is something that all music fans have said at some point in their lives. For me, it was the ’90s—the decade of Pavement—which I admit doesn’t have the same ring to it or double meaning as the ’80s/ADDs, but thinking about the music of that era puts me in the same mood that “Lariat” does.

And yes, Malkmus. People do look great when they shave.

Music

TRACK MARKS BEST OF 2014: “Mr Tembo” by Damon Albarn

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This week, SportsAlcohol.com writers are recounting the best music of 2014. Today’s Track Marks focus on individual songs from albums that didn’t make our individual best-album lists.

Damon Albarn’s had a lot of different musical reputations throughout the years. He was known for making rowdy, frenetic Britpop with Blur, then genre-blending mixed-media hip-hop-rock with Gorillaz, then for doing world music with whatever band/project that was. No matter what he was working on, though, he was always thought of as a serious musician. He’s never really been branded as the guy who makes uplifting, happy music. But all of my personal favorite Albarn songs have been soothing in one way or another.

“Mr. Tembo” fits squarely into this category. It’s light-hearted. When Mr. Tembo starts his trek up the hill, you’re there with him, but you’re confident you’ll both make it to the top. You can put it on a “cheer up” playlist, or listen to it while cooking dinner—it doesn’t really ask all that much from a listener.

The background story to the song is just as mood-lifting. Albarn wrote “Mr. Tembo” about a real elephant, one that had wandered into an airplane hangar in Africa and then was rescued by an elephant sanctuary in Tanzania. Albarn met the real Mr. Tembo, wrote the song for him, and also got to sing it to him once.

This year was a grim one. The news was often bleak. But, whenever you’re feeling blue about how 2014 went down, you can always remember that this is the year that Damon Albarn sang a song to an elephant.

Music

TRACK MARKS BEST OF 2014: “Water Fountain” by Tune Yards

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This week, SportsAlcohol.com writers are recounting the best music of 2014. Today’s Track Marks focus on individual songs from albums that didn’t make our individual best-album lists.

It doesn’t seem right that when I think about tUnEyArDs, I think about Chuck Klosterman. When the band’s previous album landed at first place in the Village Voice music poll in early 2012, Klosterman wrote one of his patented meta-think pieces that’s mostly about how Klosterman thinks everyone else thinks, and to a lesser extent is about how this album and tUnEyArDs (referred to hereafter as Tune Yards) may well be forgotten as a novelty within a few years — not because Klosterman thinks it should be, of course, but because he understands how people think and remains, as ever, deeply in touch with that understanding at all times. He knows the pitfalls of indie-rock acclaim, and is just concerned about whether Tune Yards can ever match (or monetize) this early success. (He strikes such a faux-populist pose that he loses his grasp of apparently non-populist activities such as counting or even estimating; he opens by explaining that Tune Yards’ victory will mean something to “maybe 10,000 people.” Though record sales are notoriously difficult to come by compared to movie box office figures, it appears that whokill, the Tune Yards album in question, sold about 40,000 copies, meaning Klosterman (a.) was pre-supposing that only about 25% of the people who bought the Tuneyards album knew who Tune Yards was or (b.) was pre-supposing that only 25% of Tune Yards fans have heard of the Village Voice or know what a music poll is or (c.) did not even try to find out how many copies whokill sold because doing research isn’t populist.)

Other people have taken apart his reasoning more succinctly and intelligently than I can. But you know what’s even better proof than intelligent rebuttals of Klosterman’s stupid points? “Water Fountain,” by Tune Yards, maybe the most immediate song I heard in 2014. The rest of Nikki Nack is plenty good, too, but “Water Fountain” rollicks in a way unlike so much on the indie-rock landscape. It starts with the simplicity of a folk song (it even references a traditional tune called “Old Molly Hare”) but makes a beautiful tangle of chant, metaphor, and allusion as the drums keep clanging and a surprising number of verses accumulate. Anytime a song sounds like Graceland, Talking Heads, Bjork, and Busta Rhymes in equal measure, I’m probably going to get on board, and stay on board for a long while. If Chuck Klosterman and his imagined isn’t there with me, well, I can be thankful for small favors.