Shook Ones: A Few Theories About The Songs On PJ Harvey's Album

After two weeks, I'm slowly wrapping my head around PJ Harvey's Let England Shake. Harvey's formidable back catalog ensures that her new music receives rapt attention it deserves, and the album doesn't disappoint in this respect. And PJ's idiosyncratic muse--only Neil Young's is more restless--guarantees that whatever lens shed light on her previous work is now outdated.

As critics have noted, Let England Shake is preoccupied with two themes: war and England. Neither of these is without precedent. In "The Soldiers"--a beautiful song so wrenching it's difficult to listen to--from Harvey's 2009 album with John Parish, she dreams about fighting in the Korean War. And England has long been a fixation--2007's White Chalk sounded like Harvey haunting the English countryside, and 2000's Stories From The City, Stories From The City was partly about her Dorset roots.*

Yet the songs on Let England Shake are distinct. They share some of the lightness that colored White Chalk, and Harvey's delivery, which relies on her upper register, places us firmly after that album. But the sound here is more fleshed out. The xylophone that begins a few seconds into the album is new, and there's a stronger rhythmic presence. Drummer Jim White is gone, but his Dirty Three colleague Mick Harvey joins Harvey's coterie, who often swap instruments. These songs churn when they choose to, sweeping up Harvey's autoharp. Thanks in no small part to the strange noise of that instrument, Let England Shake sounds distant, as if played from miles away.

Another aspect of this album--and this one is lost on no one--is the gulf between the compositions, which I suppose you could call "pretty," and the violent lyrical content. This isn't the emotional violence of PJ's early records (the acidic guitar of her first two albums is again absent), but violence in the most literal sense. In one song, "soldiers fall like lumps of meat," in another, "the music of drunken beatings" fills England's alleys. In "The Glorious Land," the narrator inquires after the glorious fruit of England's land. The answer? "Deformed children."

Like everyone else, I'm still parsing this. The ethereal rush of "Glorious" is really a thing to behold, but the relationship between the music and the lyrical content is oblique.** When I feel like I identify a piece of the puzzle, I still fall short of a clear picture. I do propose that the presence of male vocals--not a large presence on England, though more so than on other PJ albums--explains something, even if I couldn't tell you exactly what. The same is true of the narration: more of these songs are in the third person, or are sung by a character distant from the action, than on any other Harvey album. Likewise, the anachronistic bent of Let England Shake's violence plays a role. The soldiers on this album died before Harvey was born; this is not music about Iraq.

However, I have decoded one of this album's building blocks, in its various allusions. I count four songs on Let England Shake with direct references to other songs--one sample, one borrowed lyric, and two recontextualized musicial phrases. There may be others, which I'd love to discuss in the comments. We'll go through the four corresponding songs, but first I want to make my point. Which is this: each referent speaks to the history of violence that Let England Shake is fixated on. Consider:

• The xylophone on the title track, which opens the album. That line is lifted from--and this is genius--"Istanbul" by The Four Lads.*** The songs don't bare much resemblance. The xylophone is based on the chorus of "Istanbul," and the Four Lads tune is a catchy novelty unconcerned with human misery. But that song, with its generically exotic melody, notes that Istanbul was once Constantinople. The Lads don't explore this ("it's nobody's business but the Turks"), but "Let England Shake" seizes on the history. I think the reference is to the bloody Siege of Constantinople, during which the Ottomans defeated the city's Christian rulers, effectively ending the Byzantine Empire. Afterwards, Constantinople became Istanbul.

• "This Glorious Land" begins with a familiar bugle call. Not so familiar that I can name it--perhaps you can help out? However, the bugle's presence, incongruous and seemingly off-beat, transports the song to the battlefield before Harvey even sings. Once she starts, it stays there.

• In the last minute of "The Words That Maketh Murder" (see what I mean about the anachronisms?), John Parish begins to sing, "what if I take my problem to the United Nations?" PJ shortly joins him, and they duet over bottleneck guitar. It's one of the album's best moments. It is also--as any scholar of rock will note--a "Summertime Blues" reference. In that song--originally by Eddie Cochoran, later twisted into a definitive proto-metal version by Blue Cheer--the lyric goes, "I got to take three weeks/I got to have a fine vacation/I got to take my problem to the United Nations." While the song might seem to place faith in the mediating powers of the U.N., in the next line, a congressman ignores the narrator. In "Murder" Harvey and Parish adapt and deploy the line with great irony. On an album where violence mars each track, the futility of taking one's problems to the U.N. is a given.

• Finally, the gentle slipstream of "Written On The Forehead" is propelled by a reggae tune. The song is "Blood And Fire," by singer/producer Niney The Observer. In a few short lines, Niney describes a world in which there is no water, only fire. The chorus, which Harvey borrows, is a chant: "Let it burn, let it burn." "Blood And Fire" concerns a day of reckoning, and the picture it paints ("judgment has come and mercy has gone"), compliments the moral world of Let England Shake.

In these instances, Harvey draws upon music that either suggests the violence she depicts, or else twists the music to fit her purposes (a bit of semantic violence, if you will). This is one thread of Let England Shake.

There are many others, which Harvey's dedicated fans will be unspooling for years to come. I'd like to direct your attention a lyric from "The Last Living Rose":

past the Thames River/glistening like gold/hastily sold/for nothing

My line breaks are approximate, but Harvey's words are exact. Even as her lyric reveals an immediate meaning, it seems to withhold some hidden intent. There's mystery in this line--my favorite I've heard in quite some time--and like the rest of Let England Shake, it invites close, repeated listens. I'm happy to oblige.

*While we're on the subject of these two albums: I'm willing to go to bat for the gothic White Chalk as PJ's absolute best, while I find that Stories is probably her only overrated disc.
**This isn't true, I'd say, of most of Harvey's work. I already mentioned Dry and Rid Of Me, both brutal in lyrics, delivery, and instrumentation. Even on "White Chalk," when a song was insubstantial, I think it bore similarities to the mental states that the album portrayed (i.e. on "When Under Ether").
*** Heather Phares of Allmusic pointed this out.

Critical Beatdown: Round 12.5

The Strokes, "Under Cover Of Darkness"
NS: Forgive me if I once again choose to believe the hype. Contrary to public opinion, the Strokes never "fell off" per se (the first half of First Impressions Of Earth is amazing, if you bother to listen to it), but clearly Casablancas and Co. want to reverse-engineer their lo-fi roots. A dangerous proposition, to be sure, but this impressively busy track is capped by a delirious Albert Hammond, Jr. solo, a real scorcher. 4.5/5

AM: A song that masks its fear of failure in myriad hooks, none of which are given room to connect. The overstuffed but clean "Under Cover" zig-zags along, evoking just enough of what made the band worth listening to in the first place. 3/5

J Mascis, "Is It Done"
NS: Mascis has always been a great, quaky singer with an intuitive songwriting style, which is why his Dinosaur Jr. antics translate just as easily into an acoustic number like this. No telling what Lou and Murph could have done with this, but I'm glad when some fleet-fingered electric playing enters the mix at 2:34. 3.5/5

AM: Shot through with the sweet uncertainty that's colored Mascis' songwriting since "Repulsion." His fabled Jazzmaster makes a brief appearance, but the C&W twang in his voice carries this one. 4.5/5

Raekwon feat. Ghostface Killah and Jim Jones, "Rock N Roll"
NS: Nothing I've heard from the Wu crew lately has risen to the level of Raekwon's previous, but given Rae's perfectionist tendencies (which, unlike Dr. Dre, don't seem to demonstrate latent OCD), I have high hopes for Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang, and lo: this song feels like a real return to form. Ghost is better than I've heard in forever, and even if the production isn't next-level, these guys never needed it. 4/5

AM: DJ Khalil's beat tries to marry crossover appeal with Rae's punch you in your face ethos, and ends up with neither. The central metaphor--of rock and roll being like crack rocks sort of in some way--is empty, and even Ghost and Rae wring nothing out of it. 1.5/5

XXXY, "Ordinary Things"
NS: It's not a song big on variation, nor is it likely to change the mind of House skeptics who feel these sorts of Mancunian dub-techno epics never really go much of anywhere. But if you like a good, ponderous type of music build, "Ordinary Things" will set ecstatic expectations nicely. 3/5

AM: This recombinant cut splices together the DNA of a Missy Elliot production with rubbery synths and chipmunk vox. "Ordinary Things"--which is borderline extraordinary--just keeps floating up and up. 4/5

Boris, "Party Boy"
NS: Another great female guitarist I forgot to mention in my piece on Marnie Stern: Boris' Wata, maybe the most stoic Les Paul slinger in Japan, possibly the world. "Party Boy" may sound surprising to Boris fans more accustomed to the band's drone metal roots, but there has always been a heavy pop psychedelic streak underneath all the fuzz, and "Party Boy" juggles both sides of the band's personality with ease. 5/5

AM: Acid-tinged bubblegum pop. "Party Boy" won't set your next social event on fire, but it's soft, burbling groove might freak out your neighbors. 4/5

Fleet Foxes, "Helplessness Blues"
NS: I didn't like the last Fleet Foxes album, and this track sounds exactly the same as the first, but I don't want to be accused of contributing to the Internet hate, so I'll stop there. Except: is "If I had an orchard" the most boring rock lyric ever? 1.5/5

AM: After a very lovely intro, the predictably rustic "Helplessness Blues" runs its unremarkable course. Alas, Fleet Foxes are still in need of a Levon Helm. 2/5

Pusha T, "My God"
NS: As Pusha probably learned in his pre-rap days, sometimes the best recipe for a chorus is the simplest ("My God." Not much need for fancy wordplay there). This mixtape highlight is anchored by some appropriately reflective versage, but I still must ask (if you don't mind me pilfering a favorite TV show) Where the fuck is Malice? Huh? (Oh, he also has a solo joint coming out this year, never mind.) 3.5/5

AM: This mean march sounds like a Booker T & the MGs jam from the ninth circle. Pusha T raps better here than he did on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, even if a few of his weird empahses are West-ian. His expression on the cover art--a sneer masquerading as a smile--really says it all. My god. 4.5/5

King Of Limbs: An Early Review

I'm sitting here at 8:13 AM, having just downloaded Radiohead's new album The King Of Limbs, and I figured it might be cool to write some initial responses to this recently-announced joint (not a second of which I've heard yet). Hopefully by the end of this article my mind will be blown by yet another Radiohead album. Let's find out together which tracks are "Radiohead-good" and which tracks are merely "good." And who knows, maybe it will suck.

1. Bloom
A very claustrophobic electrics 'n snare number whose biggest hook is a constant looping two-note figure--it makes previous opener "15 Step," seem hard-rocking by comparison. The intensity of the piece reminds me a bit of Kid A, but it leans more toward the ambient material of that album. Imagine the track "Kid A" except sung at Thom's normal register. A weird start: I'm predicting more dub material from these guys, but will any song truly rock?

2. Morning Mr. Magpie
This picks up the speed a little bit, though the irregular drum pattern is similar to "Bloom," with some choppy, almost Afrobeat rhythm guitar playing. Yorke's voice is a similarly disembodied, oppressive thing, but there are two other parts to this track which interest me: one where the beat disappears altogether and Jonny/Colin Greenwood appear to be building up some epic springy guitar noise, and a brief coda at the end that transforms "Morning Mr. Magpie"'s irregularity into something danceable.

So, so far: two tracks that sound like the Liars.

3. Little By Little
There's a weird psychedelic sheen to the beginning of this song, with some crazy percussion and some "I Might Be Wrong"--type drop-D riffage (it occurs to me that so far this album is like Amnesiac to In Rainbows' Kid A, although these weren't products of the same session). So far, this is the best Yorke performance, the first where he doesn't just seem to be yodeling over a constrictive beat. The title "Little By Little" makes sort of sense--I hope this album gets a more liberatory vibe as it progresses.

4. Feral
Again, "Feral" isn't really what I expected, although it continues the trend of tightly-looped mood drums (when does Phil Selway get to play a 4/4 beat? Remember when they were all over In Rainbows?). In fact, nothing about this song at first differentiates it much from "Morning Mr. Magpie." But then, "Feral" builds into something different, a sort of synth-bass guided gospel harmony. None of these songs seem to have any real build-up--those of you who complain that OK Computer is too airless and unfriendly, I don't know what to tell you here.

On second thought, I'm hearing some of the background guitar noises (this album has a lot of subtle things going on in the background), and I'm definitely starting to get into this sound more.

5. Lotus Flower
This might be the closest thing King Of Limbs has to a single, and I believe an accompanying video is coming out today. Finally, Phil Selway is playing a regular beat, although there's still some electronic treating going on with that hi-hat. Yorke's vocals here are probably the best on the album so far--hell, I am literally listening as I write this, and this is already becoming one of my favorite vocal performances he's ever done. Lots of (non-synth) handclaps as well. More afrobeat guitar, and a chorus of lovely Thoms at the end. Awesome.

6. Codex
Finally, something approaching a rich, open piano ballad, something Radiohead writes better than anyone else (think "Pyramid Song," "Videotape," live versions of "Like Spinning Plates"). "Codex" is more of a solo Thom piece (I think), with some rich, funereal horn-playing, but don't confuse this with "Life In A Glasshouse," which was a far weirder brass number. This, by contrast, is more subtle, and more befitting of a band who have seemingly tired (who wouldn't?) of trying to always defy expectations. I'm getting into the groove of this album now--songs like "Codex" reveal how much sonic depth one often misses on first listen. Everything on King Of Limbs seems to be building toward some sort of manic conclusion...or will the album end the way it began, true to the cyclical style of its drum beats?

7. Give Up The Ghost
The piano ballad gets followed by an acoustic ballad (I'm not sure about the sequencing choices here), and a Neil Young-ish one at that. I imagine it's Jonny Greenwood on the acoustic (as he was on "Faust Arp") [EDIT: On second listen I think it's actually Thom on acoustic, didn't hear as much in the background last time], but there are some other things going on that may require a few more listens to parse (disclosure: I am listening to this quietly, as to not disturb my roommate at 9:08 AM, and this is the regular-quality version). If I'm not mistaken, Colin Greenwood gets some dubby lines as well. Where's Ed O'Brien throughout this record? Maybe I'm just unable to tell. Like when I first heard Kid A, I couldn't tell who would play what live, but then it turned out to by Jonny on the Ondes Martinet and Ed wrangling weird non-guitar noises that you couldn't really hear on record. Final verdict on "Give Up The Ghost": could've been on On The Beach.

8. Separator
Phil Selway gets his "Funky Drummer" on, slightly, and as I expected the album ends by letting a little bit of air out of the sails. "Separator" demonstrates the kind of tension/release schismatic that differentiates Radiohead from a band like the Liars, but there seems to be less of that than ever on this album. I'm sad to report that, as this is the last track, there is virtually no rocking to be had on the album in total (even In Rainbows had "Bodysnatchers"). To be fair, this is pretty close to the type of album I had imagined, as an extension of non-album tracks "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)" and "These Are My Twisted Words." Neither of those songs impressed me that much, but it's definitely a unique, new style that works within Radiohead's atraditional rock framework. "Separator" could use an extra coda or two, but I think I'll be able to decide that better once I really listen to this album's basswork, which will require a lot more parsing.

In fact, I think this might secretly be Colin's album. I'll update with more responses as they come to me. I can't imagine running out of things to say anytime soon.

EDIT: I'm already hearing whispers from certain Internet hiveminders claiming this to be the first honest-to-goodness Radiohead failure. To those I say: turn up your subwoofers. The proof of this album is in the bass tones, and having given it another listen, I find Colin Greenwood's parts (like the little bass coda at the end of "Morning Mr. Magpie") even more striking.

Critical Beatdown: Round 12.0

Thanks to readers Peter M. and Corey S. for their suggestions. Another seven reviews--Round 12.5--are on their way soon.

G-Side, "Came Up"
AM: The violin loop is gorgeous, and these guys sound hungry. I can't really improve upon those ten words except to say: whatever real hip-hop may be, this is a fine example of it. 4/5

NS: Violin samples have often figured more prominently in southern hip-hop than on the coasts, and that may be because on a certain level southern artists are more comfortable drawing on regional blues and country sounds. Anyway, this track is a great introduction to G-Side, who are rapidly becoming one of my favorite new groups. 4/5

Low, "Try To Sleep"
AM: A gorgeous lullaby--and another entry in the Jason Pierce/Sparhawk family mutual appreciation songbook--until you listen to what Alan's saying. He's still got problems, but they're not of the songwriting variety. 4.5/5

NS: The song's title may unfortunately be a little bit more than a performative gesture--I've always thought terms like "slowcore" were stupid, but this is a slow, chimy motherfucker of a song. Sparhawk nails the vocals, but nothing else jumps out at me. 3/5

Cut Copy "Need You Now"
AM: Again cribbing from 80's dance music, but this time without the exuberance. This linear tune takes its time, never managing to assemble anything satisfying. 2/5

NS: I had an argument with my roommate the other day about vintage synths (yes, I live that kind of life). I said I had finally had enough of bands which fetishize a certain type of 80s sound, particularly the groups that people seem to like inexplicably (Cabaret Voltaire, Erasure). This song is only timeless in the sense that, no matter what year it came out, I would still find it tiresomely retro. And I generally like Cut Copy, which suggests I might be getting really old. 2.5/5

Das Racist, "Swate (Feat. Lakutis)"
AM: The beat's the sort of thing that MF Doom used to gravitate towards, which gives us a continuity of sorts in smartass underground rap. The weird (Bollywood?) samples and Ernest references are pretty cool, but, as any Doom fan can tell you, getting high all the time does not correlate with perfect quality control. 3.5/5

NS: This is probably the best track I've heard yet from Messrs. Racist (for me, "Luv It Mayne" maybe comes close), due 90% to Mike Finto's multi-tiered B-Movie beat. I find Das Racist's shtick hard to take some times (i.e. jokes of "White people do this, Indian people do that" variety), but this seems mostly reasonable. Plus, I might be crazy but I think I hear monster noises from Half-Life 2. Sweet (yeah, that's how I say it). 5/5

Britney Spears, "Hold It Against Me"
AM: Brit asks for forgiveness, wondering if she's coming on too strong, but the real sin of "Hold It Against Me" is that it doesn't hit hard enough. Co-producer Dr. Luke has said that this sounds nothing like his other productions, but that's disingenuous--this only works because it sounds like everything else he does. 3/5

NS: Reviewing a new Britney Spears track requires a balance between longstanding critical prejudices and basic ethical responsibility. I don't want to keep harping on the same point, but she keeps sucking. "Hold It Against Me" is very much of the Gaga school of goo-goo synths, making me long for the days when Ms. Spears' jailbait antics were at least accompanied by some slap-bass, or anything really besides this pre-recorded mush. Yick, this song sucks. 1/5

William Tyler, "Terrace of the Leper King"
AM: "Leper King" deftly explores its knotty landscape, evocative of medieval times or Middle Earth, maybe both. I wish the brass would've stuck around for longer, but Tyler's wandering guitar traces its own path. 4/5

NS: This is a long, plaintive acoustic piece from an expert Nashville guitarist, rich and restless enough to sound like an outtake from one of Jimmy Page's Bron-Y-Aur open-tuned epics. Don't confuse this for a wankfest like "Classical Gas," though. Tyler plays fast, but he knows how to write and he knows how to build six-string harmonies, and like the best Nashville players, he knows not to distract from the power of his own composition. 4.5/5

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, "Belong"
AM: The pedal hopping of "Belong" ditches the bookish popcraft of TPoBP@H's first album. Something's lost, for sure, but I won't pretend like I'm not enjoying the crunchy, Pumpkins-indebted riffage. 4/5

NS: I hear a bit of early 90s Britrock shuffle in this otherwise straightforward patented POBPAH anthem. The instrumentation leans a little bit too heavily on periodic bursts of distortion, and who knows what the singer is going on about, but I like how all the parts come together at the end. 3/5

Update: regarding the proper acronym for The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, the band have informed us that they prefer "PAINS"

Stop Caring About the Grammys

Now that I've gotten that of the way. After a long day of plowing through some Derrida, I just started looking at some of the Grammy tweets, many of which are infuriating (lots of complaining about Justin Bieber not getting his props--are we in a parallel universe?). I mean, some people are seriously getting worked up over Gwyneth Paltrow and Eminem, with the former in particular inspiring an alarming amount of bitching that could be better aimed towards, say, the major music labels who use the Grammys as their one night to pathetically proclaim their relevance (or the corrupt and unfair standards of the RIAA, or the lax attention given to radio payola, or the Live Nation monopoly, or...). I also wanted to call attention to this tweet from critic Charles Aaron:
It's funny. I haven't been watching the Grammys and have no idea of what performance he's referring to. And yet no matter which way you read into it, no matter what the context might happen to be, I know this comment is bullshit. Of course, I would say that, having previously made the case that 99% of the time, references to "white people" in music criticism only serves the point of making the same three or four dumb-ass generalizations about whitey's lameness, inability to dance or rap, and "pretentious" (oh how my blood boils) taste in clothes, music, whatever (and also 99% of the time, Mr. Aaron excepted, these comments are made by white critics). I'll admit that an "inability to sing," along with dancing and rapping, is not normally associated with white people, and I'd be really surprised if Aaron could pull out any actual statistics proving that white pop stars, on average, sing more poorly than their black counterparts. I'd wonder, even, how individual singing ability is even measured (do you think Charles Aaron would make the same bitchy remark about Ian Curtis, were Joy Division transposed to this year's Grammys? Or Lou Reed?). And please, include hip-hop music with those statistics, because I personally think there are a lot of black rappers out there who also can't sing very well. There are also some who can. Really, there's no correlation, no point of reasoning behind this cowardly yet unoriginal sub-Mencia racial "observation."

Remember, this is the Charles Aaron who wrote the article "The Wayward Crucifixion Of M.I.A.," in which he passionately defends not only a weak-ass album which features this type of singing, but also M.I.A.'s right, as a celebrity, to not be called out on the incoherent nonsense she peddles in interviews and on Twitter (at least not without the right of retaliation via phone number dissemination). In that article, he wrote the following paragraph:

Such sputtering speaks to music critics’ increasingly chaotic thought process—a rush-to-refresh ticker of childlike enthusiasm, glib put-downs, presumptuous advice, false dichotomies, fantastical speculation, abrasive careerism masked as political rhetoric, and honest revelation marred by cloying narcissism, all in a desperate quest to churn out splashy content and escape irrelevance.

Nice list, I couldn't have put it better. "Glib put-downs," especially:
Oh, and I might as well quote this now:

Bottom line: Were their 30 better records in 2010 than Maya (or Vicki Leekx, for that matter, released well after Pazz & Jop voting closed)? Is Maya such a joyless slog compared to her earlier records, Arular (#2 in 2005) and Kala (#3 in 2007)? After all the authenticity litmus tests thrown at someone who was born in a war zone (which most of us couldn’t find on a map) by desk jockeys who practice a profession that’s basically a glorified work-release program, those questions remain moot. Too many people showed their asses. Back in August, I embraced Maya as a cause célèbre, but as the nonsense wore on, it became pointless to defend a record that people refused to hear.

Answers: a) More like 100, at least (and Vicki Leekx is much, much worse). b) Yes (absolutely). c) What authenticity litmus tests? (Journalists went out of their way to wring coherence out of her college sophomore anti-globalist cliche-speak!). d) Everyone listened to Maya, no one "refused" to hear it, and Maya still sucks hard. And just because you're the only critic still drinking the kool-aid doesn't mean you alone suddenly have a point. And it doesn't mean, if you like her music, that you need to defend the Palin-esque celebrity behavior that goes along with it, either.

Great Rap Verses #1: Goodie Mob, "Goodie Bag" (Cee-Lo Green)

Available On: Soul Food (1995)
Verse: 2:03-3:45

First of all
I stand a little more than five feet tall
But we can still brawl nigga, I ain't scared at all

So begins one of the most epic "fuck me? Fuck YOU" slow builds in rap history, Cee-Lo's "Goodie Bag" verse, a furious cascade of words that should, even post-Barkley, remind the world what a great rapper Cee-Lo Green was before he decided to make amazing soul albums instead. I mentioned this track yesterday sort of as a joke, but I was being honest about that verse: like many of the great Andre 3000 extended enders (i.e. "Royal Flush," "What A Job"), Cee-Lo uses this track as an opportunity to go WAY beyond the proprieties of the other Goodie Mob verses, and I think this was by design.

Big Gipp, T-Mo and Khujo deserve major points as well, but this is obviously meant to be Cee-Lo's joint and the band acts accordingly. Cee-Lo luckily wasn't the star he was today, so it wasn't unreasonable that he would get a standout track without being thought of as the general focal point of the group. In fact, he barely figures in what some would argue is Goodie's signature song "Dirty South" (he sort of just hangs around in the background of the video, too). Like Outkast, Goodie Mob had the talent to rest a particular track on one emcee, or do a group track, and expect great things either way.

What makes this verse so great? I'll try to explain, even as I don't think I have a developed enough vocabulary (does that even exist?) to describe what I like most about the tricky rhyme scales and syllable-specific intonations and uniquely southern vowel stretches (my linguistic skills are, alas, not so cunning). Basically, what I like about it is that it sounds like Cee-Lo had a verse prepared, did it straight on the microphone, and then just kept going into the chorus after the words on the page were finished, eventually working himself into some kind of mad freestyle that culminates in a shared breath of relief from both rapper and listener (as well as everyone else in the studio at the time): "Oooooh, shit!"

This is remarkable for two reasons. These days, most popular rap songs have their individual lines dubbed, one at a time, so as to create the impression of an invincible rapper who need not breathe off-mic, and rappers can sound laconic as hell without having to worry about keeping that flow for the rest of the tune (in a way, hypemen perform a similar sort of function live). What's missing from that technique is the sound and character of breathing and pause, one of the most important tools in a rapper's arsenal since at least the days of Rakim. There's NO WAY that could be the case, though, with Cee-Lo's verse here. Particularly toward the end ("I'm comin' through, I'm comin through/Oooh I can't even stop"--3:25), you can hear him veritably gasping for air, getting more and more charged with a mad inspiration that prevents him from cutting himself off, but at that same time it takes a lot out of Cee-Lo, who doesn't have the virtue of laying one intonation after another digitally, leaving the cutting and pasting to the producer. Just look at the way he sort of gasps "We're from Atlanta (breathe) G (breathe) A (breathe)/That is where we stay": everything about the end of his performance here seems unplanned.

This brings me to the other reason the verse so intrigues me, which is that it seems to be a rare instance of a written verse subtly transforming into a freestyle, albeit a freestyle that still goes in on the same themes that Cee-Lo had been writing about throughout Soul Food. I think this poses a challenge for a rap critic, because there seem necessary differences in criteria between evaluating someone's freestyle (did he/she manage to get off some good lines? Was he/she topical, not repeating the same whack shit?) vs. written words (is the wordplay strong and original enough? Does the verse have an overall arc, or sound more like a grab bag of random thoughts?). Cee-Lo straddles that line, and in fact this track made me begin to question whether I was going about the process of claiming what was and wasn't a dope twelve bars all wrong. Part of the power comes from the delivery, but part of it also comes from cheering Cee-Lo on as he continues to top himself, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen bars in.

Cee-Lo's solo career now is strong enough that I don't mind him not rapping on his new album, but I do hope Goodie Mob gets back together soon, as their music has held up way better than almost anything else from the 90s (they have that in common with Outkast, too). Frankly, I haven't even gotten into why I like some of the other devastatingly cool lines ("I still swing low with the lumberjack/track" is a favorite), and maybe with time I can concentrate more on the words themselves. But with some people, delivery is king, and Cee-Lo's verse definitely requires at least two readings, even to scratch the surface of this mightiest of verses.

I would also suggest checking out "Git Up, Git Out" From Southernplayalisticadillacmusik and "Big Ole Words" from Cee-Lo Green Is...The Soul Machine for two other great Cee-Lo verses. Two among many. No rapper has ever stood as proudly "a little more than five feet tall" and still sounded so giant. Well, maybe Prodigy, he's like 5'6. Let's hear it for the short folk.

A Valentine's Day Playlist?

I'll get to some more Glee-bashing tomorrow (Sandinista! will eventually get its treatment as well-- we have plenty of time). For now, I have a question to pose. On Valentine's Day, I plan to post a special Valentine's Rockaliser mix CD, and I need your help. Which of these themes sounds the most conducive to good music-pickin'?

1. The Ambivalent playlist: Either songs about how people don't feel strongly about love, or songs about how love turns you into a cowering, insipid cipher of a man/woman.

2. The Classic Valentine's playlist: Love songs are the cancer of popular music--they limit the functionality of other types of songs, multiplying and metastasizing to the point where you either buy into the madness unreservedly or resolve how actually meaningless and miserable life can be. Nevertheless, putting this together would take like two seconds.

3. The Anti-Valentine's playlist: Probably my least favorite type of playlist, as I don't want to be playing "Love Stinks" or an equally obvious number. That would just make me sound bitter and sullen!

4. The Songs About Unrequited Love playlist: Sound Opinions is doing that theme this week, so chances are slim. Still, if I had to choose, I'd probably just throw this song on nine times and call it a day.

5. The Aggro playlist: this would be a nonstop rush of the hardest-rocking songs I can think of, with no letup, no ballads, not even anything slower than, say, 130 BPM. Nothing to do with the holiday whatsoever. This is probably my personal favorite.

6. The "Goodie Bag" playlist: This collection of divergent tunes would probably include the Goodie Mob song "Goodie Bag," which has one of my favorite Cee-Lo verses (peep it starting at 2:03 America! I almost cried when I first heard this verse, it is so good). Don't know what else I would throw on it, but know that I listen to a lot of Souls Of Mischief and the Boys these days. And Dedringer.

Vote below. Or not. If you don't, I'll carry on as if someone cares.

EDITED: Does "Valentine's" normally have an apostrophe?

Glee Against The Music: Nathan Watches The Post-Superbowl Show (Part One)

It might be said, many years from now, that Glee came to stand for the last thundering death rattle of the flouted, rotting corpse that was once the American music industry, eaten from within by its own preponderance for recycling easy-listening classicist junk, forced in a last-ditch rescue effort to brand American Idol groupthink onto a nation of impressionable high schoolers, dooming them forever to repeat the mistakes of "Don't Stop Believin'"--this may all come to be true. But for now, this FOX show, despite being a relatively recent joint, has become a substantial brand on its own, with overall revenue supposedly peaking nearly a half-billion dollars. Not only that, but the show has its defenders, too, some of whom should know better. Glee is a high school musical featuring no original music--basically, it takes the song-cycle structure of an American Idol episode, adds some plot in between to explain why the characters in the show are singing a particular type of music each week, and then throws into that mixture a weird veneer of self-referential humor. The result is supposedly insane spectacle (tonight's episode must have been the most expensive hour of scripted television I've ever seen) that masquerades as an after-school special, featuring high schoolers and teachers behaving suspiciously like characters in the Reese Witherspoon movie Election.

The music, or rather show creator Ryan Murphy's opinion on Glee's role in foisting music appreciation on the sullen youths of America, was what finally drew me to the show's post-Superbowl episode after doing a good job of avoiding it for 1.5 years. The show obviously wasn't made for me, and I didn't spend much time thinking about the type of people the show would be for (now that I have seen it, of course, that's about all I can think about). At its best, Glee turns even the best of tunes into pablum; at its worst, it does Katy Perry. And since none of the high school drama was going to interest me (John Hughes films mostly piss me off, to give you an idea) watching it was never on the agenda. But here I am, having been motivated after reading about something Mr. Murphy said, in the same article I quoted above:

Then there are artists whose catalogs are off-limits. Glee’s best-known rejection: Kings of Leon, who rarely license their music. Murphy’s message to nonbelievers the Followill brothers? “F--- you, Kings of Leon,” he says, raising the volume of his monotonal interview voice ever so lightly. “They’re self-centered assholes, and they missed the big picture. They missed that a 7-year-old kid can see someone close to their age singing a Kings of Leon song, which will maybe make them want to join a glee club or pick up a musical instrument. It’s like, OK, hate on arts education. You can make fun of Glee all you want, but at its heart, what we really do is turn kids on to music.”

[Another fun fact from that article: honorary Black Eyed Pea Slash also refuses to license his songs on Glee! Quoth the guitarist/whore: "Glee is worse than Grease, and Grease is bad enough." Wait a minute, didn't Slash and Duff KcKagan sign over the rights to the GnR name to Axl Rose back in the early 90s? And that's why Axl can go around with Buckethead and the like and call himself Guns N' Roses? Unless there are some killer Velvet Revolver dance numbers which will remain unaired...]

I was happy to see any article endeavoring to piss on KOL (as I'm sure their misguided fans call them), but my attention quickly turned to what Mr. Murphy offered in defense, honestly equating dislike of Glee with "hating on arts education." I beg to differ. In fact, I think it is perfectly appropriate to dislike Glee intensely on the grounds that it actively does a disservice to arts education. For everyone on the show, music serves one simple, grindingly capitalistic and utilitarian purpose--to provide a vehicle to celebrity. Nothing about this show has anything to do with the individual performance of music, of learning how to play instruments, of scenes where kids listen to tunes and jam with friends. All this show ever builds up to is the performance, the moment where musical catharsis transfers itself into the adulation and appreciation of an audience. People who will then be moved to start a billion dollar brand around your name. All without ever having to pick up a guitar. It's sort of sick, and it is entirely 100% accurate in showing how pop stars get ahead in America today.

Glee is not a show, I think, where music spontaneously busts out of nowhere, and in the background of a lot of shots you can see the background musician ably playing behind the handsome football jocks and comely cheerleaders (and yes, cheerful, bespectacled nerds) of the Glee club. Who are these people, and what are their stories? You don't even see them move in and out of the picture, they just sort of disappear when they're not needed. In particular, there's one bearded guy on the piano who keeps popping up everywhere. And what's the deal with the people who just stop playing their instruments sometimes, in the middle of songs? Why does one mohawked dude even bother picking up an acoustic guitar if he won't even acknowledge the other musicians?

I know, these are old man complaints. But they get at the heart of what makes Glee feel so wrong, so disappointingly appropriate for a generation raised on Facebook. Glee doesn't particularly seem to care about its characters, who constantly act is if stationed in Bizarro World, where sensible behavior is particularly frowned upon. Nor does music qua music get much respect--you never hear anyone talk about music except immediately before and after a number, and no one has any particular taste or style of music, any individual predilections at all really, that would be uniquely their specialty. It's a homogenized, Clear Channel vision of the Nü American songbook as a solution to America's Great Economic Woes, and don't even get me started on the show's take on high school cliques: it is in the football team scenes of this new episode that the true stupidity of this show really shines through. On the other hand, Jane Lynch has some funny lines. Tune in tomorrow when I break the show and its choice of musical numbers.