Always Right – Paul Michel
What do we know about Paul Michel? Brooding singer-songwriter with just a hint of a rock and roll edge? Check. Lyrics that manage to be both comforting and sad at the same time? Check. This is a U2 song for the coffeehouse crowd, which depending on your perspective could be a good or bad thing, I guess.
Me, I like it.
Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone? – Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Rudie Can’t Fail – The Clash
Let’s talk Republican presidential candidates today. In particular I want to focus on how the Conventional Wisdom might just be wrong. You often hear that it’s really a 3-horse race, with the “first-tier” candidates duking it out for the nomination. I don’t think that’s wrong. There’s still a chance for a true conservative challenger to stake out a place to the Right of these guys, but I don’t think the odds are high.
Of the three, McCain is the clear frontrunner by most accounts, in large part because of an awareness about the Republican Party tends to go about nominating a candidate. In sharp contrast with the Democrats, who often leave ample room for virtual unknowns (Bill Clinton in 1992 and Howard Dean in 2004, to name a couple examples) to rise to the top, the GOP tend to quickly collapse down. Once the “establishment” choice is made, an overwhelming number of primary voters fall in line behind him.
This is what happened in 2000, as McCain’s upstart candidacy was thumped by the old-guard side of the party and Bush cruised to victory. Dole was nominated in 1996 in large part because people perceived it as being “his turn” after paying his dues over the years. It’s not set in stone, but it’s a good rule.
I still think there’s a strong chance this will happen, but the more I read the more I’m convinced that Rudy Giuliani has a very good chance of beating McCain.
There are three factors at work with the Far Right. First, they’ve had a taste of real power these last six years, and they like it. Second, the memory of the Clinton interregnum leaves a foul taste in their mouths. Third, they’ve come to realize that it may be just as good to have politicians desperate to burnish their conservative credentials as it is to have a “true” conservative. The long and short of it is that I think the conservative wing of the Party wants to win more than they care about the personal values of a particular candidate. And this is especially true when said candidate’s personal morals will have little or no effect on the way he would govern. They’re not going to sit home – they’re going to vote in huge numbers and use that fact to force a supposedly “moderate” candidate to kowtow to their demands.
If I’m right about this, it doesn’t take much of a stretch to understand why they might fall in line behind Giuliani. You always hear that he’ll never make it through the primaries because of his marital issues, his pro-choice stance, his tolerance of gays. And yes, those are certainly major problems for someone seeking the Republican nomination. But McCain and Romney have variations on the same skeletons, which means none of the big three will really satisfy the conservative base. These guys are all panderers and the right wing knows it. So the real question is: which kind of panderer do they want? And frankly, McCain and Romney’s attempts to backtrack are a lot less appealing than Giuliani’s. McCain’s whole appeal is that he’s a rogue, a maverick, so when he goes back on his past statements it’s a betrayal of his whole ethos. As for Romney, he has virtually nothing going for him except his supposed conservative status, so all the evidence of tolerance for abortion, gay rights, etc. seriously remove the luster from his campaign.
Giuliani, on the other hand, has a strong campaign built around terrorism, a strong executive, the ability to get things done, and set this country straight. He is “America’s Mayor,” an almost mythic figure with tremendous crossover appeal to the independents and moderate Democrats. Moreover, because of all that, he knows the crucial thing for his chances is support from conservatives. Which means he’s plenty-willing to say he’ll appoint more Scalias and Thomases to the Supreme Court, that he will work to support conservative policies. He’s not going to pretend he’s a social conservative – he’s just going to be up front about the fact that he’s perfectly willing to sell out to the social conservatives in exchange for power. And they’ll yum it up.
For an even more extreme variation on this point, check out Matt Stoller over at MyDD, who says: “The right-wing base is entirely unprincipled, subduing any concerns they might have over political issues to a sheer authoritarian impulse.” He closes with a point that is cutting and seldom understood: “And please please please stop assuming that they think like we do. They don’t. Right-wingers are right-wingers for a reason. If they thought like us they’d be Democrats.”
Giuliani is currently trouncing the competition (on both sides) in national polls. If he does manage to clear the primaries, he’ll be a serious force in the national election, in large part because a large number of Democrats and Independents will be enticed by this “moderate” Republican candidate.
This is the scary part, because all of those moderate beliefs will be unlikely to translate into moderate governing policies, moderate court appointments, or moderate foreign policy. The last, in particular, is the most scary. If you searched high and low, it would be tough to find a legitimate political candidate more enthralled with unitary executive power than Giuliani. Don’t believe me? Check out this piece by Cintra Wilson at Salon. And for a little more reading on the subject, Glenn Greenwald and digby chime in.
I wouldn’t bet on a Giuliani presidency at this point, but I would be hesitant to bet against it, too. Which really just means that we’ve got our work cut out for us to tear down the mythos, and put him in the hot seat early so that his infamous temper can get him in trouble.
Update: On Jeff’s good advice, one more song to really drive home my feelings. Especially the part starting at about 1:00…
Ska Sucks – Propagandhi
David Martin claims to owe a debt to people like Billy Joel, Sting, Elton John, and Barry Manilow. He is also clearly in the market for the next big thing for the teen girls to swoon over this week (I mean, just look at that album cover).
If you’re in the mood for something with substance or something that admits the dreadful cuts of suffering and loss, you will probably want to just keep moving along. But if you want a little bit of “less filling, tastes great” sensitive-boy-pop, stop and listen for awhile. And, when it all comes down, there are far worse things than to add a few more schlocky love songs to the world.
I Will Love You – David Martin
This does lead me to a few more meta thoughts about the state of pop music. It seems a shame that so many people who are obviously talented are so fixated on using their skills to create music that almost seems to deliberately erase the soul. Maybe it’s just that stupid love songs have been around for so long that it’s difficult to say anything simple without having it come off as trite.
But I don’t really think that’s it. After all, there are plenty of love songs no more complicated in subject matter which don’t sound so sterile. For example, a song from a very pleasant little Irish folk-pop band called The Basement I came across a couple days ago:
Do You Think You’re Movin’ On? – The Basement
Theme: she’s gone, but he doesn’t even miss her. Really. For serious. Not even a little. The grapes were probably sour anyways.
This song has been written approximately 781 million times, but it sounds fresh here because they play with such exuberance. It’s just a two-minute pop song, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything more. And that’s what makes it so perfect.
Martin’s music, on the other hand, is almost clinical – it’s a how-to manual on the deployment of lyrical cliches (the changing of leaves, dreams, the fact that nothing stays the same…except our love, of course) with the inoffensive accompaniment of some paint-by-numbers instrumentation. It’s like those elaborate two-story storefronts designed to make a town look old-fashioned but which don’t actually have anything behind them.
And it’s not that I think he’s any less genuine in his emotions. Hell, he’s probably more genuine. But I just wish he could find a way to sound more like it. Something In Your Eyes is not a bad record, but if I hit me in the gut a bit more, it would sure be a lot better.
I was initially a little underwhelmed at the new songs from Bright Eyes – they seemed a bit of a step back from the tour de force that was I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. But then I realized that I was just being silly. It remains to be seen if he can put together another full album as good as the last, but if the limited output so far in 2007 is any sign, Cassadega is likely to be one of the best records of the year.
I think it’s fair to say that Conor Oberst has officially shed the “sensitive folk singer” label, even as he left behind “emo” in 2005. Not that he is no longer sensitive, but these tracks simply rock too much to be bound into that narrow genre. “Reinvent the Wheel,” in particular, somehow manages to simultaneously remind me of a nice, rocking Tom Petty track and a choral Sufjan Stevens arrangement. It’s a testament to his talent that he can walk this line without stumbling.
“Four Winds” is bluesy, dark, just a little bit dangerous. Of course, this is Bright Eyes, so let’s not go overboard – there is danger, but it’s a well-rounded, aesthetic danger. Satan, the whore of Babylon, these are invoked to give depth to a glorious fiddle-based romp. He has changed a lot from the angsty, precocious kid, but he’s not exactly Tom Waits. Which is perfectly fine by me.
The Four Winds EP is out March 6, and the full LP Cassadega is out April 10.
I’m about a week behind posting this one, so if you read any other blogs you’ve probably already heard it. But it’s so good I couldn’t let it slip past without any comment.
23 – Blonde Redhead
There’s a lot of good shoegaze-post-rock going around these days, but there isn’t much that matches up to this track. Blonde Redhead has been around for a while, often talked about as the shoegaze answer to Sonic Youth, but based on all accounts (and the low-sound-quality leaks that have filtered out), their newest record 23 (due out April 10) is their crowning achievement.
It’s softer and more ethereal, with more of a pop feel. But don’t let any of that fool you, they can also overpower you with sound as well as anyone. They just also realize that sometimes small variations on a single theme are more effective at ratcheting up the tension than trying to create a “big” sound. Just check out the section starting around 4 minutes, It doesn’t sound that different from the rest, but after all that buildup, a few light touches here and there are more than enough to get you all hot and bothered.
John Weinland is one of those super-intimate, singer-songwriter-with-a-country-tint sort of bands that can’t possibly be reviewed without at least a nod to Nick Drake.
Now, I like my whispered music a little more weepy and a little less breathy, but given the relative popularity of Iron and Wine compared to (for example) Carissa’s Wierd, I think I may be in the minority on that one.
So, while their new record Demersville will never be one of my favorites, it might very well be one of yours if you’re on the other side of the fence for this one.
Check this one out for yourself, and head over to their website or myspace to stream a few more.
The Klezmatics are the self-proclaimed “world-reknowned superstars of the klezmer world” which I think I can affirm, though I’m not exactly an expert on the ins and outs of the klezmer world. They’ve been around for a long time, but their most interesting work is a record released last year called Wonder Wheel. Along the lines of the Billy Bragg/Wilco Mermaid Avenue project, they take lyrics from Woody Guthrie and meld them together with their up-tempo, almost carnivalesque sound to create something truly astonishing. It sounds intensely Middle Eastern, perhaps Eastern European, but loses none of the intensely American folk feel of Guthrie.
This re-imagination is powerful in that it helps remind us of the universal nature of many contemporary political issues. There are few people in the world who can more effectively lyrically define the human condition than Guthrie. While history never fails to march on, it is telling how immediately applicable this words remain to the current states of affairs.
Perhaps most importantly, the universal nature of politics is given life not just in the lyrics but also in the style of their play. That someone so closely identified with America (the preeminent folk singer in our nation’s history) can be so seamlessly combined with an international sound demonstrates that not only do the challenges of each generation hearken back unendingly to the past, but also that our country is not so distinct from any other. A child who is hungry in Madhya Pradesh is not so different from a child who is hungry in Watts. A US soldier killed in war is just as dead as an Iraqi insurgent. And people everywhere in the world who struggle to make ends meet, care for their families, and lead fulfilled lives may justifiably wonder why so much time, energy, and resources are spent on finding new and more effective ways of killing people.
Come When I Call You
Mermaid’s Avenue
Guthrie’s America was one facing enormous difficulties: economic depression, war, violence, sadness, the crushing weight of social and economic hierarchies. At the same time, it was also the land of hope, of dreams fulfilled and opportunities created. This hope did not emerge spontaneously, but rather came from the combined will of a diverse population willing to strive for a better world. In this America, politics is about grand schemes but is performed mostly in the day-to-day of life, where people laugh, love, fight, and struggle.
By helping to breathe new life into that dream, the Klezmatics have created something important.
The Sound of Settling – Death Cab for Cutie
Settle Down Zelda – Mendoza Line
By far the biggest drain on my time in the last couple weeks has been an almost obsessive playing of Settlers of Catan, a board game my housemate brought up from Boston. The premise is simple: you develop settlements and cities on the intersections of hexagons, each of which is devoted to a particular resource (trees, ore, grain, etc.), and has an associated number. You roll dice and whoever has the resource that corresponds to the number rolled gets it, which they can use to purchase new developments. The reason the game is so addictive is that the board is different every single game – each time you lay down the tiles and numbers randomly. It creates a bewilderingly complex set of possibilities each time.
If you’re at all into board games, I highly recommend this one. It probably isn’t my absolute favorite game (most likely that is Age of Renaissance, or Diplomacy if you count that), but it has some serious replay-value and scores over the other ones in that a single game only takes an hour (two, at the most) instead of eating up a whole day (or weekend). Unless, of course, you immediately start another game…
While I’m posting “The Sound of Settling” let me just say that the further I get away from Transatlanticism, the more I think it’s a really fantastic album. I was initially put off a little bit by the way it signaled the end, once and for all, of the lo-fi, indie band I had fallen in love with, but as time has gone on, I’ve reconsidered. It isn’t a complete break from We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes and Something About Airplanes; it’s just a bigger stage and some grander themes. I’ve gone through the same transformation on Plans, to a lesser extent. I was initially very underwhelmed by that one and while it’s still probably my least favorite Death Cab album, I’ve come to love it in its own way. But seriously, “The Sound of Settling” is about as good of a 2-minute indie-pop song as you could ever want. Those “bah-bahs”s, some typically simple but great Ben Gibbard lyrics, and guitars so warm you could roast marshmallows on them…
Yes, I know it’s a corporate invention designed primarily to make lonely people feel even worse about being lonely, but still…it’s a holiday to celebrate love, which is something I strongly approve of. And it’s worth being reappropriated, I think.
Plus, it’s the most beautiful day of this year, thanks to the snow which has been falling heavily all day, with no signs of stopping soon.
There are few things prettier than a small New England town blanketed by snow. One of them is this song, which I’ve posted before but it’s just so good (and appropriate for the day) that I can’t help but return to it:
All Apologies and Smiles, Yours Truly, Ugly Valentine – Carissa’s Wierd
And here’s a few others of my favorite songs for the day:
It’s worth watching. For serious.
One thing to realize – I was in Chicago when this was happening and pretty much froze my nose off being outside for a few minutes. Something like 15,000 people stood out in that cold for hours just to hear what he had to say. I think that really says something.
It isn’t the best speech I’ve ever heard, but it’s certainly one of the most inspiring and exciting presidential campaign announcements. The thing that interests me the most about it is the gravity and richness of his approach. It just feels out of place in a business that often seems to thrive on the least-common-denominator. To be fair it definitely was big on grand themes without much in the way of details, which is a constant complaint about Obama.
Still, I’ve always found those concerns to be somewhat misguided. It’s still a year until the primaries and there’s plenty of time for turning a tide of excitement into particular policy objectives. And I have to say that one of my only complaints about The Audacity of Hope was that there was a little too much on details and the middle dragged a bit. He has a lot of stuff for the wonks, but his strength is his ability to inspire and that’s what this speech needed to be about. And I have to say, I’m inspired.
Someone asked me this weekend “why am I not dropping everything to go work for Obama?” and I have to wonder the same thing sometimes. One way or another, it’s an exciting time for politics in America. If only we didn’t have almost two years of the Bush administration left.
On the other hand, how completely insane was the Pelosi plane-gate over the last week? Combine that with the endless coverage of Anna Nicole Smith, and you can’t help but feel that while there’s a lot to be hopeful about, the fact that such absurdity could dominate the media for any length of time is sort of depressing.
I’ll Fly Away – O Brother Where Art Thou?
