Heartache With Hard Work

Moonbabies are yet another Swedish band making indie-pop that’s smooth, cute, and hypnotic. Twee mixed with shoegaze, sunny electronica-pop…whatever you want to call it, they do it well. Is it something in the water there in Sweden that makes everyone so fey? This song (the first I heard from them and still my favorite) is on the Grey’s Anatomy Volume 2 soundtrack, joining pretty much anyone who’s anyone these days in being featured on that show:

War on Sound

I had a classic “early aughts” moment with this song. I listened to it once months ago and liked it enough to not delete it, but it didn’t catch me so much that I paid particular attention. So it went into the “listen to later” folder with about 1000 other songs. I didn’t hear it again for months until I was doing laundry with my iPod on shuffle and I went nuts. How in the world I let it get by me the first time, I have no idea.

If you’ve liked any of the other twee/indie bands I’ve talked about recently (Bedroom Eyes, Antarctica Takes It!, The Weepies, or The Shins, frankly), you’ll love this song.

Don’t be fooled though. While this songs is “twee as fuck,” they’ve got a lot broader scope. They never exactly rock, but they certainly do post-rock, demonstrating that while there’s some Belle and Sebastian going on here, they also have a similar flavor to bands like My Bloody Valentine, Kate Bush, and Architecture in Helsinki. I’ve been told that their earler stuff goes even further in this direction, but only their recent albums are on eMusic, so that’s all I can personally speak to right now.

Buy the War on Sound mini-album, or wait until early next year for their 3rd full-length from the Swedish label Startracks/V2. And, you can download Sun A.M. off 2004’s The Orange Billboard from their website, or check out their myspace to listen to a few more tunes.

When I moved to New England a couple years ago, everyone told me to watch out for the deadly winters and the endless snow, but since I love snow I was just excited. Unfortunately, every year I have been disappointed. This year, it’s 65 degrees on the last day of November!

So, in honor of the harsh winters of the past, and in hopes of actually getting some snow before I go home for Christmas, here are a few of my favorite songs about the cold of winter.

I Was a Kaleidoscope – Death Cab for Cutie

This is one of the songs that made me fall in love with Death Cab. I had heard a couple of their early songs, but didn’t really get into them until the late summer of 2001 right as The Photo Album was released. It is probably still my favorite of their albums, and this might be my favorite song off it. Like most of their best ones, its strength comes from the little details: the cold soaking through your shoes, snow on your glasses, and the moment when it all comes crashing down (“This is when I forget to breathe…”).

Valley Winter Song – Fountains of Wayne

The first real concert I ever went to was the Smashing Pumpkins on their Mellon Collie tour (the one where the keyboardist overdosed and the whole tour got pushed back four months), and Fountains of Wayne opened for them. I’ve been a fan ever since, and this is probably my favorite song by them. I like pretty pop songs and this is about as good an example of the genre as I can imagine. Here’s hoping that soon the snow will be coming down on this New England town.

Slate goes after Pitchfork in an article by Matthew Shaer. He makes some good points, but it’s a rather superficial take on the relationship among Pitchfork, blogs, and the artists.

Most problematically, he buys into the idea that there is some war being fought between Pitchfork and the blogs. One of main battlegrounds of this supposed war is the Cold War Kids. On that subject, Shaer writes:

Does this mean that everything Schreiber does with the site is couched in terms of reader reaction? Some suspect a larger agenda. Consider the case of the Cold War Kids. For a year, the California-based indie-rock quartet has been a blog favorite. This summer, even Rolling Stone had given the band a ringing endorsement. But Pitchfork, conspicuously, remained silent. When the site finally waded into the furor over the band in October, it was to deliver a withering 5.0 takedown of the Kids’ debut full-length, which reviewer Marc Hogan* called derivative and superficial.

Conspicuously silent? Maybe they were just waiting for the record to be, y’know, released. As they do with most records they review. Which is, of course, a difference between them and blogs, but hardly a malevolent plan on their part.

Beyond that, he implies that Pitchfork had some nefarious desire to destroy “blog bands,” which drove Hogan’s comments. However, this fails to account for the much more likely scenario, which is that he called them them “derivative and superficial” because, well, they are.

Not that being derivative is some horrible crime. If you like them, that’s fine, but let’s not pretend Pitchfork dissed The Beatles or Mozart or something.

Anyways, Sound Team, another “blog band” supposedly destroyed by a Pitchfork takedown is mentioned a number of times in the article. Once again, it’s fair to call them derivative and to say they don’t bring anything particularly unique to the indie music scene. The difference is that I happen to like them a lot in spite of that. In particular, I’ve been all over this track for the last couple months:

Handful of Billions

Yes, Pitchfork is a tastemaker and often takes down bands popular on blogs. So what? Even when they do it to bands I like (such as ), it’s not like they don’t make some good points. In any case, going ballistic at them for trying to undermine blogs doesn’t accomplish a whole lot and just makes bloggers look silly and paranoid.

Finally, the article continues to beat the dead horse about the numbers that accompany the reviews:

Altruism, though, doesn’t necessarily exclude the possibility of a political agenda—a provocation aimed not at readers, but at the music scene at large. What else is a 3.3 review of an otherwise-lauded Dandy Warhols album than an attempt to poke holes in an established critical consensus? In this case, it’s the numbers that speak volumes and not the writing.

Yes, a 3.3 means very little. Or a 3.7 or a 5.0 or a 9.4. Quantifying the value of record so precisely you can give it decimal points is, of course, absurd. But this is not meant to be science – the numbers are hooks which (almost certainly) are often pushed in one direction or another to increase their likelihood of generating buzz about Pitchfork. They’re also the least important part of the review. And even with all the complaints about writing style, obsession with tastemaking, and so on, Pitchfork still consistently writes enough good reviews that it deserves its place.

Debate about what makes good music (and who is making it) is healthy and fun. As much as some of the complaints about Pitchfork are fair, I think it would be hard to argue that they’re a net-negative on the world of music reviews and discussion.

For an interesting discussion about Pitchfork, blogs, and the recent hullabaloo over their +/- gaffe, check out the elbo.ws forum.

Welcome to the second edition of Politics Tuesday. The subject for today is Iraq.

A report from Newsweek suggests that Bush will hold off on replacing Rumsfeld until “after Dec. 29 ‘as a personal gesture to Rumsfeld.’ On that date Rumsfeld would become the longest-serving Defense secretary, beating Robert McNamara’s record of 85 months.” Which is, of course, perfectly reasonable because it’s not like there are any defense-related problems that demand action in the next month.

Even if it’s purely symbolic, the symbolism seems pretty hard to wrap my mind around. Rumsfeld is already high up on the list for worst Defense secretaries, do we really need to call even more attention to him by making him the longest-serving one, too?

* * *

As for Iraq, it’s a civil war. It’s not an insurgency. It’s a civil war. Almost two-thirds of the American people know this is true. Even some major media sources are finally coming around. The Talking Points Memo suggests that while it might not meet some definitions of civil war, it is arguably even worse: the anarchy of a failed state.

This is not just an esoteric debate about terminology – there are real consequences to the obfuscation. If it were generally understood to be a civil war, public disillusionment would grow over continued troop presence and with the Administration for getting us into this mess.

Potentially even more important, however, is the way that the threat of civil war comes to frame the entire premise of the war. As long as what we are up against is an insurgency, the perception of the US as a liberator and bringer of democracy is able to hold. Against the chaos, we hold the line. However, once we understand that it is already a civil war (and has been for a long time), the narrative changes. Not only have US forces been unable to enforce the peace, we must begin to realize that it was a false hope from the very beginning.

This problem cannot be solved militarily, even if we had twice as many troops, because it is a question of the hearts and minds of those in Iraq, not a simple matter of military aggression. There is a war, but it is not against the United States except insofar as we created the conditions for it and will inevitably be perceived as taking sides.

The point of this is that the hard decisions about Iraq policy to come may be less meaningful than we might expect. Whether it is the Baker Commission recommendations, the Bush Administration’s plan, or some other option that comes from Gates or the Democrats, any policy is likely to continue to strive for an honorable exit, one that does not diminish the United States. I worry that the debates about which approach best accomplishes this goal will obscure the reality: none of them can. Violence will escalate if we withdraw, but it probably also will if stay. And even if it does not, there is no peace to be had–no light at the end of the tunnel–and the troops cannot stay there forever. If not now, they will return in two years. Or three, or four.

Even those who see a path to eventual peace, such as Andrew Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, only see it coming if the US commits to many more years of full troop presence AND fundamentally alters its basic assumptions about the readiness of Iraqi forces. The problem is that public support only remains as high as it does because of the obfuscation that suggests we are close to finishing the job. It is impossible to imagine willingness to support an explicit commitment to five or six more years, at the least.

That is the paradox: we cannot possibly “win” unless we admit how much it will take and how far away it really is. But it is politically impossible to do so–even McCain and his buddies calling for 20,000 more troops are still miles away from a true assessment of the situation.

The sad reality is that there is no solution, a point made eloquently by Chuck Hagel, Republican Senator from Nebraska, in Sunday’s Washington Post: “Militaries are built to fight and win wars, not bind together failing nations. We are once again learning a very hard lesson in foreign affairs: America cannot impose a democracy on any nation — regardless of our noble purpose.” He is right – there is next to nothing we can do for Iraq now and the only option may be to withdraw.

This is thoroughly unsatisfying, as it admits that we will be abandoning the country to violence and chaos for the forseeable future. Not just that, but we must do so while recognizing that we are at fault for creating the situation and powerless to stop it. But guilt cannot and should not convince us to keep making the same mistake in the hope that if we refuse to admit the reality of the situation, it will somehow change. Some situations cannot be fixed no matter how much it pains our souls.

This will be a hard pill to swallow, and I don’t expect significant changes anytime soon. The new Democratic majority, elected in part because of the failure of our current policy, may have a slightly firmer grip on reality, but they will still insist on finding a workable solution. This may be better than the reign of Rumsfeld, but I fear that the search for a solution will only get them as attached to the controversy in a manner that will do little to help us get out.

In the end, I fear the only resolution we can gain from Iraq is to learn a lesson that we ought have understood after Vietnam: overwhelming military strength is a blunt instrument and is no substitute for wisdom.

* * *

Speaking of Vietnam, we have recently passed another worrying milestone. As of Sunday, the Iraq war has lasted longer than US involvement in World War II. Only the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, and Vietnam lasted longer, and we’re only a few months away from passing the Civil War. Of the remaining two, it would serve us well to remember that in both cases the ragtag insurgent forces soundly defeated an opposing force with overwhelming military and economic advantages.

Exploring the parallels between Iraq and Vietnam is a lengthy endeavor and may be the subject of a future post, but suffice to say: there are many, and they are not encouraging.

* * *

What was it all for? Andrew Greeley has a polemical and emotional answer: “all these losses, all this suffering, all these shattered families were unnecessary.” I agree with him that the most depressing part of the Iraq war is the sense of futility it inspires. Death is never good, but there are many causes worth dying for: freedom, justice, a safe future where people have more oppoortunities to choose the course of their life. All of these ideals were invoked for this war (both for our country and for Iraq), but it is difficult to see how it has helped lead us toward any of them.

There may not be an answer to that question, but it is of vital importance that it continue to be asked. This point was made clearly before the war even began, by Sleater-Kinney. In a time when this country was filled with grief after 9-11 they were one of the few voices to rise in protest. In August of 2002, they released One Beat, which in my book is the best album of their long and prolific career.

With the possible challenger of Springsteen’s The Rising, this is the definitive musical engagement with America’s political identity in the first years of the 21st century. And while I do love The Rising, it is a little too inwardly focused to truly rise to the call. As a study of our reactions to tragedy, it is essential. As a call to arms and demand for a more honest assessment of the state of the world, nothing matches Sleater-Kinney.

Combat Rock

Paying homage to the Clash song of the same name, this song questions the uniformity of response to 9-11 and notes the dearth of musical protest to the Administration’s responses: “Our country’s marching to the beat now / And we must learn to step in time / Where is the questioning? Where is the protest song?” In this void, they begin to ask questions that should have been on the minds of everyone, most notably:

Are we innocent, paragons of good?
Is our guilt erased by the pain that we’ve endured?

The answer to these questions may also be the answer to the question I posed: “what was it all for?” The sad truth may very well be that this war is the result of our fear and desire for vengeance. With remarkable prescience, they foretold what was to come: a show of brute force accepting by the public because it helped reassure us of the power and glory of the United States. It worked for awhile, but as the situation fails improve, more innocents die, and US hegemony looks to be more and more of a chimera the haze is slowly lifting.

The only question now is whether we’ve learned our lesson or if history will have to repeat itself again and again.

* * *

Yet another depressing factoid: the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will catapult past the $500 billion mark in 2007. 500 billion dollars. With that amount of money, we could have guaranteed health care for every American, relieved the crushing debt of every country in the global South, invested a ton of money in renewable energy, and given everyone in the country a $20 gift certificate at Ikea while they were at it.

Final Straw

R.E.M. released this song as a free MP3 in 2003, in an effort to encourage restraint and thoughtful consideration. In contrast to the fiery tone of most political songs, this one is far more introspective, asking us to reflect on the choices we make. In accepting our weakness, we have much more capacity to take truly bold actions. A country driven by fear created the Iraq war; a country driven by love could have created better lives for millions. It is a harder route, but it is worth taking.

Orbit is yet another blast from my post-grunge, pre-indie rock days growing up in the Pacific Northwest. They were one Pixies/Replacements influenced band among many, but I always thought they had quite a bit more talent than the rest. They got some modest airplay with “Medicine” about 10 years ago, if my memory is accurate, but never really hit the big-time and they broke up a few years later.

Medicine

They didn’t leave a particularly long or noteworthy catalogue but this song is definitely worth checking out if you are into big hooks and want a reminder that the mid 90s alternative sound really had a lot going for it. It’s off their major-label debut Libido Speedway, which is a more gritty version of Better Than Ezra (yet another mid 90s band that doesn’t get as much credit as they deserve these days), or a more melodic (and, to be fair, less talented) version of the Pixies. Other songs worth checking out if you get the chance include “Bicycle Song,” “Wake Up,” and “Nocturnal Overdrive.”

Anyone who’s read here long knows about my love for Stars, producers of my #4 album from 2005 and one of my favorite songs of all-time.

Given that I was very excited at the chance to hear the new record from Memphis, Torquil Campbell’s collaboration with Chris Dumont. Though it’s been out for a several months in Canada, A Little Place in the Wilderness can still only be had by import in our poor, unenlightened nation.

I tried to write a review that didn’t fall into the trap of simply comparing it to Stars, but the elephant in the room wouldn’t stop pestering me. So I’m going to give into the cliche and apologize now for not being more creative, with the small caveat that it’s their own fault for casting such a long and impressive shadow.

First things first: my favorite Stars songs (Elevator Love Letter, Calendar Girl, Ageless Beauty, Your Ex-Lover is Dead) bear a striking similarity – they are all sung primarily or completely by Amy Millan. This shouldn’t be surprising, since she has one of the most exhilarating voices on the planet. Still, I’ve often felt that this imbalance was not necessarily reflective of the mutually supportive strengths of the band. i.e. – she may have the pipes, but he is the creator of the landscapes on which she can work. A comparison of their solo works seems to bear this out. Her Honey From the Tombs was pleasant enough but was simply too flat to do her voice full justice.

On the other hand, A Little Place in the Wilderness, while not living up to the heights of the past two Stars records, has a lot to recommend it. Most basically, it continues the trend of Campbell playing songs that would make Morrissey proud. In fact, part of me can’t help but wish that the best songs here had simply found their way onto the next Stars record, where Millan’s voice could have worked its magic and made them even better.

Still, this is not simply a Stars record sans Ms. Millan. It is more diverse in sound, with less of a glittery sheen as synths are toned down and they make some room for the music to relax. Where Stars songs glide, Memphis songs tend to bounce. Moreover, emotions run more free and less is at stake; heartbreak is not entirely removed, but it is quite so engulfing a presence. Arrangements and themes are subtle and (for the most part) deftly handled.

There are missteps. Two of the tracks that sound the least like they could end up on a Stars album (the jazzy-pop of “Incredibly Drunk on Whiskey” and the atmospheric spoken-word “A Ghost Story”) are among my least favorite. The former because it overstays its welcome by a couple minutes, moving from bouncy to jarring. The latter simply because what is presumably meant to sound sinister only manages to produce dissonance and boredom.

At their best, though, Memphis buck the looming presence of Campbell’s other band and produce jangly chamber pop with attitude. As on these tracks:

I’ll Do Whatever You Want
In the Cinema Alone

The horns which drive “I’ll Do Whatever You Want” are about as catchy as anything I’ve heard this year. And the final minute of “In the Cinema Alone” is an almost perfect marriage of voice, strings, and horns.

Other tracks well worth a listen include the understated and elegant title track, the atmospheric “Time Away” and the loose instrumental “Swallows and Amazons.”

A final thought. This record is something of a mirror image of Ys (which I discussed yesterday). That album has received effusive praise which I perfectly understand but can’t really get behind. A Little Place in the Wilderness, on the other hand, has been the victim of a number of scathing reviews (from Stylus, for example), which make a lot of points I can’t really argue with. It’s not the most groundbreaking work and does suffer from a lack of clear purpose.

That said, I’m enjoying it and will almost certainly continue to do so long after I’ve thrown in the towel on Ys. The world may already contain a lot of pleasant Smiths-influenced pop music, but that’s certainly no reason to be sad about another strong entry into the field.

It’s the Illinois for 2006 – the innovative, expansive, and bold record that has quickly become everyone’s favorite of the year – so I feel obliged to at least mention Ys, the sophomore effort from post-post-rock, classical-folk-harpist Joanna Newsom.

Let me first kill any music-snob cred I may have had and say this: I can’t deal with her voice. I’ve tried, but I can’t. It’s less grating than on The Milk-Eyed Mender (a record I on-and-off enjoyed in spite of this), but it still is a serious impediment to my appreciation of her music.

As for the record itself, is it the best of the year? It’s hard to say. I guess it might be the best, but it certainly has no chance of being my favorite. I don’t dislike it, but neither does it appeal to me all that much.

If you don’t want to read the extended explanation for why, check out the review on I Rock Cleveland which sums up everything I’m going to say far more succinctly.

Everyone says you have to give it time, so I suppose there’s a chance I’ll grow to love it. But I’ve already given it more than a few spins and it still isn’t doing too much for me. Perhaps I’m simply too wedded to, y’know, tunes and choruses and stuff, but I can’t ever imagine this being among my favorites. An artistic achievement, sure. Sonically complex and lyrically challenging, absolutely. More fun to listen to than some verse-chorus-verse indie pop? Nope. To be completely frank, it’s more than a little bit boring. Or, if “boring” is not quite the right word, how about “unable to hold my attention.”

I will say that, despite averaging over 11 minutes per song, it seems to go by much quicker than I expected. Still, I’m not sure whether that’s a positive (it never dragged) or a negative (it rarely grabbed me enough to keep me focused). It’s probably some of both, but it can’t be entirely a good sign that after a fair number of times though I couldn’t hum a bar of any song or even tell you anything distinguishing about one of them. There are a lot of interesting moments, but none that stood out long enough for me to process them and remember, so the whole record still feels like a bit of a blur.

Once again, this might be a situation where if I can ever get myself to give it enough of a chance, I might finally “get” it. That said, I never have enough time in the day to listen to the music I already love, so I’m not sure how much time I’m willing to invest trying to force myself to like this. It may have to just be something where I appreciate the skill that went into it, but personally take a pass on it.

I certainly wouldn’t condemn anyone who rates it highly, though I am a bit surprised at the almost universal lauding it has received. I mean, I don’t dislike the record and would probably give it a solid 7/10 for ambition, skill, and scope, if not for melody. But based on the current Metacritic rankings that would be the third-to-last score. No one else finds it endlessly meandering? No one wants to declare the orchestration intrusive? Her voice doesn’t bug anyone else? Is everyone so happy to find a record that sounds different that they’re willing to overlook imperfections that would inspire scathing reviews in other contexts?

Or do I really hate this record more than just about everyone? It doesn’t feel like I hate it, but the numbers don’t lie…

As I said, the songs are insanely long and I’m not going to burn 20 megs to host one of them, but I’m sure you could find your way to listen to a few via the Hype Machine, or on eMusic. Given how many people will make it their #1 for the year, it’s certainly worth hearing so you can make up your own mind.

Just in case you haven’t already stumbled into it already elsewhere on the interwebs, I thought I would join the crowd posting about the first legally available track from the Shins’ highly anticipated Wincing the Night Away:

Phantom Limb

This song has been making the rounds in the blogosphere like a presidential candidate in New Hampshire, and the general consensus is “good, but…shouldn’t there be a little more?”

I don’t have a whole lot to add, except to say it’s at least a minute too long – there are some very nice moments, but it can’t really sustain 5 minutes. And, I hate to say it, but it really could use a more forceful chorus to give it some more oomph. The “oooh, waooohs” are very pretty but the whole one-extended-verse thing just doesn’t seem to quite work for me this time around.

Anyways, those are minor complaints and while “Phantom Limb” certainly isn’t “New Slang,” “Kissing the Lipless,” Fighting in a Sack,” it’s more than good enough to keep excitement levels high for the full record.

Head over to Subpop to get the Phantom Limb single, including two exclusive B-sides. And mark January 23 on your calendars for the release of Wincing the Night Away.

Things I am thankful for (a very inexhaustive list):

– Friends and family. Particularly, getting to spend Thanksgiving with 5 good friends

– My friend Scott’s vegetarian stuffing, which I will soon be eating, and which will be delicious.

– The Democrats finally winning an election

– George R. R. Martin’s series “A Song of Ice and Fire,” which I am one book into so far. It may be the best fantasy (ahem…speculative fiction) series I’ve read in years.

– Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m watching season 4 now and just saw “Hush” which was everything it was hyped to be.

– Elevator Love Letter by Stars.