Fluxblog 389: Cat Power • Liz Phair • PJ Harvey • Tori Amos • Hole
Plus a "universe" playlist for the Old Kanye
This week’s set of posts have a loose theme – songs from 1998 by a set of major female artists from the period who were all a few albums deep into their career and writing from a more mature perspective. In each of the posts I tried to focus in on the emotional center of the music, and in doing so I think I got to something essential to each of these artists.
But first…
This week’s playlist is KANYE WEST UNIVERSE VOL. 1, an in-depth retrospective of the rap auteur’s early work on through his ascension to superstar status on Graduation in 2007. This collection includes his production work, features, and sample sources for some of his best songs from this era. I know Kanye is a bit much to handle these days, but let’s never forget how brilliant he was through this era on through the eventual second volume, which will cover 808s and Heartbreaks on through Yeezus. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
Here’s the full track listing for this one:
This newsletter is free, but the work that goes into making Fluxblog and the playlists and the podcast etc takes up a lot of my time. I don’t like pestering people into signing up for the Patreon or doing one-time donations on Ko-Fi, but I will say that right now would be an excellent time to do this as I’m in very precarious economic situation. Your donations are always appreciated, but I can say for sure that right now they’re more appreciated than ever.
The Difficult Parts
Cat Power “American Flag”
Chan Marshall spends most of her time in “American Flag” singing about drummers, marveling at some magic power they have – playing rhythm, sure, but it seems more like she’s amazed by people who can be so steady and locked into objective time. They’re held up as a standard by which she falls short, and so she trails off at the end of verses: “If I could stand to be less difficult…” Marshall’s phrasing – in both senses of the word – cuts deep in this recording, you can extrapolate so much complicated history and self-torment from how she utters “be less difficult.” She sings it with a mixture of shame and resignation and resentment, like it’s something she’s been told too many times and it got under her skin enough for it to become internalized. The song seems to begin and end with ellipses, like she’s just trapped in this feeling and that makes a lot of sense since it’s basically a song about recognizing you’re trapped in a narrative and haven’t figured out a way to write yourself out of it.
Buy it from Amazon.
Cool, Tall, Vulnerable, And Luscious
Liz Phair “Perfect World”
“Perfect World” is a song about low-grade envy, a “grass is always greener on the other side” sort of feeling that makes you feel like there’s always something better than what you have and who you are. And like, there is? There’s no “having it all” so there’s always something someone else has that you just can’t have. Liz Phair embodies that feeling in this song, but then puts a twist on it at the end of the chorus – I’d like to be this and that, but even if I changed everything I’d still want to be with you. The “you” of it doesn’t even seem like a factor through a lot of this, it’s like she’s carried away in the thought but get pulled back to reality by a real life love. Even in the bridge when she imagines the women in his world – “just sitting next to a mortal makes their skin crawl” – there’s still the sense that those women don’t matter as much to him as she does, and she’s loved for exactly who she is. (And surely those women have entered the thought of being cool and talented like her.) Phair’s melodies and harmony parts in this song are gorgeous, particularly on that bridge, but it’s a low key sort of loveliness. The song is beautiful but doesn’t strain to be pretty, there’s little bits of darkness and unsanded edges to it. She wishes to be cool, tall, vulnerable, and luscious in the hook, and I think she attains three of the four in the song.
Buy it from Amazon.
Prettiest Mess You’ve Ever Seen
PJ Harvey “Angelene”
Polly Jean Harvey excels at writing character sketch songs but tends to shy away from implying a full narrative. “Angelene” in particular feels more like an informal portrait, like the musical equivalent of a raw candid Nan Goldin photograph. The lyrics are written in blunt, direct language from Angelene’s perspective – she’s a sex worker, she’s jaded, she imagines escape in the broad abstraction of a place two thousand miles away. The vagueness of her idea of a better life adds a lot of pathos to a song with a lot already built in, she seems so worn down by her low expectations and unsatisfying experiences that it’s dulled her imagination and limited her hopes. The music sounds grey and desolate, Harvey sings the verses with a weathered tone and the choruses like wind blowing on a cold beach. The song cycles back to the opening line at the end and trails off, ending ambiguously but also giving you some reason to believe poor Angelene is never getting two thousand miles away.
Buy it from Amazon.
Devils End Up Like You
Tori Amos “She’s Your Cocaine”
“She’s Your Cocaine” is a very late ‘90s sort of love triangle song in which Tori Amos sings from the perspective of a woman totally exasperated by her ex going off with some seemingly toxic woman who’s pushing him towards what she interprets as tacky self-destruction but to me just sounds like a cool androgynous goth vibe. The song revels in her pettiness without any apologies, the point isn’t that we’re supposed to side with her in this but rather that most anyone can relate to feeling like this burning “oh fuck them” resentment. This is an atypically heavy song for Amos, one that churns with an industrial glam aesthetic not too far off from what The Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson were up to around this time. She throws herself into the sound, playing up the spite of its relatively normie POV character while embodying the sexy menace of this other woman she finds so threatening. By the end of the song she shifts to just roasting this dude – “you sign ‘Prince of Darkness’ / try ’Squire of Dimness’” – and that seems like a healthy place to leave it. He’s fully removed from the pedestal she put him on, and he’s just something she can laugh at now.
Buy it from Amazon.
It Might As Well Hurt
Hole “Use Once and Destroy”
“Use Once and Destroy” has a violent, churning sound and feels enormous in scope, like a raging storm in the middle of the ocean. Courtney Love’s voice sings with equal parts defiance and despair, vowing to rescue someone she cares about but knows she will almost certainly fail. She’s angry, resentful, and emotionally exhausted. She knows she’s about to hurt herself doing this.
I hear this as a love song. This is devotion and passion on a grand scale, and as difficult and tragic as it is, it seems a bit enviable too. What really gets to me about this song is that the love is so unconditional – she hates the mess they’re in, she hates having to try to clean it up. But she’s willing to give up a lot for them, and is trying to find strength enough for both of them. When you consider Love’s biography, and that she was only a few years out from the suicide of her husband, the song becomes even more agonizing and poignant – is this a fantasy about saving him? Is this the person she wishes she could’ve been for him? Is this really just regret?
Buy it from Amazon.
LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS
• Here’s Rob Sheffield on Pavement’s four nights at King’s Theater in Brooklyn. I attended all four, but I won’t write/talk about it until after I see one more show in Washington, D.C. this week.
• Here’s Eater on the aesthetic shift in how people photograph food on Instagram, and I think it’s a good microcosm of broader shifts in style going on right now.