Fluxblog 425: New Pornographers Universe
Plus new songs by Feeble Little Horse, Christine and the Queens, and Jenny Lewis
This week’s playlist is THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS UNIVERSE, a collective career retrospective for the Canadian supergroup including the solo works of AC Newman, Destroyer, Neko Case, Kathryn Calder, and Todd Fancey, plus other bands featuring New Pornos mainstays. The first run of songs is definitely a juvenilia phase, but they all really figure it out around 2000 and from there on out it’s some of the best and smartest rock music of this era. [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
Here’s the annotated track listing…
There’s a nice long interview with me about Fluxblog and my playlist projects on Margaret Welsh’s newsletter this week. Check it out, and subscribe!
Review of the first Interpol EP in Vice in 2002 - a great example of the snide clever insider tone of music writing around the time I started Fluxblog.
You Can Score When It’s Overtime
Feeble Little Horse “Freak”
“Freak” sounds like a melange of musically ambitious 90s indie rock – a little bit Chavez, some Built to Spill and Dinosaur Jr, a lot of Helium – but packed very densely into a song that doesn’t even crack the two minute mark. The first few times I listened to this I wasn’t paying very close attention to the lyrics and heard the chorus as “I know you want me to freak,” which feels like a pretty common sentiment for contemporary indie. But no, it’s actually it’s “I know you want me, freak” and the whole song is about lusting for a 6’5” sports star and resenting his tiny little girlfriend. This is so much more interesting to me, much more like something Liz Phair might have written if she had a different type back in her 20s. Lydia Slocum’s words are direct but shielded somewhat by humor, giving the impression that while this probably isn’t going anywhere, she’s more disappointed by that then she’s letting on.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
Let Me Pray For My Salvation, Baby
Christine and the Queens “Tears Can Be So Soft”
It’s not just that “Tears Can Be So Soft” sounds like Portishead, Tricky, and Massive Attack in the mid 90s. Plenty of artists have aimed for that and ended up with songs that were just OK. This song actually nails the stoned groove magic of the Bristol cohort while pushing it in a very different and far more melodramatic direction in the way Chris sings it, splitting the difference between earthy R&B moves and a more theatrical bombast that reminds me of Amy Lee of Evanescence. The lyrics are fairly despondent, lamenting a loss of so many key things in life – family, love, joy – but embracing crying as an act of cleansing catharsis. The vocal is emotionally raw and compelling, but I think the biggest reason this song works is the studio work by rap production legend Mike Dean, who I think brought a lot of nuance to the beat and got just the right ratio of menace, melancholy, and romance out of a central Marvin Gaye sample.
Buy it from Amazon.
A Little Bit Wiser Every Day
Jenny Lewis “Joy’all”
Carrie Courogen wrote an essay this week on her newsletter about the new Jenny Lewis record Joy’all, mostly very frustrated with the banality of Lewis’ lyrics on this album, at least relative to her previous work. Carrie’s a terrific writer and makes some good points, but her piece mainly made me realize how differently I’ve been approaching Lewis over the years. I think she’s written some great lyrics, particularly on the Rilo Kiley album More Adventurous, but that’s just never been a major point of connection for me with her songs. I’m much more interested in how she writes melody and arranges songs, and the main draw has always been the warm, personable quality of her singing. Lewis always sounds like a cool friend, one who has intriguing drama in their life and a lot of good advice for you. I think this is crucial to why she’s developed such a loyal audience, but also explains why someone like Carrie could be put off by her not saying anything very interesting. Sometimes our friends get boring, and you love them still but you lose some active interest until something changes. Sometimes everyone is boring.
I don’t think the song “Joy’all” is boring at all, but again, I’m mainly listening to the bass groove and the vocal melody here. I like the way the bass part feels vaguely sinister, but also fun and flirty. I also like the way it slides very naturally into a much brighter and warmer chorus with deliberately goofy lyrics instructing the listeners to “follow your joy’all.” I think Lewis understood that if she wanted to get across this sort of sentiment the odds were very unlikely she could do it and also sound cool, so she decided to push the goofiness to an extreme where that chorus line rhymes with “not a toy, y’all” and “not a boy, y’all.” It’s silly pop music logic, and this wouldn’t be the first time she’s indulged in that. It’s a winning strategy that embraces the reality that lyrics are often not the point of a song.
Buy it from Amazon.
LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS
• Tatiana Tenreyro wrote a cool profile of Jenny Lewis for the NME.
• Obviously I’m on board with this New York Times “letter of recommendation” by Brian Dillon advocating reading old magazines as a way of understanding the past.
The TNP Universe playlist is amazing—I never really dug into all of the early and side projects so thanks for the one-stop shopping!
Also, I feel like you're uniquely qualified to do a sub-playlist of all of A.C. Newman's lyrical comic book references :D
I'm sure I'm missing a bunch—
- "Challengers" ("of the unknown")
- Zumpano "Behind the Beehive" (FF, Adam Warlock debut)
- "The Laws Have Changed" ("hero for hire")
- "Adventures in Solitude" (maybe a stretch but I thought of The Twelve when I heard "the best of the vanished marvels"?)