Fluxblog Weekly #7: Bully, Holly Herndon, Spoon, Swim Good x Merival, and Shamir
I am particularly happy with what I wrote about "believing in rock" in the Spoon section of this email, so please do read that, if nothing else.
June 15th, 2015
You Keep Living Incompletely
Bully “Sharktooth”
I’m still not over the novelty of there being several young women making very good, very dynamic, very provocative iterations of mid-90s alt-rock in 2015. I suppose there is a certain inevitability about 20 year fashion cycles in music, but it still seems to me like a resource that had become incredibly scarce is now suddenly abundant. Bully lean in hard on the soft/loud dynamics, but I think what makes them interesting is in the way they lace in bits of glam with the grunge, and how Alicia Bognanno spits out her lines with an acidic whine that’s very similar to Royal Trux’s Jennifer Herrema. That affect is perfect for a song like “Sharktooth,” which is basically just Bognanno telling off some guy who sounds like he may be a junkie, but is definitely kind of a lowlife either way.
Buy it from Amazon.
June 16th, 2015
I Will Be Gone
Holly Herndon “Morning Sun”
Holly Herndon’s music is done few favors by her most fawning press, which tends to indulge the contrived gallery “artist’s statement” rhetorical of her promotional materials and talks about technology in a way that already seems hopelessly behind the curve. I’m sure Herndon believes what she’s saying and is no kind of idiot, but she’s falling into trap for many contemporary artists, particularly those whose work is mostly abstract: A desire to over-explain the themes they have in mind because they apparently have no faith for their audience to intuit them with just the art itself. I totally understand this, particularly as a person who has gone through art school and has first-hand experience with this sort of thing, but it bugs me because it combines the worst of pandering to media and anxiety about being misunderstood.
Herndon’s music works just fine on its own. It is not a lecture about technology and capitalism, and it is better for that. Herndon is a very gifted composer, and is particularly good with texture and layering, and in letting her tracks gradually build without a forced sense of drama. “Morning Sun” is a pastoral folk song at its core, but it’s inside a tangled net of electronic tones and clicks. The sound implies a natural world in harmony with a synthetic one, but the song doesn’t aggressively nudge you into thinking about that. You just enter the world of the song, and live inside it, and it can just be a simple, lovely thing.
Buy it from Amazon.
June 17th, 2015 12:30pm
When You Believe, They Call It Rock & Roll
Spoon @ Kings Theatre 6/16/2015
Rent I Pay / Knock Knock Knock / Don’t You Evah / The Way We Get By / Small Stakes / My Mathematical Mind / The Ghost of You Lingers / Satellite / The Beast and Dragon, Adored / I Turn My Camera On / Do You / The Fitted Shirt / I Summon You / Rainy Taxi / Inside Out / Don’t Make Me A Target / Got Nuffin // Outlier / Anything You Want / TV Set /// Black Like Me / You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb / The Underdog
I don’t need to tell you that Spoon are an excellent band and play very good shows for the 20th time. You either know this already from your own experience, or should trust me on that.
Spoon “The Beast and Dragon, Adored”
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how rock music has marginalized itself by becoming convinced that it doesn’t matter anymore. This idea starts somewhere in the ‘90s, but really takes hold in the early ‘00s. It manifests itself in many ways – a majority of rock artists preferring to be niche than aim for a larger mainstream audience, bands embracing a retro pastiche sound with the implication that “it’s all been done,” musicians favoring electronic instruments and/or folky aesthetics because they want to distance themselves from “rock.” In some cases, these are logical artistic tangents, and an understandable response to decades of rock primacy. A lot of great music came out of this. Even the bands who really went for it and made ambitious work aimed for a large audience seemed to operate on the assumption that they were either working around rock as a genre, or that they were ultimately making music that didn’t “matter” as much as the rap and electronic music of their day. And for the most part that’s true. But here’s the thing: It might only have been true because they decided it would be.
There is no reason for the public at large to believe in art made by people who don’t believe in their own work. From the ‘60s on through most of the ‘90s, people who played rock music really believed in the cultural relevance of what they were doing, and that belief is crucial in making the audience agree that it is. It was corny to say “I believe in rock,” but lots of people said things to that effect, and totally meant it. You can mock that now, but regardless of what subgenre of rock we’re talking about, it’s all the same — it’s all built on the conviction that the music matters.
One of the smartest things I’ve ever read about rock music, or any kind of performative art for that matter, was a thing a pre-Sonic Youth Kim Gordonwrote in Art Forum about a PiL show in 1983: “People pay to see others believe in themselves.” It’s really as simple as that. When rock musicians, en masse, decided that the didn’t believe in their own genre, a lot of people who cared about self-belief moved on to hip-hop, a genre obsessed with self-affirmation, and EDM, which is about people coming together to will a transcendent experience into existence. And they embraced pop divas, who have all the same iconic swagger as the old rock stars. They paid to see different people believe in themselves.
“The Beast and Dragon, Adored” is essentially about this. Britt Daniel is one of the few notable rock artists of his generation who I think truly believes in rock music, and it shows in the soul of his performances, and his band’s refusal to either abandon the best and sexiest elements of classic rock or simply make the same old music with the same old sounds. When Spoon performs “The Beast and Dragon, Adored,” Daniel sings the chorus with great urgency, like this great epiphany in a song from a decade ago is still fresh in his mind. I think what he says here is the key to making great rock music, and great art in general:
I got a feeling, it didn’t come free
I got a feeling and then it got to me
When you don’t feel it, it shows
they tear out your soul
And when you believe they call it rock and roll
I don’t know if the world really needs rock music to ever be at the center of popular music. I’m honestly not sure if ~any~ genre can do that now, the way people consume music and think about genre is so different these days. But I do believe this: If rock musicians can learn to believe in rock again, the audience will follow.
Buy it from Amazon.
June 18th, 2015
Perfect For Each Other
Swim Good x Merival “Since U Asked”
I love the lateral progression of this song – it seems as though it’s set up for something like a verse/chorus/verse structure, but then just drifts through other moods instead. It feels more like a complete thought this way, with the lead vocals establishing a theme and a feeling of incredible intimacy before going to an emotional place where words would only get in the way. (“Words are meaningless and forgettable,” as Depeche Mode would say.) The vocal performance by Merival is lovely, but the samples may be even better, particularly the snippet of piano from Blur’s “Sweet Song” that provides the frame for the first half of the piece. It’s all so fragile and pretty, it feels too delicate to hold together for long.
Get it from Soundcloud.
June 19th, 2015
Fantasy Meets Reality
Shamir @ Music Hall of Williamsburg 6/17/2015
Vegas / In for the Kill / On the Regular / I Know It’s A Good Thing / Hot Mess / Make A Scene / Christmas Card / Demon / Youth / Darker / Call It Off / Head in the Clouds / I’ll Never Be Able to Love
Shamir “Vegas”
Shamir is an incredibly magnetic performer, and so effortlessly charming and talented that I’m absolutely certain that he’s on the precipice of stardom. He definitely has the songs, but even the best of those are improved greatly by his physical presence and the simple thrill of hearing the bass loud enough that it forces your body to move. Shamir had complete control over the audience at this show, and while most everyone who came were already sold on him, I am sure that this would be the case with most any crowd. This was a great show, but I’m excited to see him again when he’s a bit bigger, and the audience is full of raving stans.
Buy it from Amazon.