Fluxblog Weekly #82: A Tribe Called Quest, Thee Oh Sees, Lady Wray, Depeche Mode, R.E.M.
This week's issue of the newsletter includes one extra post about R.E.M.'s "Low" taken from my old Pop Songs blog, in which I wrote about every R.E.M. song up through 2005. A deluxe reissue of Out of Time is out this week, and now felt like a good time to highlight one of my favorite entries from that project.
November 14th, 2016
Extensions Of Instinctual Soul
A Tribe Called Quest “Dis Generation”
“Dis Generation” is as much about passing the torch to a new generation of rappers – Kendrick Lamar, Joey Bada$$, J. Cole, and Earl Sweatshirt are specifically named as heirs – as it is a celebration of the Tribe guys and Busta Rhymes still making excellent music together into their mid-40s. Like pretty much everything on the new Tribe record, it’s a joy to hear these guys again, especially when it’s so obvious that everything on the record was done with a sense of creative urgency and genuine enthusiasm. There’s a casual confidence to this music – any and all worry that they’re out of step with trends has long since evaporated, and every rapper on the track leans into the tics, rhythms and quirks that made them distinct in the first place. They trade off lines, not verses, so they sound especially present, and there’s moments when Busta or Q-Tip sound impatient and excited to get another turn at the mic. They just sound thrilled to be doing this with each other while they still can.
Buy it from Amazon.
November 15th, 2016
A Face Overrun With Fear
Thee Oh Sees “At the End, On the Stairs”
A live show by Thee Oh Sees tends to veer back and forth between the band’s two primary modes – frantic bursts of garage punk, and hypnotic Krautrock grooves. It’s all driving rhythm, all the time. This stuff slays live, and John Dwyer knows exactly how to keep people dancing and moshing through his band’s entire set. But on record, Dwyer’s psychedelic palette is much more expansive. “At the End, On the Stairs” absorbs elements from bossanova and jangly folk rock, and places its emphasis on Dwyer’s vocal melody and the soft, feminine qualities of his voice. The sound suits him well, and is something I’d love to hear him expand on in the future. I mean, this is a lovely tune and all, but I’d be lying if I didn’t mention that I kinda wish at some point in this track he switched gears, shouted “woooooo!” and everything got louder and faster. The song doesn’t require that sort of payoff, but I’d like to hear him do a thing like that.
Buy it from Amazon.
November 16th, 2016
Show Me All Your Teeth
Lady Wray “Smilin'”
It’s interesting how a decade and a half of R&B revivalism has resulted in music rooted in ‘60s and ‘70s aesthetics no longer sounding retro, per se. Time has looped around so someone could hear Lady Wray’s record and hear Adele, Solange, or Amy Winehouse rather than Motown or Stax, and be totally justified in that. Lady Wray doesn’t sing like someone stuck in the past. The production feels more retro than the song itself, and Wray’s vocal performance has a toughness that’s a lot more Mary J. Blige than Aretha Franklin. You can hear it in the guarded optimism in her voice – “Smilin’” puts a positive spin on troubles, but she sounds like she’s prepared to be heartbroken and disappointed.
Buy it from Amazon.
November 17th, 2016
Suffer With Pride
Depeche Mode “Condemnation”
“Condemnation” is Depeche Mode playing against type, at least on a surface level. It’s essentially a gospel ballad, and the synthesizers and drum machines that define most of their work are either sidelined or minimized in the arrangement. Whereas most of their work is programmed and produced in a way that doesn’t attempt to simulate the notion of a “live” performance, “Condemnation” very much sounds like music played in a physical space. You can hear the room, and the reverberations of the snare hits. Dave Gahan’s vocal performance seems very physical too, with his inflections and stresses suggesting a strained, grimacing face.
As much as “Condemnation” is an atypical Depeche Mode song, it’s representative of Martin Gore’s strengths as a songwriter. Lyrically, it’s a good example of his obsession with guilt and shame. There’s two ways of reading this one: It’s either a song from the perspective of someone who’s literally been put on trial for a crime he says he hasn’t committed but is resigning himself to condemnation, or it’s from the perspective of someone who is hyperbolically imagining themselves as being persecuted in this way. Either way, it’s about making yourself a martyr, and it’s a very Martin Gore sort of pessimistic melodramatic fantasy.
It’s also a fine example of Gore’s intriguing way around a melody. Gore’s melodies are strong and accessible, but always veer slightly out of expected paths. I wonder how much of this is just his natural instincts, or if he writes a more expected melody first and revises it a bit to make it more interesting and distinctive. It’s all rather subtle, but it’s a key part of what makes his songs work, particularly when he’s venturing into the realm of genre pastiche as he is here.
Buy it from Amazon.
R.E.M. "Low"
May 2, 2007
Michael Stipe avoided writing straightforward love songs throughout the ’80s, and though he clearly had a lot of other things on his mind at the time, I suspect that the primary reason for this was that love was a deeply unfashionable subject matter in the post-punk era. As far as love songs go, the lyrics on Out Of Time are rather tentative and guarded, and clearly come from a person who seems unconvinced that he could tackle the issue without ending up with something boring and trite. What we get on the album is a rather common dodge — yeah, it’s about love, but it’s about fucked-up love, man! (The flip side of this is also in evidence on the record — lyrics that express a love so absurdly cheerful and optimistic that the listener is forced to assume that the band is being sarcastic.)
The music and lyrics of “Low” depict a love dulled and obscured by the haze of clinical depression. The arrangement shifts subtly throughout the track, but its gently rumbling percussion and somber organ drone lend the composition a quiet, static quality that approximates the endless, hopeless present tense of severe depression. As the song sprawls out along a bleak grey horizon, Michael mutters his words in a flat, indifferent tone. He says that he’s been laughing, and that he’s “been so happy,” but he couldn’t possibly seem more removed from himself or his emotions. When his voice lifts up on the bridge, he doesn’t sound any more passionate — instead, he just seems annoyed and frustrated, like a man asking you to leave him alone because he’s got a splitting headache.
The most revealing moment in the song comes when Stipe proclaims that he “skipped the part about love” on the chorus. It’s the point when we realize that the protagonist is so numb and miserable that he can barely register (much less express) this profound feeling. He’s not just alienated from the emotion; he feels superior to it: “It seems so silly and low.” The chorus can also be read as a self-aware explanation as to why the band had mostly steered clear of love songs up until the early ’90s, but actually, it seems more like an excuse.