Evil Urges, Thoughts
A few comparisons to start: Listening to Yo La Tengo's I Am Not Afraid of You... today, they struck me as very similar to My Morning Jacket. Gentle and extremely good-humored, they can and have covered every song under the sun onstage. They generally tend toward the sonorous and sedate, but can destroy you with distortion and intensity if necessary, particularly on stage. They both have penchants for clever sounds and sometimes wordplay, such that the more intense or less forgiving fans likely get a bit annoyed. Appearances in movies, rather than just soundtracks, etc. Yo La Tengo, however, are fifteen years older, and seem to provide a pretty good template for a very good, long-lived career.
My Morning Jacket's career arc thus far is also not dissimilar from Wes Anderson's, at least in terms of how I view the both of them. They're both five releases in, both starting out with three consecutively bigger and arguably greater entries, largely building on each other, then taking a big enough left turn with the fourth to throw off some or many of the faithful, continuing on in a similar vein with the fifth but also yielding some more satisfying results--if not measured strictly by early expectations now somewhat thwarted.
Purchasing the CD last week from Wall of Sound, the proprietor mentioned that it was pretty different from their previous stuff, also lamenting the lack of reverb and suggesting that it was the temptation to be radio-friendly leading them astray. (Tomorrow's NY Times article suggests that radio is indeed a bit frustrated with them, but that James & co. aren't terribly concerned.) As he operates a fiercely independent record store, few have more right to question a band's commercial leanings, but I'm not totally sure I agree. There are lots of reasons to get out from behind the wall of reverb, if perhaps none are totally excusable. At the same time, previous to some patches over the past couple years, these guys spent most of a decade touring relentlessly, absolutely exploding each and every night, so I really have no problem if they were attempting to sell a few more records.
It would indeed be sad if the band and Jim James never return to the reverberating silo, either literally or figuratively, but that gets at one of the core issues in music or any artistic sort of appreciation. Is the artist bound by a kind of law to repeat what he does best? Is it a sin to sound experimental yet mundane when routine heavenliness is attainable? Would it be more admirable to create new, less than blissful work, or to create none at all? Just what kind of authority does audience/critical opinion have in the work of the artist, if any? In terms of sales figures, quite a lot obviously, but I'm thinking more in terms of some sort of cosmic obligation. Would it be a punishable offense if, for whatever bizarre reason, Lebron James declared that he'd grown beyond slam dunks? (Jim James quote on life goals from the NYT: "Maybe I want to be a better basketball player.") Does the fan have any obligation in return for mindblowing services rendered in the past?
Has William Bowers written anything on this album? Is it the best thing ever? Most of what I've seen written on this album is not just disappointing, but more indicative of the failings of rock writing in general. It's either narrow-mindedly critical, or weak and slavish praise, never really engaging appropriately with the sounds on the record, at least in ways that I find interesting or fulfilling. Discussions of lyrics and personal genre preferences may have their place, but that place ought to hardly ever be a large or important one.
Q: Who really loves Z, and what are they thinking? How many of those songs run through your mind? Are you excited when they do?
This gets at precisely why I like Evil Urges and didn't like Z. The primary My Morning Jacket experience is still live, and therefore the mark of a great album from them is not how it sounds, but how the parts will sound, expanded, on stage, and correspondingly how that experience will suffuse your listening back at home for the months and perhaps years after.
Z had possibly two to three songs that fit this bill. Evil Urges may have as many as eight. Most importantly, vocal hooks are everywhere. Vocal hooks are earworms that will satisfy and sustain you even and especially when you're not listening to the record much less at the show. Z failed miserably at this. "Gideon" and "Anytime" sometimes run through my head, but not often, and it's actually a struggle to recall a lot of whatever else I may enjoy on there. I'm not sure I like "Evil Urges" on record, but the vocal hook sounds great in my head. I really like "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream, Part 2" on record, and it sounds even more awesome recalling it later. Oh, and that bit near the end where the low guitar roars in? Amazing. "Smokin from Shootin" is maybe not so great in my head, but it will destroy on stage. "I'm Amazed" is a bit boring in this regard, but at least it's not "Off the Record." "Aluminum Park" could cause riotous outpourings of joy.
This is not a great album (apart from perhaps the final third), and I don't think these guys can ever make one, because the impossible-to-fully-recreate live experience hovers over anything from the studio. In my opinion, it would have to be some kind of trackless double album where they play nonstop for two-and-a-half hours and James simply improvises over top of their jamming, creating themes and motifs which recur and then magically combine into like, a single five-minute wall of pure but strangely sonorous noise at the end, after which the recording emits a secret frequency which induces coma, from which the listener awakes several hours later with only delicious half-memories of the experience. That would be the only way that I could imagine being fully satisfied by a My Morning Jacket album completely on its own terms. Anything else basically provides new fodder for obsession while biding time until the next tour.
My Morning Jacket's career arc thus far is also not dissimilar from Wes Anderson's, at least in terms of how I view the both of them. They're both five releases in, both starting out with three consecutively bigger and arguably greater entries, largely building on each other, then taking a big enough left turn with the fourth to throw off some or many of the faithful, continuing on in a similar vein with the fifth but also yielding some more satisfying results--if not measured strictly by early expectations now somewhat thwarted.
Purchasing the CD last week from Wall of Sound, the proprietor mentioned that it was pretty different from their previous stuff, also lamenting the lack of reverb and suggesting that it was the temptation to be radio-friendly leading them astray. (Tomorrow's NY Times article suggests that radio is indeed a bit frustrated with them, but that James & co. aren't terribly concerned.) As he operates a fiercely independent record store, few have more right to question a band's commercial leanings, but I'm not totally sure I agree. There are lots of reasons to get out from behind the wall of reverb, if perhaps none are totally excusable. At the same time, previous to some patches over the past couple years, these guys spent most of a decade touring relentlessly, absolutely exploding each and every night, so I really have no problem if they were attempting to sell a few more records.
It would indeed be sad if the band and Jim James never return to the reverberating silo, either literally or figuratively, but that gets at one of the core issues in music or any artistic sort of appreciation. Is the artist bound by a kind of law to repeat what he does best? Is it a sin to sound experimental yet mundane when routine heavenliness is attainable? Would it be more admirable to create new, less than blissful work, or to create none at all? Just what kind of authority does audience/critical opinion have in the work of the artist, if any? In terms of sales figures, quite a lot obviously, but I'm thinking more in terms of some sort of cosmic obligation. Would it be a punishable offense if, for whatever bizarre reason, Lebron James declared that he'd grown beyond slam dunks? (Jim James quote on life goals from the NYT: "Maybe I want to be a better basketball player.") Does the fan have any obligation in return for mindblowing services rendered in the past?
Has William Bowers written anything on this album? Is it the best thing ever? Most of what I've seen written on this album is not just disappointing, but more indicative of the failings of rock writing in general. It's either narrow-mindedly critical, or weak and slavish praise, never really engaging appropriately with the sounds on the record, at least in ways that I find interesting or fulfilling. Discussions of lyrics and personal genre preferences may have their place, but that place ought to hardly ever be a large or important one.
Q: Who really loves Z, and what are they thinking? How many of those songs run through your mind? Are you excited when they do?
This gets at precisely why I like Evil Urges and didn't like Z. The primary My Morning Jacket experience is still live, and therefore the mark of a great album from them is not how it sounds, but how the parts will sound, expanded, on stage, and correspondingly how that experience will suffuse your listening back at home for the months and perhaps years after.
Z had possibly two to three songs that fit this bill. Evil Urges may have as many as eight. Most importantly, vocal hooks are everywhere. Vocal hooks are earworms that will satisfy and sustain you even and especially when you're not listening to the record much less at the show. Z failed miserably at this. "Gideon" and "Anytime" sometimes run through my head, but not often, and it's actually a struggle to recall a lot of whatever else I may enjoy on there. I'm not sure I like "Evil Urges" on record, but the vocal hook sounds great in my head. I really like "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream, Part 2" on record, and it sounds even more awesome recalling it later. Oh, and that bit near the end where the low guitar roars in? Amazing. "Smokin from Shootin" is maybe not so great in my head, but it will destroy on stage. "I'm Amazed" is a bit boring in this regard, but at least it's not "Off the Record." "Aluminum Park" could cause riotous outpourings of joy.
This is not a great album (apart from perhaps the final third), and I don't think these guys can ever make one, because the impossible-to-fully-recreate live experience hovers over anything from the studio. In my opinion, it would have to be some kind of trackless double album where they play nonstop for two-and-a-half hours and James simply improvises over top of their jamming, creating themes and motifs which recur and then magically combine into like, a single five-minute wall of pure but strangely sonorous noise at the end, after which the recording emits a secret frequency which induces coma, from which the listener awakes several hours later with only delicious half-memories of the experience. That would be the only way that I could imagine being fully satisfied by a My Morning Jacket album completely on its own terms. Anything else basically provides new fodder for obsession while biding time until the next tour.
Labels: Music
Posted on Saturday, June 14, 2008
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