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March 7, 2010

BEST ALBUMS OF THE DECADE #3: CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH - SOME LOUD THUNDER

In his novel HOCUS POCUS, Kurt Vonnegut relays the story about a guy who, as a kid, got stuck in an elevator. He was stuck for about twenty minutes; he thinks that this is a major point in American history; he thinks there is going to a banquet and a celebration afterward; finally the elevator starts and goes to the floor it's supposed to go to: the customers are simply waiting for the elevator, and the kid is surprised to find out that he was not a part of something important. This is Vonnegut's analogy for soldiers coming home from the Vietnam War - for me it is the experience of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's SOME LOUD THUNDER.

After all the rave reviews for first self-titled album from the band with the imperative for a name, I found it a bit underwhelming. They were not as interesting as the bands they were clearly trying to emulate, and their novelty wore off pretty quick. Alec Ounsworth, that energetic, raspy fellow who yells now matter soft or loud the music behind him, didn't seem to have a lot to sing about. Needless to say, I wasn't expecting much from their follow-up.

My friend, frequent blog-reader Bethan, gave me an advanced copy that I otherwise wouldn't have listen to. When I heard the first song, I imagined that something had gone wrong in the burning process: it seemed to start mid-lick. After one second, the lyrics came crashing in and neither the song, nor the album, never relented from the energy of that first moment. It was a brash, bold feat, and I've never heard anything like it before or since. Their first album was all catch and quirk and pop-tastic lyrics hidden by a grungy aesthetic, but this one immediately told you it would be nothing like that. The lo-fi style is never betrayed by any grander ambitions, and what remains is something at once stunningly personal and not quite attainable.

And that's where the Vonnegut comparison came up. I assumed I had heard the advanced copy of the album everyone would be talking about. I was flummoxed when I found, after its release, that the advanced reviews were so lukewarm, occasionally dismissive. But each I listen to it, I reassure myself that I'm right - I have no secret motive or ambition for selling this album; I'm merely surprised that it hasn't even developed a cult following.

The title track is a knock-out, a post-modern anthem never acknowledged. It's about being unable to communicate, a descriptive cacophony of noises that mirrors the frenetic sound. As Ounsworth keeps shrieking, "That's the state of my story / and it could be maybe something complete someday," we're reminded that much of the best music wasn't supposed to mean anything, and this album - with its artless cover and chaotic exuberance becomes a blank slate on which we can all project our meanings. Yet I find that its poetic even its discord.

And it's followed by the most gentle song CYHSH has ever sung, a mix of their familiar nonsense and a fascinatingly earnest love song:

"You're not like me
It seems that people stick like flies to you
And my mystery
Is just that I've no one to cling to"

"Emily Jean Stock," who is in reality Ounsworth's wife, highlights our insecurities in relationships while reminding us why they're so wonderful when they work. The song contrasts the beautiful, charismatic title character with the singer's realization that he doesn't belong with her. Knowing that this is about his wife makes its combination of saccharine intensity and vulnerable confession welcome.

The next show stopper is "Satan Said Dance," a perverse, ambitious dance number which mixes electronic music with actual electronic dissonance. Its absurd balance sounds like an explosion at the studio and speaks to and exemplifies the liberation of hedonism while parodying the earliest critics of the genre: if dancing is really Satan's lurid vehicle for God's creatures, it might end up looking and sounding something like this electro-nightmare.

The one-two-three punch that leads to the end of the album - "Arm and Hammer," "Yankee Go Home," and "Underwater (You and Me)" keeps this from being as uneven as their debut. Because SOME LOUD THUNDER is ultimately about the failure to communicate with anyone, even though we need that communication to survive, and its oscillation between those two extremes is what makes it moving even its dissonance, coming together in "Underwater." If the album opens with "All this talking / You'd think I'd have something to say" and closes with:

"We'll design a clever disguise
Or retreat to the bottom of the sea
We were destined to live out our lives
Underwater you and me"

Ounsworth ultimately gives us a love letter in spite of itself.

The last song - the shouting and sounds of "Five Easy Pieces" is kind of a letdown; I wish it closed with the aforementioned "Underwater;" it's this that keeps it from being number 2 (but not number 1). But I will continue to sing the praises for the best album you haven't heard, listened to once, or didn't listen to carefully enough.

Posted by Andytown at 8:53 PM | Comments (0)

March 4, 2010

SHORT THOUGHTS ON THE ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEES

Short Thoughts on the Academy Award Nominees:

AVATAR - It is what it is: a three hour spectacle that I have no interest in seeing again. Sigourney Weaver, adding humor and pathos, was a welcome presence because the Na'vi themselves were kind of dull noble savages. Their world, however, was anything but dull, and the 3D and the IMAX made it an enchanting experience, even if it was caught up in a pretty standard anti-imperalism narrative (the DANCES WITH WOLVES comparisons are appropriate). So while every beat of the story and its characterizations were familiar, the visuals brought it to the level of a really awesome documentary about space that you might see in a planetarium. If it wins the Oscar, it will be the ironic equivalent of a movie that is nothing like it: AMERICAN BEAUTY. We look back at its 2000 victory and wonder why; AVATAR will certainly be surpassed by better, more inventive movies that share its visual flourish. It's like a Cecil DeMille movie without the camp, but I found myself wanting the camp.

THE BLIND SIDE - Here is what this movie is saying, and sadly it is why some of its audience liked it: if poor African Americans could only get on board with the spunky upper-class ethos of white people, they would just be fine. Because other than its central virtuous manchild, all the people of color in this movie are repulsive stereotypes: at one point we see they are smoking weed and drinking malt liquor and talking about raping white teenagers around illegitimate children. I imagine the real Michael Oher story is one of nuance, complexity, and troubling projections about race, class, and culture. The movie whitewashes all those to tell a neat story about a rich white woman who teaches a black kid how to play football (literally; there is a scene when she tells him how to be an offensive tackle). It's inspiration is drawn from that, and the most troubling feature of the story - true and fictional - is breezed over in a hamfisted way: Oher ultimately went to play for a university for which his foster parents were consistent boosters. I really have no problem with this last fact - the family practically raised Oher for three years, they should have some say in where he goes to college - but the way the movie artlessly deals with it suggests that you should be suspicious. Sandra Bullock's performance is pedestrian at best, embarrassing at worst, and I say this as a begrudging fan: she was really quite good in 28 DAYS. But Bullock lacks the innate charm of a southern woman and broadcasts her confidence in actorly gestures. She succeeds because the story gives her offensive stereotypes to react to: the African American community with no perceivable values who, apparently, are there because they aren't enough like Bullock or Tim McGraw. It is unfortunate that this film will endure as a monument to an undeserving actor and a troubling "inspirational" tale.

DISTRICT 9 - This inventive, highly political alien movie worked for audiences because it established its premise quickly and effectively, putting us in an alternate universe that we never once questioned. Neil Blomkamp has made the first realistic alien movie, using the documentary style to good effect. The movie is fascinatingly bureaucratic, only enhancing the realism, and that commitment draws in much of its absurdity. But showing how ill-equipped contemporary diplomacy is to handle outsiders or "threats," we're left asking questions about the implications of any foreign policy. My issue with the movie is its protagonist - "Wikus." I couldn't stand him. He bugged the crap out of me. He distracted me. I kept wanting him to go away, and his central presence made the movie difficult to watch. But that strangely adds to the integrity of this piece.

AN EDUCATION - Carey Mulligan gives a tour-de-force performance, making her a breakthrough star and eventually (perhaps) an icon. The iconography she fits into loves her: Audrey Hepburn, the early 1960s, the yet-to-come British Invasion. But mostly the movie is an anecdote to all those "manic pixie dreamgirl" flicks in which quirky romance leads to a freeing sense of individual perspective. This drama, more kitchen sink than soap opera, eschews such conventional readings. Peter Saarsgard is equally great - his Americanness makes him out of place even as his charming personality helps him to fit in: it's inspired casting. I loved the details of this movie: the dog races, the Oxford bars, and the papers by teenage girls about Jane Eyre. I didn't much care for the ending which, without spoiling too much, turns a denouement into the kind of conventional theatrics that the movie usually avoids.

THE HURT LOCKER - Jeremy Renner is the other breakout star of the year, and I've liked him even when he's been in awful movies as diverse as SWAT and NORTH COUNTRY. THE HURT LOCKER gives him a role he's born to play, and I wonder whether he'll ever be able to play anything but: a jockish, slightly thoughtful dude who is only happy when he's in some kind of immanent danger. THE HURT LOCKER is driven primarily by the performances of Renner and Anthony Mackie (who deserved a nomination but stupidly didn't get one), and the overt political commentary that has produced a number of forgettable movies about Iraq is gone here. Kathryn Bigelow treats the film as a character study under duress, and it works as such. That said, I wasn't as entranced as most audiences: it was fine piece of craftsmanship and a nicely intimate portrait, but nothing particularly profound or fascinating.

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS - Here is my favorite of the nominated films: like all Tarantino movies it is in love with movies, but this one is brash and bold enough to make the movies a means of liberation and history. My only complaint is that it isn't long enough: we needed another scene of the Basterds wreaking havoc in France. All the polyglots are remarkable: not only Christoph Waltz but also the many German and French speakers who make up the other heroes and villains - every beat they hit is just right. Tarantino takes two of his loves - World War II action movies and Sergio Leone Superhero Spaghetti Westerns - and maps it onto a historical terrain; the result reminds of the virtues and glorious excesses of both (their music, their revisionist history, their archetypes, their killer dialogue).

PRECIOUS - Didn't see it . . .

A SERIOUS MAN - It's probably my least favorite Coen Brothers movie other than the two in between THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. I've noted before that the Coens are experts at diving into a dialect and a sub-culture and putting their own joyfully weird spin on it. A SERIOUS MAN, however, is a prolonged exercise in nihilism, both implicitly and explicitly, and in many ways this very, very Jewish movie resembles that most famous of Hebrew tales of suffering: the book of Job, with its endless suffering and backseat religious commentary. The Coens sit us through every painful moment: ineffectual Rabbis, Lawyers who need retainer fees, and (of course) a really stiflingly filmed Bar Mitzvah. It's the one Coen brothers movie that I've appreciated more than liked.

UP - I saw UP at a drive-thru with my girlfriend on a beautiful summer evening. So obviously I was in a good mood. I laughed the whole time - it's one of two Pixar movies that captures the goofy, go-for-broke charm and imagination of Disney flicks (RATATOUILLE is the other). The opening scenes are wistful and sad and go places that animated films uses don't.

UP IN THE AIR - I do NOT understand why everyone is freaking out about this movie or about George Clooney's performance. I've heard that Clooney is vulnerable, which means that this is the first movie he's made where he's allowed himself to look older than normal. But, come on . . . George Clooney is from Wisconsin and has two unglamorous sisters? And I found his "job" a bit disingenuous: every scene sounded scripted to give Clooney the winning shot. The best scenes involved the two females: Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga, but the worst had Clooney brazenly praising the airline industry. Even the final revelations didn't make this shallow; you leave thinking that American Airlines is an awesome company.

That's it!

Posted by Andytown at 6:41 PM | Comments (1)