The other item to note: Glenn Tilbrook disturbingly, now resembles William Shatner. Thankfully, he doesn’t sing like him.

Well, based on his performance before 40,000 at San Francisco’s AT&T Park on Saturday night, he’s got many years ahead of him — Paul played for nearly three hours straight, without a break or even a drink of water. Meanwhile, his tight, energetic, and relatively younger band took several breathers while Paul performed solo numbers. His age was even leveraged for some cute humor — following firework explosions during Live and Let Die. he pretended the noise was too loud.

Also not acting their age were certain retirement-worthy audience members — the air had a distinct herbal aroma, and most entertaining was a history professor type (imagine Steve Balmer with glasses and a mustache) prone to extreme dance convulsions — he absolutely lost his mind if not threw out his back during Ob La Di Ob La Da.

Song choice was tilted heavily to stadium-appropriate rock numbers spanning fifty years — all the best Wings numbers (Jet, Band On The Run, My Love), and Paul’s Beatles contributions. Out of the latter, four out of my personal favorites (A Day In The Life, Something, Yesterday, Hey Jude) were performed, and there were many more. Sprinkled between the rockers were sincerely touching songs like the John Lennon tribute Here Today (off of 1982’s Tug Of War, and another personal favorite) performed by just Paul and acoustic guitar, and Something, played on ukelele given to Paul by George Harrison. The program was also notable by omission — promoting his recent album took a back seat to rocking songs everyone really wanted to hear.

Ultimately, I became overwhelmed by solid songs piling up relentlessly; it’s easy to forget how gigantic Paul’s back catalogue is. The final stretch of sixteen numbers was mind-blowing, particularly the emotional contrast between Let It Be to Live and Let Die, and Yesterday to Helter Skelter.

Several times I honestly felt gratitude that such simple, positive music could transcend generations, bring people together, and the shared experience could be a foundation for peace and love. And no, that’s not the contact high from the history professor’s herbal cigarette talking.

Maybe Astley has a comeback in the making as a metal singer. Seem to remember another 80s dude tried to do the same thing. Anybody else remember John Waite and Bad English?

Meanwhile, a few months ago an unknown band Creaky Boards made the same observation — the Coldplay song resembles one of their songs called “The Songs I Didn’t Write”: see below.

So did the Creaky Boards rip off Joe Satriani, too? Why isn’t Joe Satriani suing them? Perhaps Joe Satriani and the Creaky Boards should file a class-action lawsuit.

So… Axl Rose has been working on the next Guns N’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy, for the past 14 years, spending around $13 million in the process. Yeah, that’s longer than it took Lord Of The Rings to get made. That alone piques my interest in the album, as a possible eclectic musical misfire / masterpiece like The Beach Boys’ Smile.

Demos in various states have surfaced on the Internet ever since 2003, but nine very polished tracks were leaked last week, by a blogger who subsequently got a visit from the FBI.

Anyhow — I procured the tracks (through means I shall not divulge) — here are my initial impressions of each:

• Better: Thumbs up, bounces all over the place stylistically, with tons of hooks, and some extremely crazy guitar solos. Pretty good bridge, although just when it threatens to erupt into awesomeness, daffy keyboard sounds prevail (3:16).
• IRS: Decent, some unusual chords, Axl does his expected howling and hits one impressive high note (3:34) before another crazy guitar solo.
• Madagascar: Boring. Contains a particularly dull section with samples from movies and speeches.
• Rhiad And The Bedouins: Faster song, really great groove. Hope the full album has more of this stuff.
• New Song #1 (This I Love?): Meh. Lots of loops and words of love.
• New Song #2 (If The World Would End Today?): Thumbs down, a funk groove with a flamenco guitar; I expect Ricky Martin to bust in.
• The Blues: Another fave, featuring piano, and most reminiscent of schmatlzy GNR (November Rain).
• Chinese Democracy: Above average. Axl mimics Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins.
• There Was A Time: Meh.

The Good

• Some extremely flamboyant, over the top guitar playing, likely contributed by Buckethead (who performs with a white mask and a KFC bucket on his head) or Robin Finck of NIN. It’s a welcome return to the “how many notes can you cram into one lick” school of solos.
• Axl’s voice is surprisingly emotive.

The Bad

• In terms of songwriting, no songs challenge the best GNR stuff — the epic songs with multiple sections. I would think over 14 years, one might have a shot at a song with twelve parts, a full orchestra, a bagpipe chorus, and the entire cast of Rent. What a missed opportunity.
• Extreme overdub-itis — a very calculated sound where crap zooms in and out — all intentional, but any organic live feel has been obliterated since 2004. This also includes unoriginal loops, keyboards, and sound effects.

Conclusion

Out of the nine tracks, only three are keepers: Better, Rhiad and the Bedouins, and The Blues. Personally, the best thing about GNR was it sounded like there were at least three really creative people contributing to their best songs — a band. Here, all we get is Axl dominating the sound and trying to fill in the creative gaps with money, gloss, and talented instrumentalists — it doesn’t really work. But that said — it’s not as awful as I was expecting, and in a few places, it does rock.

Still, with 14 years and the money spent, I feel the tracks should have been better. The jury is out until Chinese Democracy is released properly, but based on these nine tracks, Axl Rose isn’t Brian Wilson — as if that were ever in doubt.

(If you want to hear some of this stuff for yourself, poke around YouTube).

One Too Many Hearts, from the Bird and the Bee, is another EP with one killer track, two so-so ones, and a polite misfire. That’s still pretty darned good as far as I’m concerned. The best track is Birthday with an eighties groove featuring a perfect contrast between the robotic drums of the verse and pulsing guitars of the chorus. It’s hook city, from the “tick tock” intro to the vocal melody, reminding me of Coldplay, Wilson Phillips, Dido simultaneously.

Last Day of Our Love and Come As You Were are slightly less successful, the former combining baroque conventions with the Beatles and a Shakespearean sonnet romantic tragedy. The chorus of Come As You Were reminds me of XTC’s Humble Daisy. The weakest track is the cover Tonight You Belong To Me which shows less polished effort and sounds a bit tossed off, despite exploring the girl-group sound of My Fair Lady from their debut album.

It seems the previous EP Please Clap Your Hands had a theme of cute beats and One Two Many Hearts deals loosely with matters of the heart.

All in all, a great set of four songs. Birthday is the keeper, which will tide me over to whenever their next full-length album is released. Please, don’t be too long!

iTunes Store Link: One Too Many Hearts — EP — The Bird and the Bee

The Good

• As an EP with only five tracks there is little filler. Polite Dance Song benefits immensely from live drums and a sarcastic, near parody vibe, and manages to squeeze in a chromatic piano run similar to Paul McCartney’s Maybe, I’m Amazed. Man combines funk with baroque instruments effortlessly with a killer chorus.
• So You Say is a weaker track but still has a dippy, trippy vibe similar to Puffy Ami Yumi, but it explodes into a divine syncopation during the chorus.
• Last is a cover of the Bee Gee’s How Deep Is Your Love but with all the disco stuff stripped away, turning the AM radio standard intimate and heart felt, highlighting Inara’s vocal range.

The Bad

• The Races is the weakest track with fuzzy intent, mostly in comparison to the killer stuff surrounding.

Conclusion

The Bird And The Bee make pop music for sure, but the sort where the verses contrast impeccably with awesome choruses, and Greg Kurstin’s flawless production surrounds a crystal clear voice of Inara George. What more can one ask for? I’ll pick up their next album for sure.

Here’s a video for Polite Dance Song:

iTunes Store Link: Please Clap Your Hands — EP — The Bird and the Bee

I’m a long admitted sucker for spacey-pop and women’s vocals, and my new personal sugar high is The Bird And The Bee. I was embarrassingly pulled in from left field via a Mac-themed viral video set to the aggressively hooky electro-pop masterpiece Again & Again, and it was soon game over after some short sample listens through iTunes.

Half of the duo is keyboardist Greg Kurstin who contributes pristine production and an exquisite melodic sense. The other half is Inara George, with a flawlessly in tune girly-voice, bearing nary a sign of the dreaded Antares Autotune. A perfect example is the chorus of My Fair Lady which recalls girl groups like the Lennon sisters. The combination is a record where no note sounds out of place, or at least, a rare situation where you don’t doubt each sound’s intent.

Other standouts are Fucking Boyfriend (Beth Orton on a bad day), I’m A Broken Heart (aptly congeals the Beach Boys, Burt Bacharach, and the Carpenters), and I Hate Camera (with several wonderfully contrasting, pulsing sections). Lyrically, it’s all rather dippy and surreal like the Cardigans meets Cornelius.

Not as successful are La la la, sounding like Suzanne Vega stuck in the sixties, and the jazzy misfire Birds and the Bees. Many of the songs are quite repetitive, without any long bridges or solos to break up the relentless electronic beats. The first song Again & Again makes a joke of it, however.

Luckily, most of the hooks presented here are genuinely worth repeating, as I have in the past few days, listening to this album again and again and again and again and…

Here’s a live version of Again And Again.

iTunes Store Link: The Bird and the Bee — The Bird and the Bee

Elvis Costello’s latest disc is hasty and inconsiderate. The song titles and album art look tossed off, the twelve tracks were recorded in a week and mixed a week later. The distribution method was haphazard — it was released on vinyl first and then as a download, and CD last. The album’s title refers to Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant ramen noodles, hinting at a quick snack as opposed to a nourishing, slow-cooked meal.

The surprise is: the album is amazingly good — Costello hasn’t sounded this fresh and energetic in years.

Gone are the ornate, at times fussy production tricks of Spike, the emotional leaps of Painted From Memory, or the calculated, loopy disarray of When I Was Cruel. This disc is rawer than Brutal Youth — you’d have to go as far back as the imploded masterpiece Blood And Chocolate to find a Costello this sloppy and unhinged.

The instrumentation is often little more than drums, bass, relentless guitar strumming, and a vocal layer on top. The sloppy production contains revelatory, “brilliant mistakes.” Lowe or Froom would have wiped the flat “na na na” note or the out of tune harmony vocals on No Hiding Place.

Most notable in restraint is Steve Nieve, whose frilly embellishments and inventive counter melodies normally poke into every musical nook and cranny. While I love the This Year’s Model sound of every voice competing for attention, Momofuku’s absence of extreme ornamentation is refreshing.

Instead of Nieve we get Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley, contributing some hooky, tasteful harmonies that frame some undeserving chord progressions — specifically the codas of Hiding Place and Turpentine — and complete those songs. I feel Costello has had rough luck with female vocalists who wither under his aggressive belting (the background singers on the Burt Bacharach Album, Chrissy Hynde on Spike, and Aimee Mann ). For whatever reason, Jenny Lewis is the best yet. I’m a bit sad that her voice is often so low in the mix.

Still, the haphazard approach takes its toll on one crucial element: the songwriting. Momofuku is an uncompromising wall of sound, with no meandering bridges, guitar solos, or dynamic high or low points as breathers. No tunes are as memorable or comparable to the best, classic Costello songs, save Flutter And Wow (which recalls the Bacharach collaboration) and the first three songs plus Go Away as most similar to This Year’s Model.

And then there’s the inevitable complaint arises when an artist has a huge back catalog: many songs resemble previous material (Harry Worth = Episode of Blonde, Go Away = Monkey To A Man, Mr. Feathers = God’s Comic, Stella Hurt = Bedlam, Chewing Gum). Perhaps in his haste, Costello unconsciously and unintentionally wrote “new” songs by mashing snippets of old tunes together.

In conclusion, what I love about Momofuku is the energy and sound, yet not the specific songs themselves. I’d compare the result to Dylan, long verses crammed full of words, barely touching a melody, ranting over the most basic chords and a solid rhythm section. It’s really powerful stuff, but I can only imagine incredible album Costello could have made if he had spent some of the time he saved rushing through everything else on the songwriting.

iTunes Store Link: Momofuku — Elvis Costello & The Imposters

What’s going on:

1. 0:01 Fiddling around in the Dock.
2. 0:08 Photobooth.
3. 0:21 Microsoft Office 2004. Nobody should have that Microsoft Office Assistant turned on.
4. 0:46 iChat.
5. 0:56 Stickies.
6. 1:00 Adobe Photoshop CS3 (1:09 Loads a ton of images that makes it look like they’re moving.)
7. 1:23 Loaded a ton of images into iPhoto and then scrolls through them to make the image move.
8. 1:28 Fast user switching, which looks like a rotating cube. Each account has a different desktop image.
9. 1:31 Quick Look, opening a Quick Time Movie, a user named “Do”, Cover Flow, and Stacks.
10. 1:46 Screen savers, specifically Shell, Flurry, Arabesque (these are default on the Mac), and the added Phantom Butterflies, Strands
11. 2:00 iTunes.
12. 2:03 Dashboard Widgets thrown on screen.
13. 2:09 Adobe Illustrator. At 2:13 plays around with the 3D effect.
14. 2:16 Final Cut Pro.
15. 2:22 Expose.
16. 2:22 Time Machine.
17. 2:36 Safari loading YouTube.
18. 2:39 iTunes Store.

I feel 99 cents creeping out of my pocket.

= 4 stars

Starring Elvis Presley, Elvis P. and Elvis
Directed by Marty Pasetta, Gary Hovey

Synopsis

Concert film of Elvis Presley in Hawaii from 1973. See and hear the spectacle of the infamous bell bottoms and sequin-laden jump suit, complete with American eagle cape before the backdrop of humid Hawaii.

The Good

• So much Elvis I nearly overdosed. There are three full concerts in surround sound, and a really cheesy segment where Elvis arrives in Hawaii and greets the fans. He gets “leid” multiple times.
• At this point, Elvis was arguably at the peak of his entertainment prowess. His voice is strong even when he leaps for the high notes, and I found him a mesmerizing entertainer, karate chops, sweaty scarves, and all. He also had his entire back catalog plus the “comeback” tune of Suspicious Minds. It’s a great balance between epic talent and corn.
• The backup band is stellar, with a full horns, orchestra, and male and female backing vocals. Also note Jerry Scheff and James Burton, seriously talented musicians who have played on countless records by other people, since.
• A personal amusement is hearing Elvis cover The Beatles’ Something.

The Bad

• Many older songs are cruelly abridged — the band blasts through Hound Dog as if it’s a Benny Hill theme song. Concert closer I Can’t Help Loving You is similarly sped up, as if Elvis is sick of it and wants to run off the stage.
• The double-disc DVD set is overkill meant for Elvis-maniacs. There are two versions of the same concert plus a rehearsal concert from the night before. I personally found them largely interchangeable. Anybody who is not Elvis-obsessed need only watch one of the concerts.

Conclusion

Continuing on my somewhat ill-advised Elvis in Hawaii kick, this concert and Blue Hawaii is all I needed to see. I’m Elvis-ed out. The guy was King on many levels — intentional and otherwise.

Tim Finn is Neil Finn’s brother, and while he’s made some music I really love, I can’t shake the feeling that his best work was in Split Enz, a brief stint with Crowded House, and the other partnership with Neil, The Finn Brothers. Say It Is So is decidedly average and sadly jumbled. Despite solid production and a fun energy, lackluster songwriting and uninspired lyrics drag things down.

There are two, possibly three tracks I’d keep, the best being Twinkle, a small pop gem, with a relaxed groove, and a shiny guest vocal by country artist Julie Miller. Also decent are album opener Underwater Mountain and the folksy The Death Of A Popular Song.

Average is the meandering Need To Be Right, which sounds a little like XTC’s Wounded Horse if sung by Elvis Costello. The other songs are even less interesting. Tim has much better, similar stuff on Tim Finn (1989) and Everyone I Know Is Here. So I say Say It Is So is simply so-so.

iTunes Store Link: Say It Is So — Tim Finn

After my album ranking project, the albums ended up in the following order, from best to worst:

• Nine Objects Of Desire Intra Album Rank: 3.91
• Beauty & Crime Intra Album Rank: 3.63
• Solitude Standing Intra Album Rank: 3.6
• Suzanne Vega Intra Album Rank: 3.5
• 99.9F Intra Album Rank: 3.5
• Songs In Red And Gray Intra Album Rank: 3.38
• Days Of Open Hand Intra Album Rank: 3.09

And here’s a list of all the songs I granted five stars:

Freeze Tag

= 5 stars

Strange chords with a meandering melody, shifting rhythm and some nostalgic lyrics referencing classic films stars Dietrich and Dean, Bogart and Bacall. I like how the melody is echoed by the guitar, round-style.

iTunes Store Link: Freeze Tag — Suzanne Vega

Marlene On The Wall

= 5 stars

Still one of my favorite Vega songs, with a changing tempo, steam-pipe keyboards, tasteful drums, metallic guitar, and a poster of film star Marlene Dietrich that may have seen too much, hinting at some personal paranoia. The wordy verses find release in the exquisite guitar solo at 1:29. This is first song on this disc with drums.

iTunes Store Link: Marlene on the Wall — Suzanne Vega

Luka

= 5 stars

Among the best songs Vega ever recorded, there’s a genuine band feel, and when the Byrds-like guitars chime in after the chorus it’s a magic, uplifting feeling of hopeful contrast that the song’s negative subject matter benefits from.

iTunes Store Link: Luka — Solitude Standing

Ironbound / Fancy Poultry

= 5 stars

What I love is how two songs blend together forming a medely of sorts — the “bound” of the first expands into the “freedom” of the second.

iTunes Store Link: Medley: Ironbound/Fancy Poultry — Solitude Standing

Gypsy

= 5 stars

A Dylan-like folk tune that I wish Vega did more of — but it’s nearly impossible to follow up this sort of perfection.

iTunes Store Link: Gypsy — Solitude Standing

Book Of Dreams

= 5 stars

I like this optimistic tune, inspired by XTC, the Byrds or the Beatles. The video shows the amount of thought and care that was going into the marketing at this point, inspired by visual surrealists like Magritte or Joseph Cornell. One line contains the title of the album.

iTunes Store Link: Book of Dreams — Days of Open Hand

Blood Makes Noise

= 5 stars

This is almost literally a mechanical production inspired by the Tom’s Diner remixes, but what makes more sense is the pumping, pulsing bringing the lyrics of adrenalie to life.

iTunes Store Link: Blood Makes Noise — 99.9 F

99.9F°

= 5 stars

“You seem to me…” is this mellower version of Blood Makes Noise — but the bridge with the spacey Vega vocals (1:05) is a place she’ll return to on pretty much every album after this one.

iTunes Store Link: 99.9 F — 99.9 F

When Heroes Go Down

= 5 stars

If Vega fronted a rock band I guess it would sound like this. I think it’s pretty cool. The bridge recreates the dippy percussion groove explored on every other track for this album, but her vocal delivery is basically a chanty rant that collapses rather Lennon-like to me.

iTunes Store Link: When Heroes Go Down — 99.9 F

Birth-day (Love Made Real)

= 5 stars

With the naive organ and Bruce Thomas on bass, this is practically a This Year’s Model outtake. It’s about the birth of Vega and Froom’s daughter Ruby and the tension builds to a breaking point but never exactly resolves. Possibly the female equivalent (or aftermath) of Costello’s Pump It Up.

iTunes Store Link: Birth-Day (Love Made Real) — Nine Objects of Desire

Headshots

= 5 stars

A dusky groove supports the whistling Jeapordy theme (that alone is an extra star), followed by some Beatley piano crashes.

iTunes Store Link: Headshots — Nine Objects of Desire

Caramel

= 5 stars

Excellent. Seems phoned in from an alternate place and time, and a new, lounge-y genre for Vega to explore.

iTunes Store Link: Nine Objects of Desire — Suzanne Vega

No Cheap Thrill

= 5 stars

Straight ahead pop rock with a goofy distorted guitar lick. Note the climbing horns that play all the wrong notes near the end.

iTunes Store Link: No Cheap Thrill — Nine Objects of Desire

Lolita

= 5 stars

Mitchell Froom produced Cibo Matto which seems to be evident on this track, plus some touches of Santana. Vega’s voice echoes down the alleyway.

iTunes Store Link: Lolita — Nine Objects of Desire

My Favorite Plum

= 5 stars

A perfect blend of Portishead, loungey-bachelor-pad, and James Bond. When the organ breaks in at 1:15 it’s like the sixties all over again.

iTunes Store Link: My Favorite Plum — Nine Objects of Desire

(I’ll Never Be) Your Maggie May

= 5 stars

At this point it’s evident that Vega is much more personal here than she’s ever been, not singing about dusky actresses on her wall or other people’s lives. This is probably the most direct you can get, talking directly towards a former lover that she’ll never be what he wants her to be, and it tries to paint this rejection in a positive light — but other songs on this album make this positivity feel somewhat contrived. Other than that, it’s a catchy melody and one part where the ornate music drops away for a more sentimental thought (2:43) is quite exquisite.

iTunes Store Link: (I’ll Never Be) Your Maggie May — Songs in Red and Gray

Last Year’s Troubles

= 5 stars

The most straightforward and pleasant song on this album — a few keyboard twiddles and odd sounds — but there’s a gypsy folk mandolin lick bearing a hooky melody, probably the best since Tom’s Diner. It comes in between verses, but voice is finally added (2:09) to great effect.

iTunes Store Link: Last Years Troubles — Songs in Red and Gray

Solitaire

= 5 stars

I’m fascinated by this song, from the chirpy keyboards to the dizzy pulsation near the end. It talks about a man playing solitaire late at night, while ignoring his lover. I can’t help but wonder if this game of solitaire isn’t some sort of more literal, personal late night pastime of the former lover, and the song No Cheap Thrill somehow a close cousin.

iTunes Store Link: Solitaire — Songs in Red and Gray

Zephyr & I

= 5 stars

The choppy rhythm and smooth as glass background vocals create the best song I’ve heard from Vega in the past decade. It recalls the cleaner sound of the first two albums but looks plesantly forward. One simple bass sound (1:02) recalls Lou Reed’s Walk On the Wild Side.

iTunes Store Link: Zephyr & I — Beauty & Crime

New York Is A Woman

= 5 stars

The piano and odd third chord with the brass band set this as an Elvis Costello outtake from Spike. A newcomer journeys to Manhattan for the first time and finds things to love and hate. Despite the light jazz feel, there’s some similarity to a basic folk song like The Queen And The Soldier.

iTunes Store Link: New York Is a Woman — Beauty & Crime

Pornographer’s Dream

= 5 stars

Hints of other songs fuel this dusky, jazzy diversion — from Thin Man, Caramel, to Iron Bound Poultry and even In Liverpool, but something new. But the melody is more complex and syncopated than usual, as she reaches for high notes once avoided (1:24). One perfect moment for me is the toned drum that adds two cute stabs (0:46) at the end of each verse.

iTunes Store Link: Pornographer’s Dream — Beauty & Crime

There are a lot less electric guitars, electric noodling, and spacey sound effects (save for Bodysnatchers which sounds almost like Paperback Writer). But what you get is a tighter sound — we’re back to drums, voice, and guitars — not unlike how I view Rubber Soul with its unified, acoustic sound where every song feels a part of the whole. All the “extra” sounds are controlled to the point where they don’t sounds out of place, accidental, or improvised.

With a song like Videotape, I feel there is no question that the piano notes are the notes Radiohead intended. It’s not, sit at the piano and play these chords in whatever voicing or octave you desire, and we’ll work it out in the mix. The entire album bears a sense of decision and perfection that is quite stunning. I feel this is the first album I’ve encountered in a while where I might listen to it like watching a movie — nothing else going on — in order concentrate on the unfolding music. Definitely not background music.

But this may be too polished for some. Similarly, if there’s anything I could fault this album for is an over-reliance on dropped beats or odd meters, no bombastic drumming or guitar solos, and the arena-rock spacey reverb thing has been banished. There is no Paranoid Android or Thom turning his voice into a robot. So it’s a trade off. I’m really enjoying the seriousness of intent and microscopic attention to detail.

I’ll give In Rainbows a more proper review after I’ve listened to it a few more times. But right now, my favorite songs are Bodysnatchers, Weird Fishes / Arpeggi, Faust Arp (this one in particular sounds like a drunken White Album outtake), Jigsaw Falling Into Place, and Reckoner. Gee, that’s five out of ten.

iTunes Store Link: In Rainbows — Radiohead

By using the Internet to distribute the album, one can’t help but ask if an already-successful artist really needs a label for distribution anymore. Plus, although the music industry has been hemming and hawing over Apple’s reluctance of variable pricing, I certainly doubt they’d have approved of the variable-price concept.

Radiohead is currently sans-label, so the new album was recorded independently, although still with the long-time producer Nigel Godrich. My assumption is that the album will be better without a label’s influence — we’ll see.

Here’s the tracklist. The nice, tight 10 songs has my mouth watering.

• 15 Step
• Bodysnatchers
• Nude
• Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
• All I Need
• Faust ARP
• Reckoner
• House of Cards
• Jigsaw Falling into Place
• Videotape

Rolling Stone put together the best compendium of all the In Rainbows tracks, largely culled from live performances where Radiohead played the songs as new material. Based on the previews, I’m looking forward to the rocking Bodysnatchers and the minimalist Arpeggi.

All in all, I’d be surprised if Radiohead can surpass OK Computer but they have at least attracted many people’s interest (there’s even a fawning LA Times editorial) with this “revolutionary” method of releasing their aural vision to the world.

As hair metal grew in popularity, clones of clones of clones emerged — all  rock decedents of Van Halen and Bon Jovi in a cheap attempt to make a quick buck, hence inflating a head-banging bubble that could only collapse due the weight of the metal contained within.

It got so bubbly that musicians who had nothing to do with metal got in on it — my only explanation for Bad English and Tom Waite. There was a definite formula involved, as the “Chinese restaurant” method of band names worked well — endless permutations of animals and adjectives: Whitesnake, White Lion, Great White, White Leppard (no, sorry I made that one up). Mix in a lead singer that could scream and hit those high notes, a lead guitarist that could spray notes like napalm, a drummer with one arm, and you had a good shot to blast past the power ballad IPO.

So here are a few eighties hair metal videos that scarred me for life. I can’t watch a single one of these without bursting into tears or laughter at my wasted teenage years.

Whitesnake: Here I Go Again

The vision of Tawny Kitaen peforming interpretive dance gymnastics on cars stuck in traffic did a number on my formative years. Later in the video she tries to crawl out of a moving car wearing a turquoise bathrobe. If that wasn’t the ultimate fantasy of a teenager trying to get his driver’s permit, I don’t know what is. The music now sounds like a super commercial Led Zeppelin but who cares, for a time David Coverdale was the luckiest man on earth.

Def Leppard: Pour Some Sugar On me

There was a month in 1987 when Def Leppard had forty-five hit singles on the charts simultaneously, all from their kajillion-platinum album Hysteria. The hair metal formula was finely honed by this point, to where one could borrow from The Archies and still have a hit. The uber-commercial, multilayered, and processed “Mutt Lange” sound was then grafted onto Shania Twain, who not coincidentally, also does interpretive dance in spandex.

Great White: Once Bitten Twice Shy

An Achy Breaky Heart lyric: “My, my, my, once bitten twice shy.” The most obvious rhyme in the universe; so annoyingly hooky I’ll be unable to forget until death. The video is a rock star fantasy — get a band together to jam in a warehouse and gorgeous women ride in on motorcycles to sing backup. Much better than Poison’s Something To Believe In where the lead singer must sit on a block of ice.

November Rain: Guns and Roses

This was pinnacle of hair metal moxie, fame, epic aspirations, and pointlessness. Slash stands alone in a desert to play a guitar solo, there’s a supermodel in a wedding, and Axl plays a piano backed by a whole orchestra and a few religious symbols. I don’t need to hear any more GnR songs after this one — the idea exhausted; the wad blown — this is the Boo.com of hair metal.

Lita Ford: Kiss Me Deadly

The success of this song proved women could rock — which wasn’t too hard since most of the guys had perms, sang really high, and were wearing tights anyway. But none of them had knee guards and crawled around on an icy floor while a wind machine doubled as a blow dryer — so that’s how their hair got so high. Oh, but now I know where Poison got the ice blocks.

Winger: Seventeen

I save the best for last. Kip Winger played the bass guitar, sang, and danced. He spends most of this video spinning around, doing high kicks, and trying to keep the strands of his torn-up shirt from falling off, while demonstrating a most economical one-handed bass style. Now if Winger could have hired Tawny Kitaen to do interpretive dance in this video; hair metal might have lasted until 1996.

Oh, and before I forget:

Poison: Something To Believe In

Basically John Lennon had a jukebox that he would take around with him on tour, filled with all of his favorite music. It’s a pretty good sampling of early R&B, Stax, to folk stuff from Dylan. What’s interesting to me is the documentary seeks out some of the original artists and goes over their inspirations. You can also hear a lot of musical influence toward the Beatles’ own songs.

Lastly, the whole idea of this large jukebox filled with 45 records is an interesting contrast to today’s iPods with tens of thousands of songs in a package no larger than a wallet. There’s something definitely more precious about having 40 odd physical objects containing your favorite music. The irony is that by having only room for 40 songs, might we be more careful about our selections and value that music more?

I’m guessing there are at least two readers of this blog that care about Crowded House, but MSN Music has a full concert recorded of a recent Crowded House concert from the House of Blues in Chicago — August 18, 2007. It’s over at MSN Music (USA link) and played just fine on my Mac.

Here’s the set list:

• Recurring Dream
• World Where You Live
• Say That Again
• Heaven That I’m Making
• Fall At Your Feet
• Silent House
• Hole In The River
• Don’t Dream It’s Over
• Not The Girl You Think You Are
• Take The Weather With You
• Pour Le Monde
• Don’t Stop Now
• Distant Sun
• When You Come
• Locked Out
• Pineapple Head
• Four Seasons In One Day
• Throw Your Arms Around Me: This is a Hunters and Collectors song.
• Mean To Me
• Better Be Home Soon

I found the performance enjoyable, although I have to admit the three front men look darn old. Mark Hart and the new Drumer Matt Sherrod are quite solid, Neil Finn’s voice still cuts through everything, though he had some trouble hitting the high notes. I also didn’t care for the different version of Don’t Dream It’s Over. But overall, I’m glad I checked out this concert. The live versions of both Silent House and Say That Again were nice compliments to the new album, Time On Earth.

Here’s my list of the best Crowded House songs, and my review of Time On Earth.

Recently, Paul McCartney signed on to have his solo stuff in iTunes (I bought his Memory Almost Full there) and Ringo has had some of his stuff in there for a while now, so now it’s just one more to go: George Harrison. For we all know, when the Beatles’ albums finally show up on iTunes, we can’t have any of this “partial album” stuff because of rights issues.

The Beatles are an eventuality at this point, and their iTunes debut might be perfect timing, what with rumored full-screen iPods coming later this year or more likely, MacWorld ’08. Sounds like a great opportunity for the snazzy Yellow Submarine edition I keep reading about.

Truth be told, it’s an idea that calls for a change in my way of thinking. I’m still a die-hard album fanatic. Even with digital downloads, I find it hard to download just one song from an artist. It feels somehow incomplete and unfair to to only cherry pick an artist’s best songs — like watching only one scene of a movie — so I find myself still buying complete albums, even through downloads.

Doesn’t that sound old fashioned? Well, I’m divulging my age.

I grew up with albums and cassette tapes. CDs became popular when I was in junior high and throughout high school. The shiny-disc format required a mental adjustment. Pre CD, albums had two sides of music (basically two albums), with a strong, single-worth song at the start of side one and side two. The CD forced us to look at albums as one continuous stretch of music.

The CD also killed off large album art and liner notes. Odd as it may seem today, the first few years of CDs were sold in “long boxes” that were the same height as an album LP. Perhaps this was to fit CDs into store shelves designed for LPs, or maybe someone was worried that nobody would be able to locate the relatively small CD jewel boxes.

I also “wasted” quite a bit of money on cassettes. These were the format of choice for portability, as they worked in a car or a Walkman, plus one could make their own “mix tapes.” It seems rather amusing the amount of time wasted fast forwarding, rewinding, and pausing to find the right songs.

Today, the whole “record store” concept seems rather quaint and increasingly outdated — soon CDs will only be sold in a dusty bookstore backwater or big box superstore department — before passing away completely.

But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking the death of the record store and the CD is a move to the future. The current format of choice — single songs, more digestible for digital downloads, is actually a return to the days of the hit single, where all the emphasis was on the lone song. It seems the entire music industry is moving backwards in time. Focus is also returning to the live concert — which is how musicians made their living before the recording industry even existed.

The record industry basically made a consumer product out of music by wielding the power of technology to control recording, mass production, and distribution. Musicians basically had to get involved with the recording industry in order to be heard by a mass audience. I need not say more about how computers and the internet have basically broken down the record industry’s power; the story is familiar to everyone.

Anyhow, back to the album. It’s a statement on the music world of today that there really haven’t been many albums that justify a purchase, especially in comparison to the sixties, when the Beatles made their name as creating albums where nearly every track was worth owning.

Perhaps digital downloads make it easier for people to create their own radio stations which is more appealing than listening to the same artist for a half-hour. Perhaps attention spans are shorter, and changing songs or hitting shuffle on an iPod is just too ready an option. Perhaps people prefer to make their own albums with iTunes and a CD burner, and forego the inferior ones created by the record industry. Perhaps today’s artists aren’t capable of filling an entire album with great songs.

But whatever the reason, the CD format is dead. The sixty year old genre of music called “rock and roll” still struggles to remain relevant. I’m thinking the more things change, the more they stay the same… only with less packaging.

There are definitely stellar moments during the disc’s overarching theme of personal memory, its reevaluation over time, and evaporation upon death. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will satisfy me in the long run. It’s a ray of sunshine on a slightly overcast day, continually fading behind clouds, leaving me wanting for its occasional warmth.

But first, the good: Paul McCartney doesn’t give a damn what anybody thinks about his music, and his confidence is stamped on every note. While Chaos and Creation at times sounded distant and reserved, the songs on Memory Almost Full are compressed and in your face (which I may cynically suggest is so they play well over Starbucks loudspeakers). But when McCartney hits the sweet spot of expectation and delivery, there’s nothing like it. I’d say the first six songs all pass the audition.

• The mind-achingly simplistic opener Dance Tonight benefits from its directness and the addition of new instruments at just the right times.
• Ever Present Past is instantly memorable, classic McCartney, with a steady groove and some nice swooping melodies. When it opens up into “the things I think I did…” there’s a keyboard twiddle reminiscent of With A Little Luck.
• Next comes the warmth of See Your Sunshine, a trip back to 1979 with syncopated piano chords, a killer vocal hook built around nothing but “doo doo doos,” perfectly placed dew drop chimes, and stellar bass playing to boot.
• The rocker Only Mama Knows is a catchy combination of Jet, Madness’ Our House, Crowded House’s Tall Trees, and Susanna Hoffs’ It’s Lonely Out Here. Paul is an abandoned child contemplating the motivations of his absent mother. Given the setting of an airport lounge, is Mama the chanteuse of Jet? The song is framed by contemplative string sections, the latter of which echoes the song’s guitar licks.
• I can’t help but read into the possible intent of You Tell Me is an acidic alternate track from Chaos and Creation. A lover wonders if the singer was really there during several romantic memories of the past, to which the the answer is a cold “you tell me.” Is it directed to the former Mrs. McCartney?
• Mr. Bellamy is a multi-part song like Uncle Albert or Band On The Run. I initially thought this character was an anti-social elder locked in an upstairs bedroom, but according to Paul, he’s a suicidal everyman on a window ledge, threatening to jump. Paul voices the different characters of the story, recalling Queen but more surely, early Wings.

Wow, could Memory Almost Full get any better?

But after these first six, things get sloppy, and soon the Walrus is wallowing in excessive wastefulness. Lyrics become painfully obvious, chord progressions non-existent, and vocal inflections revert to the familiar McCartney standbys of high falsettos, baritone bellows, and whoops to a non-existent audience. Gratitude features increasingly tiresome vocal noodling, That Was Me is essentially boastful egomania, and the death song The End Of The End won’t make an appearance at many funerals (I think Let It Be will still be more appropriate in that regard). Especially weak is the album closer Nod Your Head, a tired descendant of Helter Skelter combined with the hokey pokey.

I’ve read a few reviews claiming the latter half of Memory Almost Full is akin to the second side of Abbey Road. I politely disagree. There is a string of several songs with nary a break between, but the songs themselves are nowhere on par with the material on that hallowed Fab Four album. If Memory Almost Full were advertised as such, I’d have to ask for a refund, and not for the latte.

I was ultimately frustrated by the glimmers of perfection on that beg for a little more effort or a road not taken. Personally, I prefer the calculation of Chaos and Creation. But I’m satisfied with the first half of Memory Almost Full, and look forward to the next sunny excursion of the cute Beatle.

Note: Via iTunes, I downloaded the “extended” version containing three extra tracks. Most notable is the mysterious, out of character jazz exploration 222, where McCartney’s pure voice minimally blurts out “look at her walking” in the manner of a muted trumpet. That experiment is stunning stuff — could I have an extra shot of that, please?

iTunes Store Link: Memory Almost Full (Deluxe Limited Edition) — Paul McCartney

Update: The list doesn’t yet include In Rainbows or King of Limbs, Radiohead’s most recent albums…

If forced to pick a Top Five, it would be Paranoid Android, Karma Police, Pyramid Song, High And Dry, and Everything In Its Right Place.

To read my full album reviews, check out these links: Pablo Honey, The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail To The Thief.

1. Creep

What’s good? Here’s my short list:

• One chord progression repeats throughout. It takes some talent to provide enough variety that this isn’t that noticeable.
• The verse melody, with the slight downward arpeggio reminds me of Erasure.
• The middle section where Thom serves up with a unique countermelody in falesetto, foreshadows the unusual melodies found on OK Computer.
• One killer drum fill as Thom opens out into full yell.
• The crunchy guitar noise foreshadows the guitar experimentation shown on future albums.
• The whole thing evokes a mood of alienation and loneliness, soon to be synonymous with Radiohead.

iTunes Store Link: Creep — The Best of Radiohead

2. High And Dry

From the gently syncopated drums of the verse to the comfortable vocal melody, this song is perfection. I can’t think of a single thing amiss here, except the falsetto may not be to everyone’s taste, and this song and the next have basically provided a sound for Coldplay to spend their entire career exploring.

iTunes Store Link: High and Dry — The Bends

3. Fake Plastic Trees

Another perfect song that builds decently — I appreciate its sincerity. There’s a simple organ lick also reminds me of Elvis Costello’s King of America.

iTunes Store Link: Fake Plastic Trees — The Bends

4. Just

This song is incredible. It’s equally varied and exciting as the crazy parts of Paranoid Android. Things are taken to a high level with a guitar lick that rises up to a shivering high note (capable of bursting through eardrums), followed by a second coda broadcast like a telegraph bursting into a phone-booth.

iTunes Store Link: Just — The Bends

5. My Iron Lung

I think this song was written in response to the unexpected chart success of Creep, which pushed the band into the spotlight, but led to the unflattering description of Radiohead as the “British Nirvana”. The “iron lung” of this song refers to a career-sustaining one hit wonder, while also fitting in nicely with Radiohead’s subject matter of life sustaining, dehumanizing technology. But I mention Nirvana as I assume it’s the reason for the brain-crushing middle section that I believe is meant as parody and homage simultaneously. That said, it still sounds cool, with some good contrast between sections.

iTunes Store Link: My Iron Lung — The Bends

6. Airbag

We start with a meandering, epic guitar lick, supported by some extremely compressed drums. During the verse there’s a droning guitar, an off-beat bass, and a persistent drum beat. Every part is unique, and progressively more interesting sonic jewels are ladled on. During the second verse, an effected guitar moans in the background, adding some exquisite bends at the end of vocal phrases. Following that is a strange instrumental section where this background guitar gains the focus. Next, the drums get some attention with some out of control effects sprouting off of it like fractal ferns. Finally, the meandering, epic guitar lick returns, cutting through the haze like a spotlight, and crashing onto a major sixth chord. The song establishes a sense of experimentation in a wide open space.

iTunes Store Link: Airbag — OK Computer

7. Paranoid Android

I could devote a whole post to this one song. If Airbag wasn’t enough, this song seals Radiohead’s place in history. The first section highlights my favorite thing about Radiohead: an unusual chord progression that makes you think, how can there be a vocal melody for that? And Thom delivers, finding a hook laden melody that arcs, and finding unusual high notes to highlight. As he sings, “What’s this?” a spooky android voice and spooky, chiming guitars join in.

During the instrumental the song gains some energy, with a simply stunning bass guitar run. Full guitars join in, a cool drum fill, as Thom’s voice soars to a hight note over the same spinning chords. Then the lead guitar jumps all over everything like a happy gopher.

The song then separates out into another section, that introduces a new, complicated chord progression, mostly sinking into a deep hole as it transverses several keys. The magic is that Thom again finds a hook-laden melody in all of this “rain, rain down on me, from a great height”. It’s a hymn to heaven while sinking into hell. But it doesn’t stop there. A counter-melody appears behind the lead vocal, ending with God’s children.

Suddenly, we’re back in an earlier section with climactic guitar jumping all over everything, but with an added effect designed to slash through an ear drum, plus a shaker for good measure. Better and better, it finally crashes into silence.

iTunes Store Link: Paranoid Android — OK Computer

8. Exit Music (For A Film)

This music stars out with just acoustic guitar and voice, but then opens up to a fuzzy bass guitar and some scary noises. When the lead vocal hits its heights, the music goes sweetly nuts. I love the contrast and build from the song’s beginning to that point. There’s also a sweet suspended note in the keyboards.

iTunes Store Link: Exit Music (For a Film) — OK Computer

9. Karma Police

A perfect song. The initial acoustic guitar chords reminds me of XTC’s Dear God. The chord progression is quite long and intricate. What’s stunning is the melody Thom develops over it, upon first hearing is surprising yet fits perfectly. The middle part (this is what you get) with the piano reminds me of The Beatles’ Sexy Sadie. After two go-rounds with this cool progression, we enter a coda section, inspired by the chords but containing yet another melody that fits perfectly. Variations on “I lost myself” waft over the chords, repeated like a mantra. The active ascending bass line provides an interesting contrast and support. A distorted, delayed echo spins over everything and destroys the song, bit-reducing it into nothing. It’s stunning stuff, and I’d dare say only a step removed from The Beatles’ A Day In The Life.

iTunes Store Link: Karma Police — OK Computer

10. No Surprises

This song is about being asleep, and the open guitar tone matches well with xylophone chimes, evoking a child’s lullaby. The major chord progression and pleasant melody are not unlike what one might hear on The Bends but there’s a sickly sarcastic tone, of a pleasant suburban place where nothing goes on — an advancement of that album’s sound. In this hermetically sealed, man made paradise where nothing ever changes — you may as well be dead, or totally zoned out on sedatives.

iTunes Store Link: No Surprises — OK Computer

11. Lucky

This song is rather “cowboy,” with a similar dynamic variety as Exit Music. What I enjoy is the synergy between Thom’s voice singing “pull me out of the air crash” and the lead guitar bends whining out a counter melody. After two goes around, there’s a syncopated guitar-based bridge that builds to a final chorus, leaving us literally, “standing on the edge,” unresolved.

12. Everything In Its Right Place

This is an awesome, expansive song, with some tasteful computer effects, morphing the lead vocal into loops. Over a keyboard drone, I essentially see it as a distillation, and a direct descendant of Planet Telex and Airbag. The vocal melody is essentially centered on two notes: one the high elation of “everything” and the other on the “right place” and the “lemon” lines. The second section starting at 2:16 is stuck on the lower note, and repeats incessantly until a final release at 2:51, where the voice quickly fades away, leaving the keyboard to drone on alone. That this tension and release occurs around what I consider to be essentially two notes is pretty darned cool.

iTunes Store Link: Everything In Its Right Place — Kid A

13. Optimistic

This is one of my favorite songs from the last three albums. The first section has a haunting falsetto melody. The verse vocals mimic the rhythm of the guitar. But on “try the best you can” the guitars move into an ascending melodic line that’s quite stunning. But my favorite part comes at 1:31 where the guitar and a hollow keyboard double up on a lick which continues on through the second verse. At 2:37 the song opens up with an additional rhythm. Then on 4:24 we get those choice drum fills I love, beneath the opening falsetto melody. As an added bonus, there’s a different version of the tune that takes us out.

iTunes Store Link: Optimistic — Kid A

14. In Limbo

This song has a circling, pulsing rhythm that is instantly memorable. In this pea soup, melodies have been miraculously located. There’s also a neat hook on the phrase “living in a fantasy.”

iTunes Store Link: In Limbo — Kid A

15. Morning Bell

These electronic drums are less eardrum damaging, and of course the major chords on “release me” are perfection, especially with the ascending bass line. It’s a kinder version of the tension and resolution of Everything In Its Right Place. There’s another version of this song on Amnesiac and I prefer this one.

iTunes Store Link: Morning Bell — Kid A

16. Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box

There’s some delicious phasing as the clanking loop doesn’t always line up with the timing of the keyboard part or the drum machine. The vocal melody mimics the keyboard part, speaking of disillusionment and years of boredom. I’m guessing the sardines are commuters riding a cramped MUNI bus to work.

iTunes Store Link: Packt Like Sardines In a Crushd Tin Box — Amnesiac

17. Pyramid Song

I had a strange out-of-sorts feeling once, while listening to this masterpiece. The ascending piano chords are in an odd meter that only finds a regular rhythm when drums arrive. As on OK Computer, the vocal part finds an envious melody perfectly suited to the odd chord progression. At 1:54 strings mimic the vocal melody as some fascinating slow motion drums enter. I also enjoy moments at 2:52 and 3:25 where the strings repeat the high vocal part and then settle into the pulsing rhythm of the piano.

iTunes Store Link: Pyramid Song — Amnesiac

18. 2+2=5 (The Lukewarm)

A good opener, with an energy recalling the last three albums, specifically Paranoid Android.

iTunes Store Link: 2 + 2 = 5 — Hail to the Thief

19. Myxomatosis (Judge, Jury & Executioner)

One of my favorites on the album. I love the strange, staggered fuzzy lick, the odd drop out of the music, and spooky droning noises sprinkled over everything. The drum part alternates between two patterns as the lick repeats. It seems concern a cat spreading a disease of fame-induced claustrophobia.

iTunes Store Link: Myxomatosis (Judge, Jury & Executioner) — Hail to the Thief

20. Scatterbrain (As Dead As Leaves)

I love this song. It has a slightly askew, oddly timed chord progression, in which a beautiful vocal melody is somehow found.

iTunes Store Link: Scatterbrain (As Dead As Leaves) — Hail to the Thief

The recently reformed Crowded House’s new album Time On Earth is slated for July 10. They’re on tour, and it looks like they’ll be in the Bay Area come August.

The Smashing Pumpkins (well, half the band) have an album called Zeitgeist also coming out on July 10.

Suzanne Vega’s Beauty and Crime debuts on July 17. It seems to be a theme album about New York City.

Kelly Willis, pretty much the only country artist I listen to, has a new album called Translated From Love on June 26.

Radiohead is supposed to have something for us this year.

Paul McCartney’s Memory Almost Full is out now, but I’m a bit scared to give it a whirl.

Sam Phillips has a new one in 2008. No word from Elvis Costello on new material.

Lots of listening ahead. First one in iTunes gets reviewed on this blog… oh wait, that’s Paul McCartney.

This actually answered a burning question I had which was how The Bends stacks up to Kid A, Amnesiac, and Hail To The Thief. To my surprise, The Bends fared better than any of those three according to my totally nonobjective Intra-Album Ranking System.

I wish Kid A and Amnesiac had been released as one album, with weaker songs dropped.

1. OK Computer

4.16 stars

Webomatica: OK Computer

Best songs: Airbag, Paranoid Android, Exit Music (For A Film), Karma Police, No Surprises, Lucky

iTunes Store Link: OK Computer — Radiohead

2. The Bends

4.08 stars

Webomatica: The Bends

Best songs: High and Dry, Fake Plastic Trees, Just, My Iron Lung

iTunes Store Link: The Bends — Radiohead

3. Kid A

3.8 stars

Webomatica: Kid A

Best songs: Everything In Its Right Place, Optimistic, In Limbo, Morning Bell

iTunes Store Link: Kid A — Radiohead

4. Hail To The Thief

3.64 stars

Webomatica: Hail To The Thief

Best songs: 2+2=5, Myxomatosis, Scatterbrain

iTunes Store Link: Hail to the Thief — Radiohead

5. Amnesiac

3.54 stars

Webomatica: Amnesiac

Best songs: Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box, Pyramid Song

iTunes Store Link: Amnesiac — Radiohead

6. Pablo Honey

2.91 stars

Webomatica: Pablo Honey

Best song: Creep

iTunes Store Link: Pablo Honey — Radiohead

What’s especially bumming is I really liked his last disc, Chaos And Creation In The Backyard. Seemed like he was on the edge of an artistic re-awakening.

I guess I won’t know for sure until I have a chance at listening to the album proper, but there really isn’t much to recommend about this first tune except that the video has Natalie Portman in it. But at least it will be available via iTunes and Starbucks so you can make up the extra energy via a Star Trek episode download or a triple caramel McCartneyatto.

iTunes Store Link: Dance Tonight — Memory Almost Full (Deluxe Limited Edition)

Michael Penn is among my favorite musicians since his debut single No Myth. I’ve bought all his albums since, which isn’t a difficult task, as there are frustratingly few. However, I always felt rewarded despite long waits between, as each was chock full of the singer-songwriter-power-pop goodness I could savor like a thick block of chocolate.

Penn’s stunning album Resigned hijacked the Beatles’ Revolver, with the title’s quadruple pun referring to dejection, “resigning” from RCA, while being “re-signed” to a new label. The fourth pun comes as I recently realized the album’s cover was lifted directly from the television series The Prisoner. The title of his fourth album MP4 is a music file format and an acronym for “Michael Penn’s Fourth.” Song titles had similar literary games, with the punny phrases I Can Tell and Try, featuring glorious inner rhymes like “watch me blink and overlook what I undertake.”

On Mr. Hollywood Junior, much of this careful wordplay is gone. The disc is also painfully short — over twelve songs, three are brief instrumentals. The overall sound is mid-to-down-tempo — the introspection of Bucket Brigade, Long Way Down, and Out Of My Hands distilled to a slow freeze. Sadly, my initial reaction to Mr. Hollywood Junior was not all positive.

But after a few listens, it’s grown on me, to where I prefer it to MP4. Evident is attention to song placement, as some alternate between despair and hope: the truly dejected O.K. (“there’s really not a lot of options open”) is followed by the hopeful On Automatic (“things are looking up in the meantime”).

The most stunning shift is between the excellent Walter Reed (“I’m mad, cause every good thing I’ve had abandoned me) and wistfully nostalgic Denton Road (“if you don’t show that’s fine”).

There’s also a theme linking everything together — the year 1947, just after World War II. Digging a little deeper into what transpired fifty years (before the Maker’s Faire), there are additional hints leading to another layer of creativity. The transistor was invented. Marilyn Monroe had her film debut and was crowned Miss California Artichoke Queen (perhaps inspiration for the song Mary Lynn?). September 18th was enactment of the National Security Act of 1947 which led to the Cold War that would hang over the world for the next forty years.

Anyhow, I feel this attention to detail is worth an extra star. Plus there are three songs I’d call stunning: Walter Reed, Denton Road, and On Automatic, the sort that I hear a few times and think nothing of it, until a few days later I realize the hooks have sunk in. Hopefully they’ll tide me over until Penn’s next album arrives sometime in 2011.

Oh, and why not enjoy this video for Walter Reed which should make a heck of a lot more sense after reading my post.

Michael Penn’s Website
Wikipedia: Michael Penn

iTunes Store Link: Mr. Hollywood Jr. (Double Disc Version) — Michael Penn

When I bought Whatever I didn’t expect much, but Aimee Mann was actually on the cusp of a brilliant reinvention from the ashes of Til Tuesday (stereotypical hit wonders) to a “serious singer-songwriter” (a stereotypical cliche). Luckily, Mann had the good fortune to team up with Jon Brion, an unusual producer also on an upswing. A former member of the cult band The Grays, Brion would go on to produce Fiona Apple and the Punch Drunk Love soundtrack.

Whatever contains melodic, Beatle-esque musical diversions — melody-over-chords based songs with cynical lyrics, given complex, layered production. Spaces between every phrase are filled with unusual instruments and hooks.

The warm experimental instrumentation can’t help but evoke the sixties on several tracks. I Should’ve Known bristles with Beatley invention, from background harmonies, chiming organ, trumpet, with pokey oboes on the bridge evoking memories of Pet Sounds. There’s a beautiful George Harrison-esque guitar solo. From there, Fifty Years After the Fair takes us to the world of the Byrds, complete with chimes.

Overall there’s a dejected, resigned break-up vibe to the lyrics. Stupid Thing is especially cutting as Mann describes to her former lover the hopes that have been dashed. “It wasn’t me that you outsmarted,” implying the one lost is the accused.

Now that I think about it, Whatever contains many moments I could live inside of: the “never mind” background vocals of Stupid Thing, the double-meaning of the ode to lost fame I’ve Had It, and the frozen-steel, knife’s edge guitar solo in the slightly spooky, stalker tune Say Anything. Some cruel lines to a know-it-all former lover appear in that song: “If you were everything you say, things would be different today… now I’ve heard everything.”

As always, there are some weak tracks, and for me they’re the ones where Mann puts on a happy face, possibly for unneeded balance. Put Me On Top is a misfired hit song, declawed and repetitive. Mr. Harris sounds strangely gloating. And I skip the pseudo-vaudeville showboating of the final track Way Back When.

But that leaves nearly eight tracks that I would lock in a time-capsule for when I’m 64. This album deserves more than just a passing “whatever.”

iTunes Store Link: Whatever — Aimee Mann

Wikipedia: Whatever

There’s also some humongous album collection available as an Amazon exclusive, which includes 12 of his CDs. The selling point is the tremendous amount of music has been remastered.

However, a little more digging revealed that these remasters are essentially the same as the versions on the Rhino re-release from a few years ago. Each album includes a second disc with tons of extra tracks.

Essentially, my whole Elvis Costello collection on CD are older, Rykodisc versions, which contain extra tracks but nowhere near as many as the Rhino editions.

So of course, I’m now wondering if I should buy the whole freaking collection all over again via the Rhino double-disc CDs? At about 20 bucks a CD, that’s nearly $300 for mostly music I already have. Well, I have “unremastered” versions. Even though I’d love to have these remastered discs and the additional music, I’m a little hesitant to buy the same material all over again.

This issue of “new and improved” versions of the same old stuff comes up again and again, as we just got through replacing all our VHS tapes with DVDs, when HD-DVD is right around the corner.

Perhaps a trip to the library is in order…

So what album is this tour in support of? Well, two compilation albums: The Best Of — First Ten Years and Rock and Roll Music — no new material. However, in terms of my first Elvis Costello concert experience, this old-is-new proved to be a positive. The set list was as though an indie rock fan reviewed all 4,529,284 Elvis Costello songs and eliminated everything non-rock or cute. Therefore, no Burt Bacharach, string quartets, North, Il Sogno, Punch The Clock style horns, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, or duets with Anne-Sofie von Otter (yes, I even have that CD) set foot in the Warfield. All left was “rock.”

Now, Costello’s definition of “rock” means: tribal drums (Pete Thomas), hammer-handed rhythm guitar strumming, a vocalist spewing words like a chainsaw through a dictionary (his quote, not mine), oddly placed tremolo guitar noises, and bass (Davey Farragher) and keyboard embellishments (Steve Nieve) sprayed all over everything, as if to compete with that chainsaw plowing ahead with five gears in reverse.

It also meant near-minimalist efficiency. Barely a word was uttered by the shades-and-suited Costello (think the cover of Trust) as he led the Imposters through clangy song after song, seamlessly moving from one to the next, only pausing for a sip of water and an odd, suspicious pose a few steps away from the microphone.

It seemed Elvis Costello and the Imposters had something to prove, perhaps that fifty-year-olds (well, save the bassist) can still thump out this askew brand of rock and exhaust the audience. Many songs clanged forth that I had no confidence he’d attempt, namely Beyond Belief, Uncomplicated, and Lipstick Vogue. The only “slow” songs were Little Triggers, Country Darkness, and Allison.

Yet I can’t say he was pandering by playing only classic, early-career tunes or hits. There was no Veronica, Every Day I Write The Book, or Oliver’s Army.

But there was a whiff of: what artistic heights does Costello have to climb anymore? After making company with cellists, Paul McCartney, Diana Krall, and Hollywood movie ballads, what use does he have for artistic pretension? Everybody already considers him a stellar songwriter, even if they don’t buy his CDs. So this was just straight rock performance, no “yeah, the Juliet Letters was brilliant,” while stifling a yawn. He’s earned his stripes, and so the right to strip them away.

Near evening’s end, I muttered to my wife, at this rate — he’ll certainly play Radio Radio and Pump It Up — and of course The Delivery Man delivered. The last song was What’s So Funny About Peace, Love, And Understanding, and the Imposters suddenly vanished into the shadows as efficiently as their take on rock and roll.

Note: Costello also played two Beatles songs: All I’ve Got To Do and Hey Bulldog. Both have moments totally appropriate for that Elvis sneer (“you can talk to me”). I feel he’d pass the audition for the John Lennon role in the non-existent Beatles’ reunion.

Additional Reading: Elvis Costello’s Website, San Jose Mercury News

And what Elvis Costello was up to earlier in the day: Marin Independent Journal