Album Review: D-D-Don't Don't Stop the Beat

Junior Senior - D-D-Don't Don't Stop the Beat (2003)

Welcome to the Land of the Unsubtle. DiscoBeatberg, Handclappia, population one heterosexual and one homosexual and a whole lot of repeated references to this fact. This album is LOUD, abrasive, and oh-so-toe-tappingly infectious. That stuttering album title might as well refer to the general ADHD inability of anyone within earshot of this music to stand still. It's stripped down, shout-led, Euro-club music that is quite obviously heavily influenced by the B-52's with tinges of surf music / garage rock thrown in. The lyrics cover the general spectrum of "Move your feet" to "Dance, Mofo, Dance." The front half of this album is great, but by the second half the act wears a little thin. That really covers it - it's a pretty obnoxious dance album that's a lot of fun and got quite a bit of attention early in the decade, being featured in Fox promos and the like. Hopefully by this description you can tell whether you'd like it or not; I enjoy spinning it for a cathartic spazz out every now and then. Highlights include "Go Junior, Go Senior," "Move Your Feet," and the uber-goofy "Shake Your Coconuts."

Status: Recommended (solid) ... for the right kind of mood
Nyet's Fave: "Go Junior, Go Senior"

Album Review: Can't Buy a Thrill

Steely Dan - Can't Buy a Thrill (1972)

If you're in the know - and if you can brook a little shmaltz with your sublime jazz-rock sensibilities - Steely Dan is a primo band. CBaT is their first album and features a bit more of the "pop" end of the pop-jazz-rock spectrum, seemingly allowing jazz flourishes to pepper the album rather than anchor it. It also features a different lead vocalist on some of the songs - allmusic tells me it's David Palmer - who's just a bit too bland. His tracks - and the last three tracks on the album, for that matter - delve into early '70s soft-rock territory that lacks bite and fails to keep me engaged, evoking the worst of grim dental associations*.

* - In the interest of full disclosure, that is a DFW quote from IJ.

That's a rather negative start to a review of a good album, but it's only fair to warn a rock-raised prospective listener that a first spin of a Steely Dan album can inspire a sort of "Ugh, soft rock!" gag reflex. It's key to get past that. The first two thirds of this album contain plenty of the intricate melodies, catchy phrases, acerbic wit, multi-genres and face-melting virtuosity that serve as the signature SD sound in future, more adventurous albums. There are two huge hits on this disc, the Latin-tinged "Do It Again" and the pop-perfect "Reelin' in the Years." Both, in addition to being plain fantastic tunes, feature exquisite guitar/sitar (!!) work/solos, well worth the price of admission. ("Kings" features another one of these Guitar-Hero-impossible lead breakouts, a favorite of friend and air-guitarist extraordinaire Jesse "El Guapo" Goldberg). Those highlights accentuate an album full - aside from the aforementioned forays into overly soft-rock - of interesting, memorable music with numerous moving parts that coalesce. There's better Steely Dan to come, imho, but this is a platinum disc that matches its popularity with craftsmanship / skill; it's well worth a spin and could serve as a good intro to the band before getting into their more jazzed out excursions of the '70s.

Status: Recommended (solid)
Nyet's Fave: "Reelin' in the Years"

The Sadness & The Happiness

Album Review: I'm Going Away

The Fiery Furnaces - I'm Going Away (2009)

(If you haven't heard of The Fiery Furnaces, it might be a good idea to head over to their allmusic page - or wherever, you're smart enough to google - and familiarize yourself with the out-there qualities of the Friedbergers. A quick list that will give you a glimpse: intense concept albums revolving around electronic pulses and pirates; oral history album featuring their grandma; a live album pastiche work that is culled from various live performances of the given song, none of which really match the melody / structure of the album composition. Quirky, to say the least. And then came this album...).

The latest disc from the dynamic sibling duo of tuneful experimental composition is a curveball of simplicity, and as such, widely reported as the most accessible thing they've recorded in their eight album career. The kitchen-sink timbre has been largely dropped in favor of a piano-rock foundation; obscurantist lyrics of born-again dogs and hieroglyphics exchanged (for the most part) for straight up tales of sing-along woe. Polyrhythmic post-bop forays - okay, some of those are still here - take a backseat to impossibly catchy choruses, repeated in a Police-like fashion until they're appropriately bored in skull. This is by any stretch a pared down, laid-back and seemingly unweird exposition by one of my very favorite bands. And DAMN does it work.

Don't get me wrong - the wacky tendencies still permeate even these bare tunes, they're just not as overtly scattershot as in past efforts. Multiple key changes, alternating tempos, odd time signatures, jazz-funk breakdowns all manage to poke their head in here and there, but this time around they are pleasant accents to fundamentally solid melodies. And in one of my favorite "moves" of the album, the fourth and eleventh tracks share lyrics, but not in the same order. And their melodies / tempos / styles are entirely dissimilar. It took me about ten listens to realize this. In what may be the best answer yet to G'N'R's "Don't Cry (Alt. Lyrics)," The Fiery Furnaces have crafted "Charmaine Champagne (Alt. Song)." Yep, it's a different sort of wacky this time around, and in the bigger picture, verse-chorus-verse and repeated segments in general becomes the bizarre.

This cup overfloweth with highlights. In album order:

"I'm Going Away" - The opening titular track is actually a rearranged traditional that is now firmly stamped with frenetic FF-ness.

"Drive to Dallas" - a super mellow borderline jazz ballad backed by ringing piano that also features a maniacal bridge and a fake-ending speed-up session.

"The End is Near" - a soul ballad of "Lean on Me" proportions that would not be out of place in a Donny Hathaway album, were it not so much of a downer.

"Charmane Champagne" - Super catchy spastic rocker that hums like Tourette's. Exhibit 1A of Eleanor perfectly cramming her lines with too-many-yet-perfectly-rhythmic syllables. "She's gonna get me folked up/Fairly beat" will echo through your head for days but always bring a smile.

"Cut the Cake" - great return to ballad for the pacing of the album and nice use of dissonant giuitar accents / solo

"Even in the Rain" - routinely gets described as "too catchy for its own good." Features a ton of key changes and takes repetition to a special place. :)

"Staring at the Steeple" - a dark, dissonant rumbling bassline number that just completely shifts gears and launches into lounge time funk-disco-jazz breakouts. Strangely enough, this overtly weird song - have I made this clear yet? - stands out.

"Ray Bouvier" - another catchy chorus raucous bar number with a nice crystal synth guitar solo.

"Keep Me in the Dark" - a borderline Lennon-McCartney composition in that it alternates between a minor key, almost spy-music riff and a superbly upbeat chorus.

"Lost at Sea" - the saddest, greatest piano ballad of relationship/self-disillusion you'll hear. The gem of the album, to my ears.

"Cups and Punches" - the aforementioned very Pavementy-sounding laid back reworking of Charmain Champagne. Very weird, complete with wails.

"Take Me Around Again" - the sing-songy closer that Beck says remind her of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. There's definitely a chorus line / jazz hands / Broadway musical feel to it, and it goes on long enough and repetitively enough that you halfway expect band members to be taking their bows throughout the song. It allegedly alludes to 1920s popular song choruses. As much of a trainwreck this sounds, it's a really kitschy cool end to the album and unfailingly makes me smile.

There ya have it - a fantastic top-to-bottom album that I've probably spun twenty times over the past few days, and its infectious tunes / repetitive choruses still fail to repel me. And when it's not playing, it continues in my head. The Fiery Furnaces have pulled off something rather neat here, and I think they know it - there are reports that, in characteristically weird fashion, they like this album so much that they plan on covering it (one set of covers by each sibling) with brand new melodies for their next TWO albums. Holy goofiness. Anyways, I'm a card-carrying pew-sitter w/r/t these guys, so I'm far from objective - I love almost any off-the-wall insanity that they throw out there - but this LP really manages to exhibit their experimental edge while remaining entirely tuneful. It's a great, great intro to the band, a little too recently released for me to declare a desert-island kinda record, but highly, highly recommended.

Status: Recommended
Nyet's Fave: "Lost at Sea"

Co Cup Sprawl

Back: Jason, Brady, Jim, Eric, Bryan (obscured), Keith, EBay, Big Nate, Vince (obscured), Jose, Tim, Justin
Front: Dixon, Josiah, Rob, Nyet (w/ Bryan's baby), Allen, Ryan

Bury My Heart @

On the plus side: big day at the softball park last night. We swept the double header, and I went six for six, all line drives, with two doubles and a spray of three to right, one up the middle (drilled the pitcher, oops) and two to left. I played third base and made all my plays. Exciting times; we hit up Zipps on the way home and caught the tail end of last night's epic Sox-Yankees game (in which A-Rod walked off in the 15th to a 2-0 win). And Beck came (to the softball game and Zipps) and captured photo evidence (of the softball games but not Zipps). Here's the walk-up-to-plate-and-hit-double-to-right routine (and before you criticize the lack of a straight front leg, not that the pitch was low and outside, necessitating the knee-bend):

On the minus side: why was I playing third base? Knee is still gimpy. Nothing terrible, just hurts laterally and continues to have fluid in the joint. Running is pretty okay, it's the stopping that's really bothersome, which obviously puts a damper on my Ultimate plans for the weekend. I guess it had only been five days since Sunday's breakdown, so maybe last night was a little early to expect to be back. Frustrating, but survivable. I will continue to rest, ice, ibuprofen and skip practices in the meantime. Oh, and not eat, since without the calorie-burnage of running and Ultimating, I can quickly become 1.4 Nyets.

Hunky Dory's Opening Track

After a few months of having the nattiest front yard on the block, the landscapers finally came in the past couple of days and changed out water-sucking frontstep into an eco-friendlier xeriscape. Pretty pretty, and that much less yard to mow.