Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2009 > November > 16
Monday, November 16, 2009
CD review: John Mayer - ‘Battle Studies’
John Mayer
‘Battle Studies’
(Columbia)
Grade: C
Listeners who put on a pop record and are greeted with the sound of an orchestra tuning up may fear they’re in for an hour of self-importance. But the latest from soft-pop superstar John Mayer doesn’t want to shake the earth, it just wants someone to love.
Fair enough. But instead of wooing the listener, the singer is intent on first convincing her of the wreck old loves have made of him. “I’m in the war of my life,” he croons on one track; “if fear hasn’t killed me yet,” he claims, “then nothing will.” But there’s not a drop of passion in his voice, and Mayer doesn’t appear to know there should be.
He nearly pulls off the sad-sack act on “Perfectly Lonely,” but even there isn’t fit to hold the Kleenex of another smooth-sounding pretty boy, Chris Isaak, who understands how to make languor sound truly heartbroken.
Mayer delivers plenty of radio-friendly pop here, like the gently catchy “Who Says,” but his take on “Crossroads,” in which his buzzing rhythm guitar sounds like a sound effect from a ’50s sci-fi movie, hardly bolsters his blues credentials.
He’s at his best on “Half of My Heart” (joined by pop-country phenom Taylor Swift) and “Friends, Lovers or Nothing,” two takes on romantic ambivalence in which the songwriter actually seems to know whereof he sings.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Reviews
CD review: 50 Cent - ‘Before I Self Destruct’
50 Cent
‘Before I Self Destruct’
(Aftermath)
Grade: C
50 Cent tries to reconnect with his gangster rap roots on his new album, “Before I Self Destruct.” Besides a few Dre tracks and the lead single “Baby By Me,” the album has a consistent and monotonous sound — harshly melodic beats with hard pianos and drums behind them.
With no other guest rappers besides Eminem, the album rests entirely on 50’s shoulders. (Ne-yo and R. Kelly do sing some hooks on the record.)
Such a bright spotlight does him no favors. He rarely switches up his flow, mostly sticking with the same gravelly sing-song rhyme scheme that sounds like he’s talking out of one side of his mouth.
And he’s certainly not the cleverest lyricist, using lazy metaphors like “I’ve got more guns than a gun store” and “I’m like Will Smith in Pursuit of Happyness; in my hood we hustle in pursuit of the same (expletive).” Eminem out-raps him on “Psycho” so badly it’s embarrassing.
“Before I Self Destruct” is a full-throated return to the hardcore lyrics of his underground years: “You want some, come get some / It’s murder one when you see my gun / I just squeeze and squeeze till the whole clip done / You just bleed and bleed until the police come.” That’s the most surprising part of the album - 50 has made hundreds of millions of dollars over the past seven years, yet he doesn’t sound very happy.
The only reason girls have sex with him is to “have a baby by me and be a millionaire.” Even his usually witty one-liners are tinged with bitterness, such as slams against banished G-Unit members Young Buck and Game. The scars from a messy custody battle with the mother of his son are still fresh: “She don’t care about me, she just wants some cash / I’m thinking damn girl we used to be friends.”
But anytime he shows any vulnerability, he quickly scrambles back to the psychological safety of the gangster pose. He mentions the pain he felt when his mother blamed him for the missing furniture his crack-head uncle stole, then immediately boasts “he pistol-whipped that (expletive) till his face was purple” to retaliate.
As “Psycho” shows, a rapper as talented as Eminem and a producer as talented as Dre can make great music about nothing, but 50 doesn’t have nearly the skill of his mentors. He spends most of “Before I Self Destruct” trying to scare us, when it really sounds like he just needs a hug.
Update: This article has been amended to correct the guest rappers. Thanks to our readers for pointing this out - the version we reviewed had the wrong guests listed on some tracks.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment Categories: Reviews
CD review: Them Crooked Vultures - ‘Them Crooked Vultures’
Them Crooked Vultures
‘Them Crooked Vultures’
(Sony BMG, DGC/Interscope, Columbia)
Grade: B-
A well-meant ode to goofing off with pals and heroes, Them Crooked Vultures can’t be accused of having a thought in its heavy head outside of “Let’s rock!” Since so few bands aspire to that simple notion these days (what’s up, Monsters of Folk), these guys sound downright outside the box.
It helps that they are a trio of weights so heavy they filmed an “Austin City Limits” episode months before their album was released. John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin, bass, elder statesman), Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, drums, alt-rock vet) and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, hard rock’s tallest, most suave man) make quite a crew. And hey, the songs are almost there.
As anyone who saw their “ACL” taping, ACL Fest show or Stubb’s gig know, these Vultures came to boogie. The tracks range from stuff that sounds a whole lot like Queens (“New Fang,” “Mind Eraser, No Chaser,” “Caligulove,” which is the most Queens-sounding song title Homme has ever come up with) to stuff that sounds an awful lot like Zeppelin (“Elephant,” “Reptiles”). “Spinning in Daffodils” is the full-on psychedelic jam, seven minutes of piano intros, Zep riffs, Grohl’s rolling, wonder-thump and general rock ‘n’ roll sprawl. There might be an organ involved in “Warsaw or the First Breath You Take After You Give Up”; not their best idea.
But hey, there’s nothing here that’s anybody’s best idea. That’s the problem with supergroups — nobody is ever going to hand over their finest notion to a project band, no matter who else in the group that person is trying to impress. Just throw the CD in the car and hit the highway.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Reviews
CD review: Kris Allen - ‘Kris Allen’
Kris Allen
‘Kris Allen’
(Jive)
Grade: D+
Kris Allen, with his matinee idol good looks and Hallmark Channel-friendly personal story, falls squarely into the camp of utterly unsurprising “American Idol” winners. His second album (but first since participating in the television show) is precisely the sort of pop confectionery you’d expect from a carefully groomed would-be star, a generic outing that’s all soaring harmonies, inoffensive guitar and utter lack of soul.
Single “Live Like We’re Dying” kicks off the album, with cliche lyrics that — aside from, um, urging you to live like you’re dying — elect to go as broad as possible, lest any listener be alienated by an actual glimmer of personality. It’s a running motif throughout the album, which favors almost offensively universal songs modeled after adult contemporary pop favorites like Maroon 5. Allen’s voice is serviceable, but from love song “Before We Come Undone” to “Is It Over,” he fails to make much of an impression, churning out one anonymous radio-friendly nugget after another. Only on a bizarre and fun cover of Kanye West’s “Heartless” does Allen show the promise you would expect of the man who just might be the most musically diverse “American Idol” winner yet.
Update: This article has been amended to correct a couple song titles.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment Categories: Reviews
CD review: Norah Jones ‘The Fall’
Norah Jones
‘The Fall’
(EMI)
Grade: B
There are all sorts of ways to interpret a tantalizingly ambiguous album title like “The Fall,” but the most resonant is also the most biblical. Like mankind’s own fall from the grace of the Garden of Eden, Norah Jones’ fourth full-length abandons the sleepy, idyllic jazz sound that characterized diamond-certified and Grammy Award winning debut “Come Away With Me” in favor of a more complicated — but also more intriguing — world. “The Fall” represents a loss of innocence for Jones — and a needed injection of color and musical variety that should help her shake that “S’Norah” nickname once and for all.
Make no mistake, “The Fall” has some vintage Jones, as on the sad, sweetly melancholic “December,” or the smoky piano-infused “Back in Manhattan.” Both songs are rich with the regret that tinges recent breakups — Jones split with longtime collaborator and boyfriend Lee Alexander prior to the album’s recording. Fortunately, she also retains a sense of humor on “Tell Your Mama” — a Southern shouter that evidences that there’s more than a bit of Texas left in Jones — and “Man of the Hour,” a love song penned to her dog.
But “The Fall” really pulses during its more adventurous moments. “Light as a Feather” is a dark, driven dirge of a song, while the steady, strong percussion of “It’s Gonna Be” has a bop not typical for Jones songs.
Lingering electric guitar underlies “Young Blood” and breaks out into a full solo on the album’s best song, “Stuck,” co-written with Will Sheff of Austin’s own Okkervil River. “I’ll go home alone, a sinking stone, a switched-off telephone,” Jones sings, moodily recapping a drunken, unhappy night alone.
It’s a sharply poignant song that reminds the world that even after three best-selling albums, Jones is still a young woman at 30 with plenty of heartbreak and insight left to share.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Reviews
WOXY’s Lounge Act series returns tomorrow
When much beloved online rock radio station WOXY up and relocated to Austin back in September, one regrettable casualty was the popular Lounge Acts series, which corralled some of indie’s best musicians into the studio for a live performance and interview.
Fortunately, Lounge Acts will at last return to the station Tuesday (Nov. 17), with a performance from Tennessee’s Royal Bangs at 2:30 p.m. It’ll be followed by performances from Mission of Burma at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, Thao With the Get Down Stay Down at 1 p.m. Thursday and Elvis Perkins in Dearland at 2 p.m. Friday.
It’ll be interesting to see whether WOXY’s new home will mean more local artists cropping up in Lounge Acts — the last Austin band to play the series before its hiatus was rock trio Ume.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment
Fun Fun Fun final tallies….
….are almost final, but not quite.
“I think we are 21 percent above last year,” Fun Fun Fun producer James Moody said Monday. About 8,600 people attended each day, up from 7,900 last year.
While Nov. 7 was gorgeous, Nov. 8 walk-up was nearly destroyed by steady rain. However, Moody said Fun Fun Fun moved more merchandise than ever before: “We sold about four times as much merch as last year.”
Transmission is still waiting on final word from the City of Austin on what their obligation is to restoring Waterloo Park. (Waterloo Park does not have the on-going upkeep of, for example, Zilker Park, but the rain and mud on Nov. 8 was significant, and high traffic areas looked pretty rough.)
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Fun Fun Fun Fest
Boston Globe features Wimberley’s Jarosz
Sarah Jarosz, the 2009 graduate of Wimberley High, was the subject of the arts section lead of the Boston Globe this weekend. This article comes after the news that the mandolin whiz, currently a freshman at the New England Conservatory, won’t be playing the Old Settlers Music Fest this April, for the first time since she was 12.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment
Live review: the Swell Season at the Paramount
Harry Houdini once performed at the Paramount Theatre- some of the current ushers might’ve worked that show- but it’s hard to imagine a more magical night at the old grand hall than Sunday, when the Swell Season put a musical spell on the sold-out crowd for two hours.
The night just felt special, like when you can see in the performers’ eyes that this ain’t Dallas.
“The Swell Season” was the name of a 2006 album credited to Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard, which actually came out a year before they “met” onscreen with the beyond-charming film “Once.” But the group now called the Swell Season is Hansard’s band, make no mistake about it, though Irglova certainly had her transfixing moments Sunday.
With Hansard’s old band from Dublin, the Frames, backing up the duo (who switched between piano and guitar), and the amazing fiddler Colm Mac Con Iomaire doing a solo turn on a traditional Irish tune, the show was one of several musical configurations. There was none so pure and powerful, however, as Hansard standing up there all alone with a battered acoustic guitar. His possessed version of Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” may have left his strumming hand permanently blurred and “Say It To Me Now” had folks dabbling at their eyes after the Irishman interjected a touching story about how saying something instead of just thinking it can make someone’s day in a deep and meaningful way.
Hearing his voice is the aural counterpart of watching an athlete do something almost miraculous. How can he possibly do that day after day?
Those who came to hear the Oscar-winning “Falling Slowly” and “When Your Mind’s Made Up” from “Once,” were not disappointed, unless they were the impatient type. Both highlights from the film came near the end, both past 11 p.m. on a Sunday night. Of the two, “Falling Slowly” was better; it’s really hard to top the emotional undercurrent of the movie version of “Mind’s Made Up.”
Hansard seemed a bit thrown off by just how pin-drop quiet the scene was, and when the band emerged to encore with “Falling Slowly” he asked the audience to remain standing because it felt better. Indeed, it was a bit surprising that the performance didn’t inspire more standing ovations. If I was in the fifth row, I would’ve been up ten times.
See John Carney’s “Once” (terrible title) if you haven’t. It’s probably the best film ever made about why people make music and how they become connected through songs. The film’s theme was there in the flesh Sunday night, when the audience sang along to an encore number so new it doesn’t yet have a name.
When it comes to Glen Hansard and the Swell Season, “Once” is not enough. But if that’s all you’ve got, it’s plenty.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: Reviews
