Loud Family - Music: What Happened?

2003
by Scott Miller

"Milkshake" - Kelis
It was around 1983 that I felt ushered into the music business a bit, and around 2003 that I felt fairly completely ushered out. As closing credit themes go, what says "you don't belong here anymore" like an Asiatic synth funk sex ritual song called "Milkshake"? Warm it up! That chorus, "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and their like/Is better than yours" has an eerily infectious cadence. One hears that Kelis and writer/producers the Neptunes are going to have to charge for teaching the techniques that freaks these boys, and one withdraws knowing the torch has been passed to worthy hands.

"Black Math" - The White Stripes
You'd think that being a big Stripes fan going in, for them to create the new song that all kids play at guitar stores and yet have it be the case that "Seven Nation Army" leaves me cold would be unthinkable, yet it does. However, the celebration of teenage guitar ecstasy that is "Black Math" makes me want to go jiggle the pickup switch of a Les Paul right now.

"Way Of Life" - Stew
Stew is well capable of musical and lyrical tours de force, so in a soft, musically underachieving, lyrically conversational setting, his feelings come across by slower diffusion. The office hookup and related snapshots of spiritual isolation play a little like Dubliners, just letting the characters hang themselves for our entertainment, except when, literally, "the choir sings love, love, love is a way of life."

"Take It Like a Man" - Joe Jackson
Mr. Jackson apparently still makes a pop record here and there, and this is a fine showing, gearing up for the scalding appearance on the Ben Folds/William Shatner "Common People" in 2004. Ben Folds seems to have fed some of Joe's own fancy rock piano energy back to him.

"El Caminos in the West" - Grandaddy
Grandaddy probably deserve immortality just for "Alan Parsons in a Winter Wonderland," the genius of which is that it seems to exist just so they can say, "In the meadow we can build a snowman/And pretend that he is Alan Parsons"; "El Caminos in the West" is my favorite for more conventional reasons.

"Carmichael" [edit] - Neil Young and Crazy Horse
"Powderfinger" and "Down By the River" have proven that Neil is the rock guy born to create fully-drawn characters, and the Greendale project finally lets him put together a whole verse narrative. My favorite part is "Carmichael," about the thoughts of those close to the slain officer at the time of his memorial. It's full of fairly loving observations of human nature and mixed emotions, culminating in the widow's ejaculation of, "That was a good vacation/Maybe the best of all/God damn it Carmichael, you're dead now/And I'm talking to the wall." It's a long piece; I edited two or three minutes of somewhat meandering guitar soloing, which left plenty.

"Fall Dog Bombs the Moon" - David Bowie
Reality is certainly the album of 2003. I can't even say it's unusually good, or even that I like it very much, but it has a power of engagement that is remarkable. The center of the album for me is "Fall Dog Bombs the Moon," and the center of the song is the line, "There's always a moron, someone to hate." Together with, "These blackest of years that have no sound/No shape, no depth, no underground," it suggests a challenge to the reality of Western modernity that has real teeth. The lazy side of me is relieved to hear the just-rightness of Earl Slick replace the too-muchness of Reeves Gabrels, but the less lazy side of me refuses to disown ...Hours... for reasons implicit in the Reality worldview.

"Piazza, New York Catcher" - Belle and Sebastian
The way this keeps three balls in the air—simple British Isle folk, breezy New Yorker poetry, and accurate San Francisco local color—is astonishing. Lyrically I infer an exploration of what it means to require one's relationship commitment to be within a bohemian framework.

"Andy, Please" - Van Duren
Recorded in 1978 and unreleased until 2003, Idiot Optimism is part two of Van Duren's brief but bright two-year recording career. "Andy Please" exists in demo form, I believe with minor deity Jody Stephens in semi-permanent drummer capacity just after Big Star. Vocally callow and in some ways with more power pop sense (the line "I'm aware of the love you're going through" has something Chilton-worthy about it), the demo is worth seeking out; this album version has some boring studio pro guitar and a gravelier vocal that in the end is just so good you have to call it the definitive version.

"Hey Ya!" - Outkast
This is possibly the most beloved song of the decade, and I don't do anywhere near that much beloving of it, but hey, it's a really outstanding verse melody. And "you've got to shake it like a Polaroid picture" appeals to the luddite in me.

"99 Problems" - Jay-Z
I don't usually find much to like in rap lyrics that aim for the thug life hero thing, but as I know many of my Caucasian-American homies agree, "99 Problems" is pretty darned entertaining. That beat with the fuzz guitar chord is killer, for one thing. I love "Yappin' to the captain" (did he make that up?) and "Are you carrying a weapon? I know a lot of you are." Yet, I'm not sure what sort of social engineering is supposed to be accomplished by a lyric that talks about "how I hold my gun" while inventing a false prejudice of firearm possession.

"Turn a Square" - The Shins
For some reason it was hard for me to identify this as the standout track from Chutes Too Narrow; it struck me as a sort of throwaway novelty boogie number. But living with the album, I came to observe myself being happiest when I was listening to that song. For one thing, that's an excellent boogie riff, no cheap signifier, and that crazy repeated-descent guitar solo couldn't be more perfect. The memorable line is the one about the glimpse of ankle that makes him "react like it's 1805"; James Mercer has that T.S. Eliot feeling that things used to be different and somehow more meaningful in times past, and he also seems to have the wherewithal to grow that into spiritual longing rather than just surface antiquarianism.

"The Law Have Changed" - The New Pornographers
The melodies on Electric Version can be a little bit incoherent, but not on this stunner of a pop theocratic meditation. Neko and Carl take turns reacting to "Pharoah on the microphone" with awe at the great unknown and iconoclasm. These Canadians' inventiveness with beats, keys, and na na nas keep giving power pop a good name.

"You Were Right" - Badly Drawn Boy
I woke up one day and somewhat resignedly realized I had no choice but to like Badly Drawn Boy. I can't quite say wherein my resistance lies, but this song was the swing vote. Something about the pacing of the verses—the halting triplet followed by the long run-on sentences—is perfect for the unrushed recapitulation of what it took for Mr. Boy to reach a state of contrition, including his dream of being married to the queen while Madonna pined from afar, which showed him it was "right to bide your time and not to buy into my misery."

"Red Morning Light" - Kings of Leon
Apparently the sons of a revival circuit preacher according to the press kit, the Kings are a very good southern garagey rock band that have achieved jaw-dropping worldwide success. My favorite of their songs, "Red Morning Light," offers some helpful advice to the young ladies: "I said hey hey/You're giving all your cinnamon away/That ain't right!"

"Light in Your Eyes" - Sheryl Crow
I'm not ordinarily a fan of Sheryl Crow, and odds are that any given piece of Christian rock will weird me out, but I find "Light in Your Eyes"—which I take to be straight devotional—utterly lovely and transporting. The soul of "My Sweet Lord" is not far here (there's a direct quote in the slide solo if I recall correctly). The boldest line is, "You never existed until you saw the light"; the sentiment reminds of Simone Weil's brilliant Gravity and Grace, which asserts that human action is mechanical, gravitational, but for the enlightening breaking-in of grace.

"A Song For Someone Sometimes" - Outrageous Cherry
Outrageous Cherry have been out there threatening formidable stuff at all times for quite a while, and this is the one that for me really nailed it. This strange (always) pondering of universality unfolds in tight harmonies over chords that wander adventurously but make it back by dark with something special and oddly personable in its impersonalness.

"One Good Cry" - Dipsomaniacs
This is the Norway Dipsomaniacs, not the New Jersey Dipsomaniacs, whom Anton Barbeau has told me nothing about, so I'm at a disadvantage. Not so with the Norwegians, who along with these other of my last three selections, has a plausible hook-of-the-year claim—here with, "All you really need is one good cry." And how about those drums?

"Stealing Rosemary" - The Bangles
This is just as good as anything from the heyday, which for me is really saying something. This is a Vicky Peterson gem getting just the right star treatment, and why it didn't rocket to becoming a far bigger hit than "Eternal Flame" can only be attributable to global warming.

"12:51" - The Strokes
Not a great big Strokes fan, I heard—and fell in love with—"12:51" out of context of the rest of the album, or even the first album, though it seems more expansive than the primitivist Velvets aspect of the early material. "12:51" in a way feels like it wants to be Squeeze or Belle and Sebastian, but really stays pretty close to a simple boy-calls-girl scenario, albeit with a slight art-rock edge: "Talk to me now, I'm older... Change your plans and then phone me" (which I was happier to think was "Change your friends and then phone me" but looking at online lyrics, I seem to have misheard). Just when I think I can't take one more of those fuzz vocal productions, someone comes along and makes fine use of it, so it's probably a technique with legs, and the Strokes were early adopters. The bottom line is that there's just something supernaturally perfect about the verse hook melody.