Loud Family - Music: What Happened?

2006
by Scott Miller

"I'm a Strong Lion" - Robert Pollard
Starting off the pretty great year of 2006 is the 23rd track on From a Compound Eye, clocking in at 1:08, yet another little wonder from Robert Pollard. Like many articles from his new wave closet, it's as catchy as anything, and makes you wonder why some boring egomaniacs need 1:45 or even 2:15. Varying two choruses of "I'm a strong lion, been tryin', the Lord likes me that way" with a third that ends "the boys like me that way" is intriguing—maybe a way of being okay with piety to a degree, but unmasking some oh-so-earnest spiritual impulses as populist at heart.

"The Werewolf of Bretton Woods" - Tris McCall and the New Jack Trippers
An enchanting, almost-too-brief electric piano riff brackets a cooly sung, charismatically arranged hip-hop narration of life as an indie music scenester, buying a guitar on "the only credit card that [he] hasn't maxed." Knowing Tris, there is undoubtedly a lot of local culture I can't help you with, like what Bretton Woods, werewolves, and "a new continent of earth and fire" (from "We Can Be Together," the 1969 Jefferson Airplane invitation to civil war) have to do with the life.

"Roscoe" - Midlake
Whatever you're doing when you listen to Midlake, prepare for them to take over your entire mental picture of the day. There's never been anything quite like The Trials of Van Occupanther; maybe its closest taxonomic neighbor is the America of "Horse With No Name": musically it's west coast soft rock circa 1972, lyrically it's a sort of epic poetry of an imagined civilization, with elements of past cultures ranging from a century removed to proto-human antiquity coexisting with each other. It manages to evoke a longing for the type of community based in primitive sacrality that is probably vanishing from the world in this generation.

"Then the Letting Go" - Bonnie "Prince" Billy
This Celtic-influenced country folk shares something of a keen literary ear with Lou Reed, and in fact has moments of reminding me of "All Tomorrow's Parties" in ways I can't put my finger on. Dawn McCarthy's distant, ringing response vocals are perfect for a literally haunted ballad concerning what seems to be a potential second generation of snow death events, the latter possibly thwarted, or compounded, by the ghost of the former, by appropriating "her skin as my skin to go out in the snow." This is certainly an extraordinary and luminous creation, but might one question a spritual approach of WWEGD: What Would Ed Gein Do?

"Museum of Sex" - Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3
Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, Bill Rieflin, and some progenitors of a great saxophone part contribute to this swinging celebration of how music and transitory physical existence redeem each other. You don't want to send just anyone to do that job, and the head office had the sense to put Robyn on it; he nails the presentation.

"Calling On Mary" - Aimee Mann
From an amusing interstitial Christmas release called One More Drifter In the Snow, "Calling On Mary," despite a lost-love motif that can function as attenuation, seems to mean more or less the real thing: calling on her who intervenes for the repentant. "When I was young I couldn't see/All that my true love gave to me" is pretty believable as late-acquired self knowledge. That "Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas" refrain really sticks in your head.

"I Was a Lover" - TV On the Radio
The results from this fiendish sample laboratory are eerily impressive. In a way they're the musical descendants of a hundred bad 1985 rap records having way too much fun with a vocal sample ma-ma-ma-ma-mapped to a keyboard key, or the dreaded "orchestra hit," but in a way all their own, the Radio scream quality. The snare seems like a cool-sounding composite of snare and hand-clap (maybe I'm dreaming), and the detuney horns and sitar are just wrong enough to be brilliant. "I was a lover before this war" is quite a grabber of an opening line, and there's an epic sonic expedition going on that's winningly exotic (the white noise sections) and climactic (the end piano riff).

"Maybe There's a World" - Yusuf
Somewhat incredibly, it seems like he is back to being able to make music at about the level of late 1971's Teaser and the Firecat, which is not quite as good as Mona Bone Jakon and Tea for the Tillerman, but is definitely up there, for anyone. That "how nice" is as affecting a lyrical touch as he's ever been capable of.

"The Long Way Round" - The Dixie Chicks
Country music doesn't ordinarily ring my bell; it's one of those genres that act like all of classical music just never happened, and my ears don't quite stand for that. I don't mean to pretend that's a consequence of my classical training or sophistication, which are unimpressive, but probably something more like having a hard time with single-malt scotch on account of being so used to bloody Marys and pina coladas. Whatever it says about me, this is country with just enough contamination by Vivaldi, or something, for me to be interested. I can appreciate an anthem of mental toughness like this, too, and although some lines like "My friends from high school... Moved into houses/With the same zip codes where their parents lived" are a bit hardened into smugness (oh, to rough it without that cheap signifier of progress), the Chicks have earned their stripes.

"All Too Much" - Gomez
For a full two minutes, this song is not only boring, it's boring in the problem way of this decade: vocalist character acting. It's the Tom Waits/Bjork effect: the more underbite, cold symptoms, and bear growl you inflect, the more authentic the music must be. A few Cat Powers and Devendra Banharts make life interesting, but there's a fine line between that and Jimmy Durante doing the sad verse after Frosty melts. Anyway, two minutes into the song, bam, the chorus hits, and from then on it's an amazing recording with everyone doing everything right. Including the singer, and especially the bass player—nice.

"Steady As She Goes" - The Raconteurs
This and the apparently Bensonnier "Hands" I think are both great, and I flip-flop day to day on which one to pick. But when a large number of people like an actual good pop song I'd like to contribute to the momentum in my own small way. Interesting to hear White with a conventional crack rhythm section—no slight intended to Meg, who I think is great and one of a kind.

"Waves Of Wonder" - The Moore Brothers
The Moore Brothers are a remarkable duo whose pinnacle in my opinion occurred here on the Kill Rock Stars acoustic compilation, What the Hare Heard. It recalls earliest childhood memories of inclusion, exclusion, awakening, and going forth into the coming high season, to a vocal arrangement that is as confident and in some ways more evocative than Simon and Garfunkel at their mid-sixties best.

"Six Feet Under" - Jon Auer
I'd known Ken Stringfellow for years and it was interesting to hear a full album from the one I always thought of as the Other Posy. He did a great job, too, which is not surprising given his terrific Posies and Big Star contributions the year before. This oddly touching and memorable what's-it-all-for song places Jon's velvety voice over a repeating piano theme that conjures visions of the Wonka kids stepping into the chocolate room.

"Microscopic View" - Pernice Brothers
Live a Little is a fantastic album—not only my favorite album of theirs, but the step up for them I was waiting for for some time, and my favorite album of this year. "Microscopic View" is probably the nicest musical invention, but the record is packed with high points. Missing, say, "Cruelty To Animals," seems unconscionable.

"Rich Wife" - The Long Winters
John Roderick has a world-class voice for high volume, matter-of-fact pronouncements (sort of a more grown-up Harvey Danger—the connection makes sense), and the precise, punchy "Rich Wife" is the best vehicle for it I've heard. They have a gift for zingers, too: "You're in love with someone you don't like/You should have been a rich wife," and especially the passing, "When you consider yourself/And you do consider yourself..."

"Backstabber" - The Dresden Dolls
With their Cabaret/goth get-up and the most petulent set of lyrics I can remember, I somehow wouldn't peg them as really me; but the talent and power here are unstoppable. Accomplished almost entirely on piano and drums with harmony vocals, there is a truly sensational percussiveness, hitting smart as well as hard, but hard indeed, on both keys and skins. Not only is there musical depth around the corner of every measure, there's a playful intelligence to what initially comes off as just a punky put-down of some music biz rival. The accusation of "backstabber" is varied predictably with "hope-crusher," but then with "fit-haver" and "off-brusher."

"All She Wrote" - Ray Davies
This is no less than one of the ten best Ray Davies songs ever, and I think my single favorite vocal he's ever done. There's some little way he draws out the vibrato an extra couple of milliseconds at the ends of lines that makes you feel a little extra pang of tragedy for the song's jilted Lothario. "Now you can mix in those swinging circles/ Single bars and gay cafes/With pickup lines to impress young schoolgirls/And big Australian barmaids." You have to be a terrific writer to capture the futility of unfaithfulness in so few words, to say nothing of the craftsmanly use of the word "gay."

"Monster Hospital" - Metric
My wife used to regularly watch the T.V. show "Gray's Anatomy," which I learned had appreciable effect on market tastes in sensitive, lightly character-acted ballads. Ordinarily not my particular I.V. bag, its music could occasionally hit, most memorably with this little bomb. It's in some unignorable ways a stupid song but, well, play it again! It starts apparently doomed to be one of those shrill, distorted vocal things and have chords that want to be adventurous but really make no sense, but then it's not and they do. The chorus—"I fought the war but the war won"—is a stroke of genius, and the musical bridges and breakdowns all sound like people who unquestionably know what they're doing.

"Harbour Bridge" - Don McGlashan
I had heard scattered material from the Mutton Birds before—"While You Sleep" from 1996 was my favorite—but this was the first time I witnessed singer Don McGlashan's awesome power to write a pop folk song as beautiful as anything Peter, Paul, and Mary might have done. His singing is melodious if usually a little sleepy, but here is invested with a subtle weight, not unlike the "tons of Japanese steel" that underlie the graceful and all-too-utilitarian bridge.

"The Blues Are Still Blue" - Belle and Sebastian
I keep loving this song more and more. It didn't leap out at me right away; besides the killer chorus, the special appeal is how gently the song's characters who are made fun of are treated. Ordinarily a "part time punk" is the person the songwriter is really getting the knife out for, but here he's a kid from school, he's trying to get mamas and papas to "be a little cool," and even though we decide he's shallow and ridiculous, we like him and remember acting a lot like him. The whole song has such a light touch with sympathy and humanity it takes a bit of time for it to sink in that Belle and Sebastian have moved to a higher plane of abilities. The year 2006 is like that in general. It doesn't hit you over the head with new innovations or worthy superstars, but generally speaking, little people in music are doing good work that makes progress on its own terms. Anyway, how about that chorus? "I left my washing in the launderette/You can put some money on it, you can make a little bet/That when I see my washing/The white will be grey and the black will be grey/But the blues are still blue." (It varies "washing" with "lady"). The black and white of you vs. them will come out in the wash, but everyone will always still have feelings; bring a little love.