Finals are over and I’m back from Paris so that means regular posts will resume. I’m particularly excited about writing on the culture that is France (middle manager hostages and all).
But since I hate to get serious too soon after vacation, why not warm up with a little music review and analysis. The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “It’s Blitz” was released this week and I was especially inspired to write this review by a little killer copywriting about the band:
“At the turn of the twenty-first century, the New York City music scene floated in a surfaceless orbit of samplers, shoegazers, and delay pedals. The city’s guitars lay choked by a digital fog, or else they lay dustily forgotten. Then, in 2002, an unbridled five-song EP by an unknown band brought noise, sex, passion, and mayhem back to the stage and to the stereo. The band’s name evoked the kid who knows that whoever’s in charge is full of s**t — “yeah, yeah, yeah” — but it also rang with the affirmation of pure rock and roll: F**k yeah! The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ first full-length album, Fever to Tell, was simultaneously filthy, infectious, sloppy, and brilliant. You could dance to it, and you could probably die to it.”
Doesn’t that just make you want to know more? In this day when everyday another large corporate newspaper declares bankruptcy and their peers say journalism is dying, I say this: boring journalism is dead. The transformation of journalism from print to digital isn’t just about the media; it’s fundamentally about quality. Boring old print journalism was “good enough” to pass the time when people had nothing better to do: sitting on the train or eating breakfast porridge. Now, we have iPods, smart phones, sugary frappucinos and morning jogs. Our alternatives have changed. But writing will live on about things that are real, provocative, vivid, profound and exciting. Imagination is always in demand.
With that side-track, let me provide a few tidbits on this album. Let me begin with why it’s interesting to me. I’ve been a synth kid going back to 1990 (age 11 for me) when I first Skinny Puppy’s “Too Dark Park“. I’ve worked my way since through all forms of electronica, direct and inspired and my sense is that synths are bound to be the musical form of the future. The reason for this is simple: they are incredibly versatile and can be programmed to do things which humans can’t. Yet in recent years, I’ve gotten back into rock music because it’s starting to bring those fantastic, synhetic moods and danceable rhythms into its powerful, vocal and melodic fold.
Now, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s on their new album have added a dose of synths to their garage repertoire in a way that sounds authentic and complementary. This isn’t an “experiment” like Front Line Assembly overlaying guitars over synths on its 1994 Millenium album or a “copycat” move to start sounding like Cut/Copy or Bloc Party. This album is YYY in synth.
The first thing that pops out at me in analyzing this album is that YYY are a musically smart band. They know how to compose, which isn’t surprising given the Oberlin Conservatory roots of the group. The time signatures in songs like “Soft Shock” are complicated and far from the predictable 4/4 signatures found in most “hipster” bands like MGMT. But they actually work really well, producing a swaying and spontaneous dance feel which is sure to make for great fun on the dance floor. Listen to the timber of the cymbal in “Soft Shock”. At times, it lures you into wanting to count out a 4/4 tempo, then disorients you with jazzy syncopation. In mid-song, the beat is taken up by a whining synth bell (or is a processed guitar?) in a classical meter and then the cymbal starts to hint at marching tempo which carries the song to an intense finale.
Lead singer Karen O’s flexible, alluring voice is the perfect compliment to the composition. Depending upon the processing, she drifts into watercolor dreamland in “Little Shadow”, paints a somber, Oriental fatalism in “Skeletons” or speeds ahead with a scream in “Dull Life.” If I could only voice one complaint, it would be that her dance-floor stomping cries on “Heads will Roll” just don’t get me thinking Marie Antoinette. She’s solid but can’t rise above the beat enough to be a true house diva. I look forward to hearing the remixes to see if one emerges which lights her voice up a little.
I highly recommend you download a copy, listen actively and find a friendly after-hours establishment where you can cheesy rock out to it.
