Lupe Fiasco- Rewrite

From the blaring siren opening chorus, the drumbeat is showing us that a revolution is underway but how seriously is it to be taken?  Lupe Fiasco, raised as Wasalu Muhammed Jaco on the south side of Chicago, breaking through with his hit single “Kick Push” in 2006, has changed his sound. Fiasco’s song “Words I Never Said” is often compared by critics to protest songs from the Vietnam era, though the merit of the song lies more with the economic complaints rather than the ones on foreign policy. The line “Crooked banks around the world, would gladly give a loan today, so you can miss a payment and they can take your home away,” and the line, “Your child’s future was the first to go with the budget cuts,” make it work more as a clash of the classes song since he only mentions the war on terror and attacks on Gaza in the first verse. The sixties protest songs were short and simple, since it doesn’t take a long rap verse to tell people that killing is bad. Protest-raps are long-winded, which is fine but that leaves a lot of room for garbage. The lines on the schools and banks carry a fact behind with the anger, which he lacks with all of the lines concerning his conspiratorial politics.

By going after Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck, it seems rather hypocritical to stoop to their level by asking, “9/11, building 7, did they really pull it?” Like Beck, Fiasco can get the paranoid fired up while not really taking responsibility for what he says. It is one thing to call the war on terror “bullshit”, since you can’t go to war with an emotion, and the way we are approaching Al-Queda may not be the most efficient or ethical. He could even go after the media for persecuting Muslims. Though there is something cheap about questioning the perpetrators of the September 11^th attacks. Since he only gave that line in the form of a question, he can just throw up his arms and go don’t look at me, I’m just the guy asking questions, when put under pressure for saying it. It’s the only line in the song with a question mark at the end of it that carries the attitude of a conviction and it throws all reasonable credibility of the song out the window.

While a solution is not required of a protest song it is encouraged since the skeptical will ask, “How would you handle the situation, or run things better?” Fiasco indicts the American people for their docility by saying “I think that all the silence is worse than all of the violence”. But what is his solution? Not voting, “Next one neither”, referring to the upcoming 2012 elections. He even stated in interviews that he wants to encourage kids to not vote, while insisting they aren’t doing enough to fight the powers that be. Is there a worse form of political silence out there?

You Tube: The New Jukebox

               

You Tube is a twenty-four hour a day open mic. It will relativize exactly what it means to play music “professionally” and it will give a chance for young and willing artists to share their work with the world for free. Since major label artists are going to have to rely on this for promotional material as well the playing field has been leveled. But those with more acquired music tastes will also have an easier time with commercial pops dominance. My examples for showing this are through two versions of two songs. The Savage Garden song “I Want You” and its cover by Matthew Gaydos, as well as the Katy Perry song “Firework” and its cover by Pearl and The Beard.

When watching a classic rock band playing on You Tube the comments are often of nostalgia, The Smashing Pumpkins at the Metro were so great, boy do I wish I could go back. What this person fails to see is that they can go back anytime they like, while enjoying the good artists in today’s era and being able to escape the Justin Biebers for a sound that is more authentic. As great as being able to see a good underground show back in the day, means that they would have had to deal with the Michael Boltons of the time and wouldn’t be able to drown it out in a manner of seconds. The relationship between commercial pop and underground movements has always been cat and mouse. Now it is more intertwined since independent bands and DIY artists are both covering and surpassing the million-dollar machine music in both quality and authenticity.

            An underground movements would start up, usually in a major city, and it would gain a loyal following and take the exclusivity of that following to appeal to the masses before that art form has been disbanded. Pearl and The Beard are a hipster’s dream come true. They are a three member band out of Brooklyn, in bad sweaters and the classic dark-rimmed glasses, who bring out a beautiful choral set of songs over an acoustic guitar, stand-up bass, single snare drum and an array of other instruments that will help them occupy any performance space, whether it be in an ally or the Vic Theater opening for Ingrid Michaelson. They are gaining immense popularity on You Tube and are rightfully praised for their inventive and joyful songwriting. But they have some pop influences and admit a liking to Katy Perry.

While Katy Perry‘s song “Firework” will make the lovers of organic music scoff at both the sound and message, it might be easier to swallow after hearing Pearl and the Beards version. “Firework” is a song with a message that builds up letting the listener know what every other modern pop song wants them to feel: there is a little something special inside of you. What is so unappealing about this song is that it is marketed to young girls and gives them the unhealthy message that this could be you. You could be onstage rocking out to all of these people, you just have to believe. In Perry’s version the music is very dramatic and sounds very big, which takes away the believability of the song.

            The music has had millions of dollars spent on it to make it sound “perfect” and the message of you too can do something special will have its eyes rolled at because you don’t feel like there is any risk in Perry’s song. She was chosen, mass marketed and even though she wrote the song, someone else like her would come by with a similar song. When Perry turned twenty-seven Pearl and The Beard wished her a happy birthday and did so by performing “Firework” along with independent ukulele songstress Sophie Madeline as a tribute. Most Pearl and The Beard fans wouldn’t give this song the time of day. This band fits every Brooklyn hipster’s ideal and the scene where Pearl and The Beard came from would normally feel betrayed in earlier times but You Tube helps Pearl and The Beard pull it off. They start the song in a very low key way and make the build-up to the chorus sound so much more natural when done in a low-budget way. With just three instruments and one singer they managed to put on a show that justifies and personalizes “Firework”, disarming the cheesiness of the lyrics. Their innovation in playing music was a great part of feeling the song’s gushy message.

            Pop songs will die when their believability runs out and that usually happens when the key listeners reach a certain age. Pearl and The Beard will always out do the sound of Katy Perry. It is risky, raw and powerfully instrumental. Perry will blend in with the other temporary corporate machine artists.

           

Savage Garden is a sinth-pop band from Australia. They dominated the charts with catchy songs well-crafted by a computer. They are gel-haired pretty boys with sunglasses and tight black shirts. They are a now dated and phased band in the archives of You Tube. Their song I want you though carries an indie appeal. They fast paced verses of the song and the rounded chorus can still catch the ear in a good moment and bring out that light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel feeling you get when anticipating someone’s affection.

            Most twenty-two year-olds living today will remember the good old days of whatever commercial pop they were into and want to temporarily re-live it, hence the Ravinia Festival selling out with the Backstreet Boys’ two night stint. But the sound will no longer affect the minds of these now-grown up fans. Matthew Gaydos is a young tattooed college student broadcasting on You Tube from his dorm room with an acoustic guitar covered with stickers of the Sex Pistols and Yes. This shows a great range of diversity and open-mindedness to his sound. The Sex Pistol’s “Fuck Everything” attitude and Yes’s love saturated pop.  He has an eighteen song album for only five dollars and promotes it by covering an old pop song, taking requests and then giving us one of his songs immediately afterwards.

So when he played Savage Garden’s “I Want You” he brought back old memories of grade school, but he also adapted the song for older and slightly more jaded ears. The verses in “I Want You” are hard to understand, minus the line “Like a cherry cola”, and they lead up to the direct and cuttingly catchy chorus. But on Savage Garden’s version the song is backed by a pulsing drum machine and the vocals are auto-tuned. These effects on the song will make it drop out of the psyche of old listeners once they reach a less susceptible age.

Gaydos strips it down to just him and his guitar and his version brings out a drive that will make someone who never liked the original version in the first place nod right along. In his you tube video he asks his viewers to ask him to do more “unexpected” acoustic covers. “Songs that everyone else isn’t covering on You Tube” as he puts it. Seeing “I Want You” covered this way was unexpected and much more enjoyable. Before the world of You Tube Gaydos wouldn’t stand a fighting chance against the corporatized Savage Garden. He would be playing his version of “I Want You” at open mics and while his version may be well received by the small crowds it wouldn’t be on such a level playing field.

Savage Garden’s version isn’t terrible, but the sound of the song, even live, is so artificial and the grown up fans and former fans of Savage Garden are going to resonate more with Gaydos. His version represents where that song is going: covered acoustically by kids in dorm rooms and around campfires.

Gaydos’s album is an 18-song original work and has a punky cleverness in his lyrics. His punchy playing on the acoustic guitar drives that cleverness even further so his ironic cover of a pop artist is fitting to his character.

With both Gaydos and Pearl and The Beard performances dismantling the polished nature of Perry and Savage Garden this means a lot for those who try to avoid pop music. While You Tube gives them the option of avoiding the mediocre art they can swallow it down a lot easier and find it more tolerable now that artists who are more up their ally will present art like it to them in a way they want to hear it.

You Tube

Matthew Keene

Reviewing the Arts

4/23/2011

You Tube: The Ultimate Open Mic

Do-it-yourself artists are not just going to have a more fair competition with modern commercial pop thanks to the internet, but they are going to give music lovers of more acquired tastes better versions of that material. While Savage Garden and Katy Perry will be temporary glimpses of what twelve year olds are into, artists like Pearl and the Beard and Matthew Gaydos will tap into the emotion of Katy Perry and Savage Garden songs for the all-grown up fans the way the original artists couldn’t.

            Most twenty-two year-olds living today will remember the good old days of whatever commercial pop they were into and want to temporarily re-live it, hence the Ravinia Festival selling out with the Backstreet Boys’ two night stint. But  the sound will no longer effect the minds of these now-grown up fans. Matthew Gaydos is a young tattooed college student broadcasting on You Tube from his dorm room with an acoustic guitar covered with stickers of the Sex Pistols and Yes. He has an eighteen song album for only five dollars and promotes it by covering an old pop song, taking requests and then giving us one of his songs immediately afterwards.

            So when he played Savage Garden’s “I Want You” he brought back old memories of grade school, but he also adapted the song for older and slightly more jaded ears. The verses in “I Want You” are hard to understand, minus the line “Like a cherry cola”, and they lead up to the direct and cuttingly catchy chorus. But on Savage Garden’s version the song is backed by a pulsing drum machine and the vocals are auto-tuned. These effects on the song will make it drop out of the psyche of old listeners once they reach a less suceptable age.

            Gaydos strips it down to just him and his guitar and his version brings out a drive that will make some one who never liked the original version in the first place nod right along. In his you tube video he asks his viewers to ask him to do more “unexpected” acoustic covers. “Songs that everyone else isn’t covering on You Tube” as he puts it. Seeing “I Want You” covered this way was unexpected and much more enjoyable. Before the world of You Tube Gaydos wouldn’t stand a fighting chance against the corporatized Savage Garden. He would be playing his version of “I Want You” at open mics and while his version may be well received by the small crowds it wouldn’t be on such a level playing field.

            People are leaving comment after comment on how his version is better. Savage Garden’s version isn’t terrible, but the sound of the song, even live, is so artificial and the grown up fans and former fans of Savage Garden are going to resonate more with Gaydos. His version represents where that song is going: covered acoustically by kids in dorm rooms and around campfires.

            Gaydos’s album is an 18-song original work and has a punky cleverness in his lyrics. His punchy playing on the acoustic guitar drives that cleverness even further so his ironic cover of a pop artist is fitting to his character.

            

Savage U.

Review of Savage U.

Savage  University is new show on MTV that takes America’s most popular sex-columnist and having him give relationship advice to University students around the country. Dan Savage is giving MTV a chance to document what he has been doing for almost the last 10 years: going to college campuses and having hilarious and witty Q and A sessions with college students. MTV has had a history of both selling and educating the youth about sex. Every year, around spring break time, MTV heads south to push more boundaries with selling sex on TV. They justify it by adding an educational show about sex alongside, encouraging responsible behavior. The shows that tried to send a sex positive message such as “Protect Yourself” would just take clips of good-looking teens and twenty-somethings getting intimate in their underwear with a voice dubbed over reminding you “no means no”, “not everyone is doing it” and to “always wear protection”. Teen mom has been praised as a cautionary tale scenario show that would seem to work as birth control but, why go to such a low level. As if enjoying a teenage girl’s misery and frustration with being saddled with a child qualifies as birth control.

 None of the more intentionally educational shows kept a high viewership and were seen as annoying continuations of the kind of sex-ed kids got at school. So Savage brings a trustworthy authority and charming personality to solve this problem. The show revolves around a central Q and A session he holds in the University’s auditorium where he answers questions from a shoe box and comes to a clear answer with a light-hearted but sharp minded humor, normalizing taboos and telling kids what they don’t want to hear in a way they want to hear it. He then has two segments where he talks to both a guy and a girl one on one in a segment. This was the most captivating part of the show. Fans of Savage for years have been watching his witty banter answer anonymous questions. At first, one would think this is the best part of the show and can be seen on YouTube regularly, making a worry for producers that Savage’s material that being usual answers to questions would be over exposed. The best part of the show is actually the one on one segment he has with students. This shows us a whole new side to Dan Savage. You see the advice giver and his sincere desire to help young people in action. For the first time Savage has to help heal a sexual problem in front of us without hiding behind a podium or print. He is presenting his column live and more intimate than ever, all while it is reaching a wider audience than ever. He is put in a position where humor can still be present but the theatrics of answering questions is put aside and he is really taking a knee and lending a sympathetic ear.

Sex-Ed has come a long way on MTV and it looks like Dan has helped them finally get it right. The show is funny educational and more persuasive than any show about pregnancy or an anonymous voice stating what should be obvious responsible behavior.

Insecticide

Review of Insecticide Album Cover

            Known for his punchy and hooky guitar riffs, sand-papery screams and poetic lyrics, Nirvana's Kurt Cobain had a talent for paintings. Most of his best work is abstract figure paintings and the most popular one being the album cover he did for "Insecticide". Cobain's work, whether it be in his audio or visual art, often carries two themes: reproduction and contradictions. The "Insecticide" album cover is an oil painting where the central figure is a ghostly and skeletal marionette. Gripping the marionette's shoulder is a baby doll looking away with a broken and distorted expression on its face. On the same arm the baby doll is climbing, the marionette is holding two large red poppy-seed plants.  The other arm of the marionette is hanging over its rested knee, so the figure seems to be sitting in a very casual position.

            What makes this work so striking is the way the eye moves across the piece.  One of the poppy plants is bent with the marionette's wrist wrapped around it, which suggests the marionette is pulling the poppy plants towards it. The contorted faced baby doll is yanking the shoulder of the marionette and trying to pull it into another direction. "Insecticide" was released in December of 1992, around the time the Cobain family went through a rough public fiasco with child services. Courtney Love was accused of using heroine during her pregnancy with Frances Bean Cobain, and both Love and Cobain were seen as unfit parents. The album cover may not be a direct expression of Cobain's frustration with the State of Washington's decision or his drug induced life, but the three directions the painting pulls you in are very suggestive. The baby doll seems desperate for the affection and attention of the marionette and the marionette is nonchalantly and blankly looking forward.
            There is a clear life versus death contradiction here and while a baby-like figure would seem like the life metaphor, its face suggests otherwise. The baby is a burden on the marionette and the marionette is either trying to ignore the baby doll, or doesn't know the baby doll is even there. The baby doll's desperation makes you angry at the marionette's nonchalance and makes you want it pay attention to the poor child. The liveliest colors in the piece are the ruby red petals of the poppy plants. The more lively the color something is, especially with a sepia-toned background, the more a life metaphor is implied. Most art looks at a newborn baby as the perfect metaphor for life and the genius of Cobains work turns this cliché on its head.

            The contorted and darkened face of the baby looks like it is pulling the life out of the neutrally expressive marionette, while the poppy plants color is bringing life to it with their colors. It is a tragic painting and a very simple one. But the three directions your eyes move around are enticingly cyclical and make for a great metaphor. 

Jimmy Eat World

Matthew Keene

Reviewing The Arts

3/4/2012

Review of “Futures”

            Growing up in the dusty burbs of Mesa, Arizona, Jimmy Eat World have spent the last twenty years finding new riffs and punk hooks to their sound while still taking on a staunch criticism of modern Americana. Their album “Futures”, released in 2004, is a swell of emotion over what it is like to be young and not sure what to do with your life. The opening title-track “Futures” kicks in with an arena stomping rhythm and continues taking hold of the listener though “Just Tonight”. “Futures” captures the feeling of apathy towards the world’s problems while you walk the line of late high school/early college and fantasize about what the future holds for you. “We close our eyes while the nickel and dimed take the streets, completely.” “Just Tonight,” is about the pressure of staying with someone for the sake of having someone, and the song title implies that tonight is the last night I’m fooling around before waking up and fooling around again tomorrow claiming that will be the last night.

            “Work”, the album’s first single shows the consequence of doing just that begging the lover Adkins seems to be addressing through-out the record that they need to “get out of this place while we still have time”. The following songs “Kill” and “World You Loved” are hitting the crossroads of tragedy in life. “Kill” embodies the sense of staying with someone even though they are killing you and “The World You Love” carries on the sentiment in the biting line: “We’re only just as happy as everyone else seems to think we are”. 

            The songs “Pain”, “Drugs or Me” and “Polaris” cover the self-hatred from wasting time with drugs. When one builds up great expectations for a great future a drolling disappointment is around the corner and drugs are always there to ruin bright futures. “Pain” was another hit for the record and goes back to the old Jimmy Eat World roots of stabbing down on a single power-chord.

            The hardest tack on the album “Nothing Wrong” brings us to the point of a break down. You feel like the growing youth has reached a tipping point and the rounded drum riff captures the feeling of a protest gone awry. The song “Night Drive” rings us back to the lovesick boyfriend who seems to be narrating the record and has an optimistic feel to the aimless driving these characters have done for so long now. “23” is the closing track and the end of a journey that started with the ambitious but apathetic seventeen-year-old in “Futures”. The album takes you from the fist in the air of a guy who has his whole life ahead of him and captures the pain of wasting time as he puts his hands in his pockets teetering on the edge of 25. It is not a pessimistic album but a heart-full one and will go down as one of the better representatives for what emo is supposed to capture. 

Cast Away

Cast Away isn’t just a film where one escapes by taking a dramatic adventure, but is also an escape from the traditional adventure film. Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks worked together before on the cult-classic Forest Gump, and their teaming up will have that as the staple memory. Their efforts together shine much brighter with Cast Away a three-act desert Island story that avoids all cartoonish gimmicks that desert Island stories carry. We are attached to Hank’s character by admiring his determination and obsession with time, trotting the globe motivating and organizing FedEx workers. His relationship with Kelly, played by Helen Hunt, is leveling its way into an engagement when Chuck hands her a box to be opened New Year’s Eve when he gets back from the South Pacific. The plane crash is the most terrifying part and it leaves us just as adrift and scared for Chuck when he and his raft tumble through the vast blackness of the South Pacific storm.

            In the second act we are on the island with Chuck watching him learn to adapt step by step. What makes this separate from most other island adventure films is that there is no background music while he is on the island. While the film is setting up we are tapping our toes to Elvis and holiday music throughout Chuck’s busy 21^st century life in the industrialized world. The film never cuts back to the industrialized, as so many Island movies do, feeling the need to hit us over the head with, “hey you’re missing out on life”. There is no soundtrack to island life, just the rustling palms and the pounding tides.

            The third act is Chuck leaving the island, and there is an unforgettable shot of the island from a distance, and is the first time in a long time that we hear music. The violins come in and Chuck is prepared to endure the worst on his tiny-wooden raft. Before the classic, and now overly spoofed scene of losing our beloved Wilson, Chuck endures a storm that tears his tiny vessel apart. While it leaves him more stranded than he’s ever been at this point, his attitude towards losing his make-shift sail is, as forest Gump would say “shit happens”.  After being rescued and brought back to the familiar sounds of busy airports and Elvis tracks in the comfort of Memphis, Chuck re-unites with the one-who-got-away, letting the love he was longing for the whole time on the Island go.

            The film came so close to being a Gilligan-type gimmick and leaving Chuck at a literal cross-road at the end of the movie works much better than a run off the plane, kiss Helen Hunt, and roll the credits hoisting hanks on our shoulders as so many welcome home scenes are. The closing of the film is so realistic because it captures the awkwardness of having to start over from everyone thinking your dead and being so used to the fact that you are gone.  

A Review of Lupe Fiasco

A Review of Lupe Fiasco’s “Words I Never Said”

From the blaring siren opening chorus, the drumbeat is showing us that a revolution is underway but how seriously is it to be taken? People compare Lupe Fiasco’s song “Words I Never Said” to a protest song from the Vietnam era though the merit of the song lies more with the economic complaints rather than the ones on foreign policy. The line “Crooked banks around the world, would gladly give a loan today, so you can miss a payment and they can take your home away,” and the line, “Your child’s future was the first to go with the budget cuts,” make it work more as a clash of the classes song since he only mentions the war on terror and attacks on Gaza in the first verse. Sixties protest songs were short and simple, since it doesn’t take a long rap verse to tell people that killing is bad. Protest-raps are long-winded, which is fine but that leaves a lot of room for garbage. The lines on the schools and banks carry a fact behind with the anger, which he lacks with all of the lines concerning his conspiratorial politics.

By going after Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck, it seems rather hypocritical to stoop to their level by asking, “9/11, building 7, did they really pull it?” Like Beck, Fiasco can get the paranoid fired up while not really taking responsibility for what he says. It is one thing to call the war on terror “bullshit”, since you can’t go to war with an emotion, and the way we are approaching Al-Queda may not be the most efficient or ethical. He could even go after the media for persecuting Muslims. Though there is something cheap about questioning the perpetrators of the September 11^th attacks.  Since he only gave that line in the form of a question, he can just throw up his arms and go don’t look at me, I’m just the guy asking questions, when put under pressure for saying it. It’s the only line in the song with a question mark at the end of it that carries the attitude of a conviction and it throws all reasonable credibility of the song out the window.

While a solution is not required of a protest song it is encouraged since the skeptical will ask, “How would you handle the situation, or run things better?” Fiasco indicts the American people for their docility by saying “I think that all the silence is worse than all of the violence”. But what is his solution? Not voting, “Next one neither”, referring to the upcoming 2012 elections. He even stated in interviews that he wants to encourage kids to not vote, while insisting they aren’t doing enough to fight the powers that be. Is there a worse form of political silence out there?

Don Hall

Notes on “Critical Condition”

            I have to say Don Hall was the critic in the conversation that I most related to.

He emphasized early on, that being self-aware is one of the most important aspects to a critic.  “Know your own prejudices” is an example he gives. Acknowledging that he has such prejudices is the first step to over-looking them, as much as realizing that “you know nothing” is what drives one to want to learn everything.  Hall also calls the critics he disagrees with “hacks” rather than writers he disagrees with. So with an awareness of prejudice and a knack for name calling, this shows me that he is no stranger to conflict in reviewing. He wants the element of argument out there so long as the reviewer is “at least sharp or precise as what they are slamming”. 

            Conversational reviews are the best kind there are. You feel like the person is talking directly to you and the piece is being praised and criticized back and forth until the best and worst elements are brought out, and the grey areas have relatable justifications. He asks if critics have courage or are stubbornly opinionated. Knowing the witty room full of self-deprecators will take the latter he defends the position that there is nothing wrong with being stubborn. “Passion and Education go hand in hand”.  Arguing over subjectivity can be dismissed as a waste of time when compared to arguing about politics.

            While one should not spend a year debating with a stranger on which of the most recent Goo Goo Dolls albums are the most tolerable, trying to get the other person to wrap their head around the joy that that work of art brings will be far more satisfying to the ideal of “intellectualizing an emotional response”.

            Hall’s input to the conversation is minimal but shows a desire to put up a fight. His question on whether or not critics have courage seems like the kind of ultimatums he would set up for his readers. The ultimatums are a good way to get into an argumentative mode with oneself taking the reader along if there are no opposing voices available. He also puts an emphasis on knowledge, which means the potential conversationalists in his online forum are not just bantering on why one thing “sucks” and another “rocks”. The emphasis on knowledge will hone in on details worth deciphering between the disagreeing parties. Regardless of how many U2 songs I like I still felt stupid during Henry Rollin’s rant on how they have “been milking the same bass-line and guitar riff for 5 albums”. Clever, cutting, and not what I wanted to hear but felt better after hearing it.

            I reference Henry Rollins helping me realize I’ve “been had” by U2 because I also agree with Hall’s comment on it takes courage to criticize the powerful. Everyone I have shown Rollin’s rant on U2 to I made sure, liked U2 to see if they would have the same realization and were just plain offended. I didn’t just enjoy the rant I enjoyed the amount of light Rollins was producing from the inevitable heat he would be willing to take from disapproving U2 lovers. “Know your prejudices” is advice that will serve critics well and it will help one tear down the prejudices of other more easily.