clearly irony is lost on michael jackson. we know it’s wasted on r. kelly, the song’s writer, who, on “step in the name of love,” declared himself the “pied piper of r&b,” i.e. creepy old guy who absconds with a town’s children for purposes unknown but very likely unseemly.

or perhaps it’s not. michael jackson essentially began his career asking for “one more chance” on the jackson five’s “i want you back.” and want you back he does, if the “you” in question is the pop audience. so, in his time of need, he turns to r. kelly, the man who wrote his last number one hit. it’s a pleasant, airy number with a leaden chorus: in his hey day it would have been an album track; during his lean years, maybe a third single. it quotes past triumphs, in particular “human nature,” itself a beautiful song that wasn’t fit to make it onto history, his first collection of hits, and one he’d die to get a chance to record today. “one more chance” is meant to help sell another hit compilation, number ones; if the single gets over by references to his past, the album will have to do the same because “one more chance” is rather charmless when taken on its own merits. he turned to kelly for another “you are not alone”; instead, he got a “gotham city.” does jackson really deserve another chance? based on a string of recent failures, professional and personal, that question becomes more and more secondary to another: will the public and, moreover, radio programmers give him one?

who knew the maternal instinct was so strong in madonna? oh, sure, the named might’ve tipped us off, but if her foray into children books wasn’t enough (and for some, it apparently is), she has become something of a mother figure to britney, counsels her not to smoke, date fred durst, and so forth. but if she really had her girl’s best interests in mind, she would’ve advised her against a) naming her album ‘get in the zone’ (what zone? the diet? autozone?) b) recording this song and c) inviting herself, madonna, to guest on it. last time they hooked up, so to speak, as everyone recalls, it was in service of that dog of a tune of madonna’s “hollywood” on the vmas. at least that was mitigated by the kiss; nothing quite rises/stoops to that level on “me against the music.” the opening banter alone is about as natural as the rapport between celine dion and frank sinatra on that hideous cover of “all the way.” and just as one has forgotten her presence, she appears mid-song to reassert it, as awkward as when one’s own mother calls out “i love you” across a crowded room full of one’s peers. when i first heard the (madonna-less) version of this song during the nfl kickoff festivities, it sounded like a chic song — dancefloor friendly, prominent rhythm guitar and choral presence — and i can’t help but feel how much better it could’ve been if it were. madonna knows nile rodgers, worked with him during her formative years. she should’ve facilitated that meeting. after all, what are moms for?

another year, another handful of ryan adams releases. now, say what you will about the whiskeytown records (i’ll say they were mostly patchy), but they did hint at, if nothing else, an individual voice. to be sure, the drunken fuck-up is not a new archetype but at the very least one got the sense that adams put something of his self in his words.

but ever since he’s been bought up by the major label machinery, dated winona, been welcomed into the fold by rock critics, and met his idols, he’s attempted to fill voids and pay homage — i admit to buying into it now and again because, as a classic rock guy, even i can only listen to captain fantastic and the brown dirty cowboy so many times. by turns, he’s bob dylan, now van morrison. on “so alive,” he’s early u2 — he is friends with the strokes, after all — but then he’s morrissey, ca. bona drag.

some might herald this as change, as a breakthrough: “he’s never tried to be more than one rock icon in the same song!” me, i hear the edge playing “suedehead”; steven patrick beating his chest and wrapping his arms around the world. there is total disconnect between verse and chorus that no pre-chorus or bridge could sumount. but it’s the details that bother most, the ice-pick guitar lines and the catch-in-the-throat vocals on the verses, especially. someone is sure to be pleased by this, ryan’s accountant for one, maybe another hollywood starlet (i hear tara reid’s single.) but i, for one, am left wondering who the hell does ryan adams think he is? or, perhaps, more to the point: just who is ryan adams?

so this all happens because i happen to be listening to erasure; because i heard this clay aiken song on the radio; and because, hey, doesn’t the nylpm redesign look nice? why not bring the site even more hits? claynation will soon be on its way and i’m content to be its chew toy.

for those outside of the u.s., clay was the runner-up in the most recent american idol and is now probably the biggest geek icon since rivers cuomo. since then, the actual competition was the only thing he’s come second in, in terms of single sales, airplay, magazine covers, etc. think thom yorke after a ‘queer eye’ makeover. but it was before that makeover, as a gawky, God-fearing, fatherless, special education major that he won the hearts of a guilty nation. would we have responded differently if we knew that he ran over a kitten? that he harbors an intense hatred of cats? (i can’t believed he fooled so many young girls; me, i knew from the start. oh pussy, oh pussy cat!)

the talk surrounding this last ‘american idol’ was that it signified ‘talent over image.’ honestly, nothing could be farther removed from the truth. the reason why i believe europeans will remain untroubled by clay is that they know nothing about him, while we american viewers watched him grow up before our very eyes. who watched for the music? admit it, we all just hoped that this would be the night that clay winked at us, or that ruben pointed at us, or that julia’s top would bust open. everyone in this year’s top 12 had their little thing that they did, their own quirk: if they didn’t steal your heart, they probably stole your car. (ruben, the actual victor, is another story: he’s performed a cover of westlife’s “flying without wings” that will perhaps take off if europe isn’t yet tired of america selling its product back to them, even if it is in augmented form.)

(and, yeah, c’mon clay conspiracy theorists: your boy gets his own special “moment like this”-type song written especially for him, and ruben gets warmed-over westlife? please. no one’s gotten this jobbed since chantel failed to make it into s club 12 & under or whatever they’re calling that ‘american juniors’ group. )

what i’m saying, then, is that i’m worried about clay. i was doing my damndest to conceive a plan that will break him in the rest of the world. while listening to “this is the night” for the umpteenth time, i realize that the chorus bears a striking resemblance to erasure’s “oh l’amour.” (try it yourself at home!) i then turn to “oh l’amour” and i recognize the line: “broke my heart and now i’m achin’ for you.” “achin’ for you?” “AIKEN for you?”all of a sudden, i hear clay’s broadway melody over synths and tinny drums — it’s crazy enough to work, if andy’s content to play andrew to clay’s george.

let’s face it: erasure aren’t the world-beaters they used to be either; it seems mutually beneficial, to say the least. during the season, comparisons between clay and barry manilow were tossed about left and right. maybe it was the sportscoats; maybe it was the large gay fanbase. why not capitalize on it? a la the ‘abba-esque’ cd, this newly-minted supergroup could perform an ep of barry manilow covers. called ‘un-BARRY-ble.’ maybe something else. i just come up with the ideas, i’m not an ad firm. (answers to the usual address: best entry wins a handful of clay’s chest hair, as pictured on the ‘rolling stone’ cover.)

and if that doesn’t work… paging pete waterman…

and speaking of nellyville, for those unaware, here’s the genesis of the term, taken from the village voice:
And so, the story goes, while test driving an SUV near St. Peters, Missouri, the roots-conscious rhyming millionaire discovered that the suburb was for sale. Succumbing to the nouveau riche urge to splurge, Nelly fantasized about purchasing the town and renaming it Nellyville. He bought the SUV instead of the burg, but the opposite move might have reconciled his sudden wealth, his attachment to home, and his acquired situational narcissism (i.e., the delusional state that allegedly made Winona Ryder go hog-wild at Saks Fifth Avenue). In fact, Mayor Tom Brown says, “St. Peters has never been up for sale, [nor do I] know of any other town for sale anywhere. At an assessed property value of [nearly] a billion dollars, I have no idea how anyone would think that they could ‘buy the city.’ “

like his old man, robin thicke is a practitioner of the songwriting craft, but whereas alan confined himself to the television theme song genre (diff’rent strokes, facts of life, wheel of fortune), robin has joined the growing ranks of pop/r&b artists. many people would try to conceal the fact that they’re the son of the guy who sang the theme to 1973′s ill-fated wizard of odds, but robin obviously revels in it. there is something unspeakably crapulent about the name THICKE in all capitals: perhaps it’s the monolithic excess it represents, or maybe because it calls to mind alan’s one-man off-broadway stage show, THICKE!, which was riddled with difficulties from day one. then again, maybe it’s just an american bias as it seems to be the very symbol of the canadians’ successful assimilation into our society, how they pass themselves off as one of us, conspire to steal our women, and monopolize our theme song industry.

the sins of the father, as they say, should not be revisited upon the son: robin has a song, and it’s not half bad at all. sure, kid rapper a+ beat him to the punch with the sample of “fifth of beethoven,” but robin uses it far more creatively and extensively. vocally, he falls somewhere in between justin timberlake and bobby brown; he places similarly on the freak scale, the lyrics making coy mention of putting one’s (preferably female) toys (e.g. a vibrator) away for the evening. what’s most disconcerting about the track, lineage notwithstanding, is the way the backing vocals and strings and synths create a wall of sound akin to michael jackson’s “thriller,” so it’s not so much “when i get you alone,” but “when i get you backed into a corner in this here dark alley.” anyone who’s seen the “thriller” video, and that means you, knows that that’s no way to get ola ray into bed –then again, michael jackson’s pops wasn’t the dad in growing pains.

whenever i listen to sylvester’s “(you make me feel) mighty real,” i think, “this is music to snort coke to.” or, more craftfully, “mighty real” played as bianca j. got off one white horse and onto another in studio 54. the production is oleaginous and there’s an amphetamine-kick in its acceleration, but the intensity of sylvester’s vocal, an almost gospel-like fervor, suggests bright lights and packed dancefloors.

listening to vitalic’s poney ep, and “poney part 1″ in particular, makes for a similar yet obverse experience. gone are the strobes and dancing girls, replaced instead by dark alleys and desperate men (and women). the production is not so far removed from sylvester: there’s a similar thickness, but the darker elements of the former are amplified and the kick drum seems uncannily persistent. synthesizers scream and vocals processed from a bad dream call out to the listener — if one chooses to accept it at face value, it’s music to mainline heroin to.

or maybe it’s the music that plays when miss kittin and her famous friends have sex every night in the back of her limousine, which is to say that, beneath the surface, it might just mean nothing at all. i can make one link between “mighty real” and “poney” with no vacillation whatsoever: no matter one’s drug of choice, and i’ve tried this at home, both still sound fantastic. and you can dance to them too.

“what’s going on?” is a great song: it was great for our parents; it’s great listening still for us; and it’s especially great if you’ve got a cause. any cause, really. it could be aids, it could be helping victims of terrorism (or, to be more politically correct, victims of failed u.s. military policy in the mid-east). leave it to bono to realize: “bloody hell, it could be BOTH!”

and, oh yes, it is. “what’s going on?” features an a-list of stars, though, really, who let the guy from savage garden in?; if you couldn’t be on tribute to heroes, you’re on here. (if you couldn’t be on here, you’re on the montel williams (!) helmed “we are family”; God knows what michael jackson is doing with his “what more can i give?”; even elvis is reaching from beyond the grave, releasing a single of previously released material such as “if i can dream”) an incredible array of talent — the backstreet boys to nas; britney spears to nelly — take on an incredible song and the results are…well, incredibly bland. a fellow more churlish than myself would say: “surely, the victims have been through enough!” it’s no “voices that care” but it’s still better than “hands across america” — can someone remind me of what that whole thing was about? — and i hope it sells lots and lots of copies and gives equal help to the victims of 9/11/01 and the victims of aids in the african sub-continent.

The expedition begins with the calculated bombast of “The Dark is Rising,” the Broadway Melody of 1929, “Holes” tamed and given forced into pop-song structure: it’s as emotionally manipulative and devastating as anything on Deserter’s Songs. Jonathan Donahue, who by now has perfected his crackling Little-Neil-Young-Hits-Puberty croon, reaches for your heartstrings, yanks on them brutally, and knots ‘em like an Eagle Scout, presenting the ruination of a relationship as told through a series of still pictures — Boy Meets Girl; Boy & Girl in Happy Days; Boy & Girl Drift Apart; Boy Stand All Alone in Middle of Field Wondering What Went Wrong. He is trying to break your heart: “The Dark is Rising” plays on the radio as the Rev drive you deep into the wilderness of your mind, to the Dark Side of Your Memory where all of your tear-stained memories are just a sigh away. It kicks you out of the car in the middle of nowhere and, just before taking off, says, “Now. Find your way back.”

All is Dream is, this side of Wilco’s excellent Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the best sequenced album you’ll hear this year. Listening to it means, unwillingly or no, embarking on the journey out, experiencing the album in the first person: as you traverse the skeletal woods of the barren past, you pass through loneliness and apprehension (the aptly-named “Tides of the Moon” — just as desolate and remote-sounding as you’d imagine), suffer through grief, tears scarring your cheeks, while your sobs ring like double-octave pianos (“Chains”) until you finally decide to make a go of it, to come to grips with the situation, to pull yourself together and look for a way out (the spooky “Lincoln’s Eyes,” as haunted as Pink Floyd once believed themselves to be).

And then. And then. A light in the woods and — is that music? Yes, yes, it is, shelter from the storm, harbor in the tempest, warm and bright, for the first time in a long time — and you say this song is called “Night and Fog?” Well, whatever you say, Jack. Looks like there’s a party goin’ on. Ever read Joyce’s “The Dead?” Well, it’s like that kinda, except everyone’s in wigs. The music makes you think of candelabras and days when affairs were called liaisons. Yeah, this music seems to bow to you before asking for this dance, real 18th Century like. Well, it would be except for that backbeat — the music is jaunty and austere with strings and harpsichords and things (“A Drop in Time”) but it’s got a beat, it’s got a groove and you can bug out to it (“You’re My Queen.”)

The hours melt like wax and all of your troubles seem to have met a similar fate. As everyone’s either going home or going off to bed, there’s one guy at the piano playing a song, reflecting on what’s all gone down, questioning the reality of all that we see (“Spiders & Flies”). Seems to be the only guy in here who wonders how problems that ran so deep could disappear just like that, with a few glasses of wine and a dance or two. And despite the fact that he’s got you questioning yourself, it sure sounds right for the time, the wee small hours where no one wants to think anymore and yet, of all the injustice, all one has to keep them company is their thoughts. Yeah, you’re put at unease because of what he says, but he’s really ensnared you in his — yawn — soporific piano and melody and — it won’t be long now until — your I’s — that is, your EYES — they close of their own. Vo. Li. Shun.

And as he wakes, our listener looks out the window at a new day, except he’s puzzled. Puzzled because he’s, quite literally, out of the woods and back on the farm in New York. But what about the small, well-lit house in the forest? And, and the ladies in their corsets! The strings and — and the guy at the piano? As the epic Elton John prog-folk of “Hercules” begins its charge (wait, isn’t that Elton John’s middle na…ohhhh, right), he understands that it was all, yes, just a dream. Nothing’s really changed, though as he looks out of his window, everything seems much more vivid like it’s not just a new day, but a New Day. He takes a tentative step outside his surrounding, like a Scrooge, surviving the haunting (or was that a dream too?), calling out from his perch, “What day is this?” Whereas “Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp” was a tie-dyed bus carousing towards a Tijuana sunset, “Hercules” is the sound of a man standing still and travelling distances that we can’t even begin to comprehend, it soars with assurance and conviction, souvenirs of the long day’s journey into night.

With Deserter’s Songs, Mercury Rev created a myth and then proceeded to bring it to life, populating it with people and, most importantly, with sound. All is Dream sets about exploring that myth with the intention of visiting each town one-by-one before getting sidetracked. While out there in the wilds, even the band itself was shocked — dismayed and exhilarated — by exactly what it unearthed out there, just what they’d done with the deceptively simple task of creation. All is Dream is dedicated to the memory of legendary producer and arranger, Jack Nitzsche, who was to work on the album before his untimely death. With Neil Young, Nitzsche, no stranger to the act of Creation, produced the divinely diaphanous “Expecting to Fly.” “There you stood on the edge of your feather, expecting to fly”: All is Dream is what it’s like to be standing on that edge, the edge of all that you’re certain of, holding your breath, mouthing a prayer, before taking the plunge into your own private personal unknown, as a brash “expecting” is replaced with a tenuous “hoping.” And though the album begins with the fall, it’s ultimately about finding your way back and what you discover along the way: the will to live, the strength to endure, and, God willing, the desire to SING.

do we watch the news to hear this? or are we merely viewing it, looking out for our concerns, pricking our ears up when the names of the dead or indicted are revealed? when i woke up this morning, i went to cnn.com and saw the headline: “aaliyah dead,” followed by the words “plane crash in the bahamas.” it’s amazing how much changes when one substitutes “aaliyah” for “a camera crew.” now it’s universal tragedy; for most of us, she isn’t kin, but she’s someone we’ve brought into our homes, via her albums or watching her on television or in the movies. one’s initial instict is: well, it must be someone else. in this case, that’s dismissed quite quickly: how many aaliyahs do you know? and if aaliyah is the name of your daughter, sister, mother…only in a perfect world would her life be memorialized so.

it still hasn’t registered really. it’s difficult quite often for a celebrity’s death to resonate: she’s never been more than an image, a voice for the majority of us — how did we really know she lived in the first place? there is no void as there would be with a family member or friend, at least no physical void. it becomes doubly hard when it’s someone like aaliyah who’s only given us but a handful of years. but what years they were: along with collaborators timbaland and missy elliott, she’s given us some of the finest pop singles of the last five years. she never possessed the strongest of voices but through the force of her personality — she had that ineffable trait, “star quality” — and pure determination to make her mark, she became a megastar, selling millions of records and even receiving the call from hollywood (besides romeo must die, she was also to star in the adaptation of anne rice’s the queen of the damned and the upcoming matrix sequels).

at age 22, she seemed poised to become the next janet jackson — a mononymic multimedia star, lighting up the big screen and blowing up the radio. but now it’s all over — i don’t know how to stop writing, how to end this. it’s impossible to be poetic about this right now and yet it seems wrong to to end it so tersely, as stark as death itself. damn it. rest in peace, aaliyah, you had so much left to say and there’s so much left to say about you but death’s got my tongue and out of respect for you, i’ll not struggle to say anymore.

i have to start a band. upon leaving monday’s performance by mr. greengenes, with the history of mediocre bar band shows ringing in my ears, i uttered this very phrase. the mr. greengenes show provided the impetus, the seed of an idea that would burst into wondrous bloom by the time we gave up waiting on line for entrance into the venue where the underground were playing.

one can only put up with so much banality before they can take no more and throw their own hat into the ring, vowing to be “different.” mr. greengenes were, dare i say it, pretentious, as far as bar bands go. they had a percussionist. they were occasionally given to really bad guitar squalls. the lead singer was far too well versed in the mannerisms of rap-rockers as seen in videos beginning with faith no more’s “epic” and ending with 311′s “down,” with special attention paid to the grandaddy of them all, “give it away.” he had a nasal voice too, i believe he even jested about it. the radio commercials which featured the lollipop guild singers from the wizard of oz suddenly make a lot more sense now. the venue was paddock’s, alternately called by members of my party “PAD-dock” or “pa-DOCK!” like a squawking bird. it is a bar, simple and plain. the waitresses and bartenders were scantily clad and hot, so scantily clad to the point where one didn’t even have to trouble themselves with fantasizing about them nude and so hot that one needn’t worry about one of them ever touching your person. the ringing in my ear from the performance has since faded, thankfully, a perfomance that included a rendition of kid rock’s “cowboy” (yay!) and david gray’s “babylon” (boo!). points for not doing merely a tribute to modern rock radio, which brings us to…

WAX! awful! even my friends who like this kind of music agreed. the band came close to approximating the heavy sound of today’s modern rock, but the singer, well, he did not. after their take on godsmack’s “awake,” i gained unfathomable depths of appreciation for the vocal skill of THEIR lead singer. put simply, modern rock requires a singer with authority, with a commanding presence — wax’s singer lacked both, as if he were merely plucked from the audience at random before the show because he had a “disturbed” t-shirt. a shame, because the setup at seacrets, that night’s venue — and also where the underground would perform — was the best i’ve ever seen for a shitty club band. for God’s sake, they had a JUMBOTRON SCREEN behind them, to capture every lame pose and exhortation for the crowd to “scream.” setlist was filled with predictable faves like linkin park, the aforementioned godsmack, creed, staind…if you like these bands, think of other bands you like and they probably played them too, and to show they had range, they did white rap classix like “jump around” and, oh yes, “butterfly”. onstage patter went invariably along the lines of “does anyone like NICKELBACK?” where “nickelback” could be replaced with any band name. my “no”s were cruelly ignored and thus wax made “the list.”

i never did get to see the underground, not related to “velvet” or any other particular underground that comes to mind, barring a brief view at the feed from the jumbotron. they did american hi-fi’s “freak of the week” and the lead singer had a backwards hat. oh, this band actually had a chick in it and she, as i’m sure you’ve guessed by no– no, she didn’t play the tambourine. she in fact played keyboards. while the underground did damage to the main stage, we found ourselves sitting at a table by the bay as reggae music wafted through the evening air and discussed things like whether or not girls have it easier than guys when it comes to dating and whether or not we’d stay with a woman we married if she became incapacitated afterwards, part of a long line of “what would you do?” questions prompted by the song of the same name, most of which are too crass to get into here…but oh how we laughed.

what we didn’t discuss was my plans for a band, a band that would one day rule the world with a gloved fist. during greengenes, disgusted by their normalcy, i’d come up with the basic concept. i’d be the front personally and i’d wear a dress and either beat myself about the face or, less painfully and more realistically (relatively speaking), i’d apply makeup to make myself look like i was beaten — a complete powderkeg of gender issues. to this, i’d add an unlit cigarette which would remain so. the band would wear masks and black, this much was certain, but what i debated, what i went back and forth about was the kind of mask, the kind of black attire. i narrowed it down to two choices: o.j. simpson masks, with black from glove to boot or mummenschanz masks, with black leotards. i remain undecided.

at the wax show, thumbing my nose at the k-rock or, for ocean city residents, 93.5 the beach playlist, i came up with OUR playlist. after the poor reception “holly holy” received at the (actual) beach that morning — i always throw in songs i know my friends like and then add in a wild card to gauge reaction —
i concluded that we’d play neil diamond and neil diamond only. seeing as how i myself only like about 10 or so neil diamond songs, i added motorhead to the repertoire, along with a smidgen of belle and sebastian and, of course, the new york dolls. all of which, and here’s the TWIST!!, would be played as soul covers. how they’ll play horns through the masks is a logistical nightmare that i haven’t yet begun to unravel.

on line (on line! waiting!) for the underground, passing the time as freakishly accurate doppelgangers of friends in absentia passed by, i determined our name and how we would sell ourselves. the name: freddie and the dreamers, a perfect blend of bad irony and wide-eyed optimism. i would be animated, doing splits and kicks and dishing out abuse to audience, my disdain for whom would be palpable, while the masked figures would be stoic and still, striking their instruments somberly. our posters would be 8×10 glossies of me, individually kissed by yours truly, signed “hope to see you at the show tonight. love, freddie. p.s. DARE TO DREAM.” it was at this point that it became perfectly clear that i was aiming for the strokes position — criminally ignored in our homeland, loved abroad. sure, it won’t be easy finding four to six talented musicians who are completely egoless, but i dare to DREAM! i dare to be DIFFERENT! or at least ape better BANDS! so if you think this is a great idea, drop me a line before i come to my senses. if you’re a chick and you think that this is absolutely BRILLIANT, i’ll propose marriage to you as long as you’re between the ages of 17 and 20 and are “fresh-faced.”

or, at the very least, i’ll let you play tambourine.

“i’ve gotta be young, fresh and new,” kelis sings in her upcoming single, knowing full well that, along with producers du jour the neptunes, she is all three. what she can’t say she is, however, is superstar — in an alternate universe, she has macy gray’s success, kelis being the macy gray for people with taste. unfortunately for her, i can’t see “young, fresh and new” troubling the charts anytime soon; fortunately for us, i say that because the single is unlike anything else you’d hear on the radio. what it sounds like is video game music, for one of those scenes where the hero has pressed the self-destruct button in the enemy’s lair and has thirty seconds to get out: kelis navigates a deluge of whirring noises, harsh synthesizers and fuzzed-out bass, tempering it all with a heavily-harmonized, heaven-sent chorus. if it doesn’t make trl, it’ll, at the very least, increase her standing amongst alternative soul fans and production geeks like myself, almost as valuable to the record company as actual sales.

at the other end of the spectrum exists mary. mary is probably now bigger than she ever dreamed she’d be when she was young (fresh, and new), staring out the window of her family apartment in the bronx. she sells out concerts the world over; racks up platinum album after platinum album; she’s sung with elton john! it’s gotten to the point where the “j. blige” is superfluous, like aretha, she is now just “mary.” she is the standard bearer, the queen of hip-hop soul, the one kids (kids! mary’s now 30 don’tcha know) like kelis are trying to chase down. on “family affair,” she’s joined by another individual at the head of their field, the one and only d-r-e, dr. dre, a dream pairing if i’ve heard one.

so it comes as a disappointment that “family affair” even pales in comparison to share my world‘s lead single, “love is all you need,” which despite its faults was anthemic at least, and this isn’t to say that “family affair” is a bad track. dre comes with top-shelf production — when you hear the snap of the drum machine, and the crispness of the synth strings, you just know it’s a dre production. his machines sound like the best money can buy, so good that they don’t mind being synthetic. like breast implants, who cares if they’re real or not when this is the end result. mary is in fine form, and it’s about time she did a record for the cars and clubs. the song goes on like this for three minutes and you’re nodding your head…and then it all goes wrong. nothing changes at that moment, and that’s the problem: you come to the realization that there’ll be no strong bridge or a change in the beat. like a number of dre’s recent productions — xzibit’s “x” — comes to mind, the best moment is the opening, when the beat is still fresh; when you discover that you’re going to hear it all song long, the thrill wears off. “family affair” is, ultimately, a record made by two people who know that their names will sell it, that as long as they make merely good records, no one’s going to knock them off their thrones.

it’s 1974. aretha franklin releases let me in your life. it’s staid, it’s a let down; it’s still good as most 70s aretha albums are, but it’s know what you were hoping for: you want “rock steady” and you instead get “i’m in love.” that same year, betty davis — funk goddess and wife of miles — releases they say i’m different; one listens to the record and can’t help but feel that the title is an understatement. now, on the whole, betty davis is neither better nor more important than aretha franklin, but for one year, for one album, the queen was dead, love live the queen. it’s now 2001, and the queen’s vital signs are looking bad, and hospital workers say they saw a shady-looking orange-haired woman hanging around her room…

setting:
suburban bedroom(s), 1969.

[a telephone rings. a telephone is answered.]

her: “hello?”
me: “can I come over tonight?”
her: “why?”
me: “can I come over tonight?”
her: “no, no, i got that much. what i want to know is why?”
me: “what do you think I wanna do?”
her: [sighs]
me: “that’s right. can I come over tonight?”
her: …
me: “i say we will have a real cool time tonight.”
her: [grudgingly] “oh, alright.”

[cue air-guitar solo to heavily wah-wah'd track]

in the teenpop world, there are four female singers: britney, christina, jessica, and mandy. of these four, only young mandy moore (17!) is a nymphet. there was a time when britney was one, it lasted for about four minutes, the duration of the “…baby one more time” video: she was girl on the brink of womanhood and she shall forever remain so as long as that video lives on in the mtv archives and in the hearts and minds of men and women this world over. christina never was one; christina is offensively sexual, and she just continues to flaunt it with the “lady marmalade” video. jessica, oh jessica, white as snow, and just as pure; jessica is lost to us forever, as anyone who’s seen the video for “irresistible” and the accompanying ad campaigns will sadly attest. besides, anyone who has to talk about their virginity so frequently and at length radiates far too much sexuality in the first place.

ah, mandy! mandy who makes me feel equal parts humbert humbert and kip winger. mandy is the epitome of the nymphet: precocious, eminently lovable, and chaste. sex is never mentioned when mandy is around for fear that it’d offend her delicate sensibilities. for the length of her admittedly short career, mandy has been woman-child and at 17 she shows no sign of becoming hardened, of plunging into the abyss of adulthood. though we know it impossible it seems that she may stay the way she is forever; that we know it is impossible is just why we must cherish her while she is how we see her today, a flower nearing full-bloom.

“in your pocket”! is a great single, it’s the best thing jennifer lopez has ever done. and, though i’ve not seen it, i’m nearly certain mandy won’t be resorting to showing her stuff in the video either, a cheap ploy to increase heart rates while increasing sales. in my mind’s eye, i envision it as enrique iglesias’s “rhythm divine” video, except non-sexual. an apt comparison because “in your pocket” has the same kind of balearic sway, the kind that was so hot just a year or so ago but has now disappeared almost entirely to mandy’s benefit since it helps to distinguish the single from the eden’s crushes and jessica simpsons of the world. even the lyrics are good and the metaphor clever — “among the many muted faces” it begins — and, unlike many of the maturing teen acts out there, one doesn’t have to worry about “creative control” when it comes to mandy: she’s far too busy trying to please everyone, slowly turning the male population of this country into mandy’s boys. (oh, how it is working!)

a year or so ago, she was merely a cute face amongst many, a teen whose debut was released twice and barely managed to go platinum; now she’s as cute as ever, making commercials, making good music and has her own mtv talk show called mandy (!). she’s the type of girl who would’ve unknowingly broken my heart eight years ago. but, yet, i am not so old: mandy, i’ve slipped my heart in your back pocket: please don’t sit down: if the years have taught me anything, it’s that my heart breaks far too easily.

Initially, the dreams were fairly modest. Skyscrapers? Motorized transportation? Flight? As each dream became reality, writers of fiction and fancy upped the ante, envisioning buildings that kissed the heavens, cars that flew, and men on the moon. Within each of these inventions, ambitious yet flawed, fantastical minds could see each form idealized; trapped inside the rough creation, they saw the future straining to escape. As the years were hammered away from these innovations like excess marble from a statue, perfection escaped only to see itself de mode at birth, its patrons having moved on to new whims.

The sound of gunshots and bombs awakened the dreamers to the nightmare that was real life. Alarmed by our ever-increasing capabilities for self-destruction, their visions becoming bleaker as war and fear took hold of the globe in its thankfully tenuous grasp. The future, if there was one (if), was plagued with conflagrations that threatened all of humanity and invaders from the sky, “aliens” (gee, who could that be…). To the young mind, with no concept of real fear or pain, blissfully unaware of that adult-word “consequences,” this all undoubtedly seemed great. The new millennium seemed like it was going to be a pretty fucking cool place to be. Having lived through it all, as a youth, no less, and therefore naturally given to romanticization and idealization, I can tell you this much: The future ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Name me ten important ways in which life in ’01 is different from life in ’91. Sure, MP3s are great, but cell phones alone are argument enough against progress. We should be living on Mars or the moon, at the very least, not trapped in our bedrooms on T1 lines. I mean, for fuck’s sake, Dippin’ Dots are still the ice cream of the future and the Visi-Phone has yet to become readily available. To quote William H. Gass, “I was born…For this? I dress. I wash. For this?” To quote the t-shirt that, to the best of my knowledge, exists but in my mind: “My parents saw the new millennium and all I got was this crappy t-shirt.”

Where’s my robot butler? The kid in Rocky had one and that was, what, 20 years ago?

What? Air? Yes! I haven’t forgotten them. Let me attempt to tie all of this up as neatly as possible. With their last album, Air soundtracked the film, The Virgin Sucides, a tale of suburban angst and ennui in the 70s; with this new album, 10,000Hz Legend, they’ve created the soundtrack for the 21st century. Not the one we live in, no: it’s the soundtrack for the future as imagined by bored kids, stoned out of their minds, in the suburbs of the 1970s: It’s the soundtrack for modern folks who hoped things would’ve turned out a bit differently

Study the sleeve-art: It tells you much of what you need to know about the album. It looks like Arizona, sure, but let’s call it Mars instead. If one were granted access into the compound in which the two blurred gentlemen appear, they’d hear 10,000Hz Legend wafting through the speakers — it’s space age bachelor music (as opposed to the — capitals and italics important — Space Age Bachelor Pad Music of their debut LP Moon Safari). Perhaps, while you’re enjoying your wine and cheese — some customs never die — one of the cute boys of Air will play you a piece or two.

The future, as Air have chosen to interpret it, is like Blade Runner in the hands of Hanna-Barbara or David Lynch helming a live-action Jetsons. In this future, Air have written themselves out of the picture; the music is instead performed by robots that they program themselves. For 10,000Hz Legend, they’ve set the dial for Prog-Rock and it’s prog as only a robot could render it. Like the robots, my knowledge of prog is limited to the input I’ve received (human speak: what I’ve read or been told about it): I’ve never knowingly heard a prog record, though Greg Lake’s “I Believe in Father Christmas,” which served to turn me against said jolly fat man, may count, I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that the All Music Guide defines it thusly:

Progressive Rock…incorporates elements of European and classical music to rock & roll music, resulting in long, complex instrumental passages and dramatic, grandiose flourishes

Sounds good, eh? In this definition, there’s no mention of capes or smoke machines or H.G. Wells or wizards or ice skating or King Arthur. The robots, then, have taken all that was good about prog and distilled it into 10,000 Hz Legend. And since they’re robots and therefore INFALLIBLE, they’ve rendered it perfectly: the Kraftwerk (the original robots!) pulse of “Electronic Performers”; the lethargic beauty and electronic poignancy of “How Does it Make You Feel?”; first single “Radio #1″‘s electro-glam thud; from a different 2001, “Radian” is the cry of the Monolith — vengeful and mournful; and OMD covering “Live and Let Die,” better known as “Don’t Be Light.” It’s not all good: Beck is best left in the past and “Wonder Milky Bitch” isn’t sexy or funny, it’s just cringeworthy and ill-conceived. Since they’re on for so much of the record, I’ll give the robots the benefit of the doubt, and ascribe it to: HUMAN ERROR.

While the future constructed by Air does indeed sound like a great place what with its complex instrumental passages and grandiose flourishes, its technology and advances can be a bit frightening to simple-minded folk like you or I, merely a hair’s breadth away from the 20th century. That’s why it’s so refreshing, so reassuring to discover that the future, despite all of its advantages, still deals with many of the problems we ourselves wrangle with on a daily basis. Like a lack of communication; an inability to explain one’s self properly to the one they love; the difficulty of finding something good on the radio; the hassle and stress created by a regimented life; and despairing over where to find a good blow job nowadays. Their problems are our problems, and vice versa!

In many ways, then, they are still the Air we’ve known (and loved!) for some time now. Many reviewers and “critics,” lazy types mostly, have exclaimed that the new album represents a “new direction” for the band (and a number of them hint that it’s the “wrong” one. “Prog-Rock?” More like Frog-Rock. And I say that with love). If Moon Safari was lyrics/music: Bacharach/Wilson/Gainsbourg, 10,000Hz Legend can be attributed to: Gainsbourg/Eno/R. Waters. The major difference is that all of the homages to Bacharach, the rage at the time, have been replaced by a more atmospheric, expansive production style. What they’ve always been — and still are — are modern kids bringing old music into the future. The future they bring the sounds of the past into is alluring, one that while very little like our own, illuminates just what makes modern life brilliant and depressing. It reminds us that we’ve not yet seen the future: despite what we think, it’ll always be one step ahead of us (and ahead of this record!); we may never see it, but from their privileged position, Air assure us that it’s still something worth dreaming about, something that should, with a gleam in our eyes, always be looked forward to. Or at least that’s how it makes me feel.

the strokes have it all going for them: they’re from new york; the press is ecstatic (they’re rolling stone’s cool new band); the modern age ep was released on rough trade; and they look good and dress well. they have fantastic names: fabrizio moretti! nikolai fraiture! julian casablancas!! albert hammond, jr! his father co-wrote both leo sayer’s “when i need you” and julio/willie’s “to all the girls i’ve loved before”! so they have great breeding too! and there’s a nick! because every great band needs one! according to the bio, albert “moved” to new york (after film study!) and the group was complete — after long, arduous cross-country auditions, no doubt. essentially, the strokes are a boyband for people who like boybands “ironically” — if alan mcgree put together a group to appeal to teens, it’d be the strokes. (louis pearlman: eat your heart out.) the strokes are, in many ways, the first american british group in, well, i don’t know in how long. tom calls them a new york oasis, and while they have the moxie — sez julian: “i don’t want to sound like a cocky bastard but we are young and good looking and the music is good” — i’ll call them a new york suede, if only because suede had a more cultivated image and a better press agent.

the tenet of full disclosure dictates that i should tell you that the above “analysis” precedes my actual hearing a strokes song, and that’s intentional. i’ve downloaded “the modern age” [sic] since, after a search on morpheus that yielded 93 results (!), it was their most popular song. i now press ‘play’ and hope to be a different, better person three minutes and thirteen seconds from now.

…

i, i had the strangest dream. it was 1977. i was at cbgb’s in new york. television was on stage…and then tom verlaine announced, “ladies and gentlemen, we have some special guests with us tonight. on my way back from the bathroom, i saw these two guys hanging out with patti smith and jonathan richman and john cale in the back. i’d like to call them up on stage right now, if they don’t mind. guys? come on up, don’t be shy…here they are…folks, lou reed and iggy pop!” and lou picked up a six string, and iggy, who looked coked up, yelled that we could all “suck [his] CAAAACCCCKKKKK,” and then they started to play. it was like they’d been together for years…you were there, and you! and you! and it was alllllriiiiiiight. but only just.

the strokes: the biggest band your little sister has never heard of. but not for long. gentlemen, start your marketing machines.

there are two kinds of b&s songs: naively optimistic songs with acoustic guitars and naively optimistic songs with pianos. “jonathan david” falls into the latter category, sounding a bit like “seeing other people” in a minor key. when the vocals began, the true state of my condition was revealed: i learned that i have a very big problem: i discovered that i missed hearing stuart murdoch’s voice. i’ve churlishly commented that murdoch sings like his tongue is too big for his mouth and now, listening to stevie jackson (?), i find myself pining away for ol’ mushmouth who, to my great relief, provides harmony vocals. “i know you like her, well, i like her too, i know she likes you”: listening to the lyrics, it becomes clearly obvious why stuart isn’t on vocals: he’s not playing second fiddle to stevie fucking jackson (?). to fictional alistairs and ashleys, perhaps, but not to his own keyboardist. (of course, there’s always the possibility that jackson wrote it, but i like my reading better.)

it’s hard to say much more about it. it’s good belle & sebastian, you know what you’re in for and you know if it’s for you or not: 60s pop references, key changes, winding passages. what makes a b&s song special is that one part of the song you point to, the part that makes you say “ahhh” and comforts you like a warm spring evening. in “jonathan david,” it’s part of the chorus and the first time it appears is at fifty-nine seconds in, the chorus builds, the drums swell behind it and its set free with a key change. the word emphasized: “love.” as in “i love belle & sebastian.” “jonathan david” lifted the floodgates from my heart and once again my love runs wild like the river and, like the river, it shall never be tamed.

until their next shitty record.