The Singles Jukebox

Pop, to two decimal places.

Month: June 2012

  • f(x) – Electric Shock

    Could you plot that on a graph please, Katherine?


    [Video][Website]
    [5.75]

    Katherine St Asaph: Let x = Circus.
    [5]

    Alfred Soto: Not a shock so much as a mild jolt in one of those therapeutic hot tubs.
    [4]

    Will Adams: I Can’t Believe It’s Not RedOne!
    [6]

    Iain Mew: It starts off as a decent version of the electro-charged aggression that I associate with 2NE1, though the chorus is a bit too straightforward and overused. Then it gets unbearably brought down by a meandering middle section. First of all there’s a build-up which doesn’t build up. Then there’s a talking bit which kills the momentum even further. I do like the way that they sing “laser” though.
    [4]

    Brad Shoup: Man, the way they enunciate “laser” is so stilted, like someone doing their American Nerd impression. (“Electric shock” is the same way, but I think Detroit passed a resolution in ’88 to make that mandatory.) Their interjections are polished, I’ll give them that. 
    [5]

    Patrick St. Michel: Although a lot of K-Pop singles from the past few years have embraced maximalism, “Electric Shock” is the only one I can remember that sounds claustrophobic. It has the same aggressive dance DNA found in 2NE1’s “I’m the Best,” but whereas that number found the group acting as a tag team to assert their greatness, f(x) form a tight circle to intimidate (the opening portion of the video shows what I’m thinking of here). The vocals come quickly and from all directions, with the rest of the group back up whoever is singing with “yeahs” and ohs,” like even they are surprised by what was just uttered. It’s the instances where the song gets quieter though, those breaths of air before the crush, that make it even better.  Constriction made fun.       
    [8]

    Colin Small: Its surprising for a track this noisy to use negative space as well as Soulja Boi.
    [7]

    Jonathan Bogart: Vibrant, zooming, pealing, and just electro-fritzed enough to sound exactly like 2012: this is pretty much exactly what I think of when I think of K-pop. Which means that all other pop has a really high bar to clear.
    [7]

  • Hank Williams Jr. ft. Brad Paisley – I’m Gonna Get Drunk and Play Hank Williams

    Let’s not, and say we did…


    [Video][Website]
    [4.43]

    Brad Shoup: I mean, good Lord, is Bocephus done yet? His catalog is starting to resemble the Telemachy, only this boy still ain’t grown up. From the Don Helms soundalike on steel to the cheatin’ heart to the lovesick blues to the wedding bells, the whole production’s like dressing from Daddy’s closet. And what jukebox still takes dimes? Hell, Junior’s even done the whippoorwill reference before — seventeen years ago. What’s most troubling about this track, though, is how good it is. The steel undulates beguilingly, Paisley keeps the cornpone fireworks under wraps, and Hank’s voice sounds fantastic — he’s much more at home here than Brad. But that’s most of the problem. Over the course of his 48 years in the business, Williams has gone from eerie imitation to wrangling with legacy to stepping out, and now he’s back to an achingly obsessive curation. Dude’s a legend, and in a scene as tightknit as Nashville’s, no one’s ever going to say no to such a strong connection to country godhood. But he’s already in the pantheon himself. Now that he’s got his own label, and he can wave the flag in anyone’s face without being called on it, this ought to be his valedictory period, or at least his raising-hell-’til-Judgment-Day stage. I can’t imagine Senior would have ever done it this way.
    [6]

    Jonathan Bogart: Congratulations, Junior, on turning the subtext of three generations of country music into text. No, wait, that was your work in the 70s. Congratulations for suckering Brad Paisley into this one, I guess.
    [3]

    Alfred Soto: Brad Paisley sounds chagrined if not mortified; even so he’s a human being. If Bocephus knew about the existence of something called “irony” he might reckon with the effect of a man who often acts like a lout and whose careerism long ago replaced a search for an identity not contingent on his dad’s. If he’s so steeped in history how come this isn’t even a C-level rewrite of Merle Haggard’s “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink”? If he’s so Republican then why isn’t he aware that there’s no way in hell the Mitt Romney campaign will play this anywhere?
    [1]

    Anthony Easton: One of the interesting things about Moonrise Kingdom is that it used Hank Williams twice, one conventionally — “playing Rambling Man” in a moment of extreme emotional distress and the second is playing “Kaw-Liga,” a kitsch trinket that moved to irony in the ’80s, and is now in that weird, limiting space between emotional sincerity and arch aesthetics. The thing is — the claiming and reclaiming — the layering of pure irony and pure sincerity so neither have any forced meaning — the freeing that signification makes the whole working-through of aesthetics in the text incredibly complicated, and perhaps unsatisfying. But it does something to the original texts. It’s not that descendants of Hank Williams can’t do something — can’t allow that signification to float a little more freely — Hank III’s last album, ghost haunted, and swampy with heat and exhaustion knows its history and its irony. But Bocephus has been doing this drinking-anthem-just-like-his-daddy-did thing for longer then his daddy has been alive (Literally. Hank Williams lasted 29 years and it has been 33 years since “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound.”) It produced some acts of genius (the aforementioned “Whiskeybent and Hell Bound”), and on occasion, a kind of self-mocking irony; it has become pro-forma, concrete, settled and boring. This is a list song, a by-the numbers list song. Time to retire, old man.
    [5]

    Colin Small: The ability of country musicians to express their feelings with universal platitudes is never ending. How many times have I heard “My teardrops fell like rain”? That said, this song may have one of the most relatable premises in recent memory. While we may not be as unapologetic about fueling our own depression as Hank and Brad, we’ve all been there.
    [7]

    Iain Mew: The comforting trad sound only adds to the impression that the heartbreak and tears of the story exist solely as a way of setting up the chorus. The playful reverence in the chorus is sweet, but it doesn’t justify the exercise. 
    [5]

    Katherine St Asaph: Country has its sad drunks. It has its celebratory drunks. Now it even has Auto-Tune drunks. But has it had meta drunks?
    [4]

  • Kate Nash – Under-Estimate the Girl

    You can put the riot into the grrrl…


    [Video][Website]
    [5.78]

    Anthony Easton: Sort of like the Slits, sort of like early Courtney; it’s lovely with the spitting sarcasm, and the accent is kind of amazing to hear in between that thicket of unruly guitars. 
    [7]

    Alfred Soto: The slow churn of the guitars, tempo changes, and vocal sneer reassure fans of Lora Logic, the Slits, and other postpunk wünderkinder. Nash is the sort of performer who seeks gold stars. But I don’t remember her influences writing tunes this long. 
    [5]

    Kat Stevens: There are always karaoke occasions (karaoccasions?) when after seven bottles of Asahi you think you’ve been roaring it out like Courtney or Ari Up but actually you sound like Kate does here, weak in the wrong places and not quite off key enough to be awesomely off-key. I recommend Kate goes away and smokes 20 Richmonds a day for a week then tries again. Or 7x Asahi, as a slightly less cancerous alternative.
    [3]

    Katherine St Asaph: Kate Nash goes to “Bollywood,” countering critics’ laffs with even more laffable music and lyrics that don’t have subtext so much as crayon scribbles on the page; loading up loaded signifiers like punk, riot grrrl and authenticity then hocking a loogie all over them, recording the process as a vocal track. (Irritatingly and undefendably, she’s done Phair’s Indian appropriation one worse with the bindi video.) In other words, Kate Nash is now fascinating, when she’s previously been the opposite. I’ll always defend that from artists, as long as they’re sincere. Turns out, she is
    [7]

    Will Adams: Caught me red-handed. The person responsible for something as unfinished-sounding as “Do Wah Doo” and something as sanded-down as “Foundations” has no business releasing an aggressive, noisy alt-rock haze complete with tempo shifts, ugly yelps, and pitchy backing vocals. As opportunistic genre-hopping, this doesn’t work at all; it’s far too unpleasant to result in anything more than some positive blog buzz. But as a middle finger to critics, this is perfection, exactly what “Bollywood” could have been if it hadn’t decided to sound like shit. Finally, we can have our cake and eat it too.
    [8]

    Patrick St. Michel: For three minutes, Kate Nash hits on a ramshackle sound somewhere between Bikini Kill and Black Tambourine, and you want to high five for doing something pretty gutsy.  The song lasts almost five, though, and as neat as this comes off at first, eventually her shouting grows a little tiring.
    [6]

    Edward Okulicz: Between this and a track here and there off her last album, it really does sound like Nash has a genuine love for punking up, and she’s not disgracing herself here; the song has a good chug. But her voice isn’t particularly suited to what’s going on — it lacks presence or intensity to carry the quiet bits, and lacks the power and venom to make her shouting enjoyable. What she’s trying to do requires far more chops and skill than she likely thought, and good on her for showing conviction, even if it mostly demonstrates how difficult pop-punk songs actually are to write and execute. Light years ahead of “Doo Wah Doo” though.
    [5]

    Jonathan Bogart: While in theory I certainly approve of someone with an already-solidified identity shaking it up by doing something else entirely, and I’m pretty much always interested in anyone trying to do early Courtney Love, the same things sandbag this Kate Nash as did the old Kate Nash: too much preciousness, too little editing.
    [5]

    Brad Shoup: Like an alt-rock Lil B track. At any moment she could start intoning “I’m Anna Waronker”.
    [6]

  • Public Enemy ft. Bumpy Knuckles – Get It In

    Penny for your thoughts, Chuck…


    [Video][Website]
    [5.50]

    Anthony Easton: “Copyright law will leave you a sloppy right jaw.” I have no idea what that idea means. Is it in favour of an open system, or does it think that an open system is part of the history of stealing African American intellectual/cultural history? And does it keep forgetting how Flavor Flav has sold his birthright for a mess of reality show fame?
    [4]

    Brad Shoup: Lot of veterans here. This single was debuted by another lifer, DJ Premier, who produced an H. Stax track by the same name (and with the same hook). The “Get It In” in question is lean, nervy politicking that distills Chuck’s platform (systems hidden in plain sight, the complex implications of copyright) to a weighty two-by-four. I’ve been resisting the word “vintage,” but Bumpy Knuckles’ S1W nostalgia and Flav’s stellar turn make it impossible. Why couldn’t this rule the air? I suspect PE already knows the answer.
    [9]

    Pete Baran: I suppose there are a few heritage acts in rap now, PE being probably being the most notable. And twenty five years later they have not really changed. The production is a little more robust, but not so you would notice, and PE always sounded less vital on their “party” tracks. There is a sense that they are disdaining Bumpy Knuckles as much as they are the song but it sounds like Public Enemy so I can’t completely hate it (I fought in the Hip-Hop wars you know…).
    [4]

    Alfred Soto: Solid – no more no less. The real surprise was the vitality of 2007’s How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul? Corporate jerks still irk Chuck D, whose mission to deliver jewels to fools hasn’t changed or gained a hint of sanctimony. Which might be the problem: in these dark times we could stand to be hectored.  
    [6]

    Will Adams: Cool, head-nodding funk with tight lyrics and cool flourishes — the wacky echoes on Flavor Flav’s ad-libs add some great depth — all marred by a rather liberal relationship with staying on the beat.
    [5]

    Colin Small: Public Enemy can still kind of sound like Public Enemy.
    [5]

  • Misha B – Home Run

    This is why we need instant replay…


    [Video][Website]
    [5.12]

    Iain Mew: I can’t think of any other X Factor contestant whose first single has been released a year later and still felt so much like a continuation of the audition process. Look, it says, Misha can do tough and can do fun, can sing and do toasting bits, can belt out a completely gratuitous dramatic intro, and sound great doing all of them. It’s true, too, and especially as someone who barely watched the series, it’s initially a great rush hearing such a talent emerge so confidently. What prevents the appeal from lasting is that there’s not much of a song underneath. There are hints that a proper banger is lurking in there somewhere, but it’s underwritten, the synth wobbles are barely window-dressing and the promise of “more bass and more treble” is just a tease. Still, we can carry on imagining how great it will be once she’s given some songs to work with. 
    [6]

    Katherine St Asaph: The most exciting X Factor single not by (pond-jump alert) Tora Woloshin or Tiah Tolliver. It’s also “Not Myself Tonight” adapted for a standardized toasting test, but you’ve got to realize the league we’re in.
    [6]

    Brad Shoup: I can’t believe it took me so long to type “jack of all trades, master of none”.
    [3]

    Will Adams: The haphazard intro reminds me of when radio stations play snippets of disparate songs to advertise “what’s coming up” after commercials. This radio station, apparently, is offering wedding band-level Jennifer Hudson followed by karaoke tribute-level Rihanna. I think I’ll switch to a different frequency.
    [2]

    Anthony Easton: I like the finger snaps. Every point for the finger snaps. 
    [5]

    Alfred Soto: She sounds giddy, ready for action (points for the stuttered “I dunno”), but I’m not one for sports metaphors, not when the beats aren’t squelchy or hard enough.
    [4]

    Patrick St. Michel: I didn’t follow Misha Bryan’s run on The X Factor so I don’t know whether the ballad-teasing intro is some sort of show reference, a gag about her time on the contest or a totally earnest display of her range. I’m just glad it’s a fake out, because once “Home Run” gets going and falls into fidgety dancehall mode, this gets really good. Despite Misha B having a voice that commands attention whether she’s repeating the word “done” or referencing “Wait (The Whisper Song),” the little details of the song charm as much. Specifically, the way her voice stutters right before the chorus and the little giggle after the line “more bass and more treble,” like we’re eavesdropping on an inside joke. 
    [8]

    Alex Ostroff: The intro is impressive but unnecessary, so let’s not bother with it, shall we? I was initially surprised that Misha B’s first single turned out to be this electro dancehall dub concoction, but given that she first caught my eye with a “Rolling in the Deep” cover that veered into dembow, this is a natural extension of what she was already doing. “Home Run” is — much like Cher Lloyd’s Sticks n Stones — a reassertion of the personality that Misha toned down for a voting public (and judges!) who see women with strong presence and talent as cocky, arrogant or otherwise undeserving. Her mixtape remix of TLC’s “Unpretty”, suggests that she can big sister just as well as she can boast and that there are plenty of sides to Misha B that we haven’t seen yet, but this one serves as a decent (re)introduction.
    [7]

  • Sky Ferreira – Red Lips

    The fact that she isn’t painted plaid is the definition of restraint.


    [Video][Website]
    [6.56]

    Brad Shoup: A song so assured — so rockin’ — that even Terry Richardson can’t screw it up.
    [7]

    Iain Mew: The rewrite of the “Cherry Lips” chorus is presumably what Shirley Manson provided; the verses sound like The Ramones via The Bluetones (that’s probably just me); and it is definitely, emphatically no “One”, but it’s enough quick fun that the surprise that she’s still around is a happy one.
    [6]

    Ramzi Awn: Louise Post, is that you? “Red Lips” keeps it simple and packs a punch. Get me another beer cuz this is fuzzy enough for a repeat, and smart enough to take you back. Ferreira’s blend of grunge-pop is deceptively well-balanced, not entirely reminiscent of today, and more true to itself than trend-happy. The Sky we’ve been waiting for.
    [8]

    Anthony Easton: This is canonically sexy — what with the whispered vocals, the rousing chorus and the percussion — and it uses its canonical sexy text to bitch out a romantic rival in ways that seem both obviously dismissive and effective. There is nothing at all new here, but the text uses the history of the form in ways that are effective enough. Extra point for not going over three minutes. 
    [6]

    Will Adams: Get past the obvious references (blah blah Shirley Manson) and you’ve still got a hefty synth rock ride. Where the slick “One” registered robotic, “Red Lips” has buckets of persona to spare, commanding a soft-loud binary with ease. Such a dramatic shift in sound is perplexing, sure, but when the results sound this fantastic, I can’t complain.
    [8]

    Alex Ostroff: The verses of “Red Lips” are a different sort of detached than the icy cold robotics of “One“, but Sky Ferreira’s dead-eyed blasé delivery is still intriguingly effective. Here, she conjures up the ghost of grrrl grunge as well as Ashlee once did, but if Ashlee’s godmother is Courtney L.O.V.E. with her growl, Sky’s is her co-writer Shirley Manson with her multipart-harmony choruses delivered in a manner that suggests the giving of as few fucks and as much fuzz as possible. The relative restraint in the chorus is a counterintuitive choice, given the soar of the guitars and the contrast practically demanded by the verses. It works.
    [8]

    Colin Small: I find it very weird that the whole ’90s LOUDquietLOUD thing doesn’t fit well into today’s pop formula. Maybe loud simply isn’t loud enough anymore.
    [4]

    Alfred Soto: Now here’s a good Garbage song, the most proficient in years. It even sports a dandy bass line. Sky can flit between anomie and “sexy” as quickly as her guitarist can whip out the effects pedals. I’m not sure who this is for though — is there an audience for this kind of thing?  
    [5]

    Katherine St Asaph: Stylishness for stylishness’s sake, and Terry Richardson for fuck’s sake, but if it means Sky Ferreira gets to make music….
    [7]

  • Little Big Town – Pontoon

    Who needs metaphors when you can offer the real thing?


    [Video][Website]
    [5.33]

    Pete Baran: “Pontoon” is both a card game and a kind of jetty, but this isn’t the subsection of country about gambling. Nope — this is a daytime party song, an odd subsection of summer jam. It declares its purpose and goes about its business of evoking the kind of day which by its very nature should be inconsequential.
    [4]

    Katherine St Asaph: There’s an organ in the distance, and reverb soaking almost-diffident vocals (diffident for female chart-country singers, that is); I’m hearing, of all things, a sprightly Cowboy Junkies song. The guitar solo’s lost on some lazy river, but at least the mandolin stayed put.
    [7]

    Anthony Easton: I thought this was a Xerox of their last hit, but that was five years ago, and “Boondocks” had a darkness and a brave face hiding desperation. This has the same musical sophistication (the four-part harmonies, the bell clarity of the guitar), and some of the lyrics are nice (the double entendre of “motorboat,” the allegorical nature of the line about rocking the boat), but it works too hard to be effortless.
    [4]

    Iain Mew: The extent to which the song almost entirely gently amuses whilst actively discouraging thought or feeling is a conceptual triumph. 
    [6]

    Alfred Soto: A “party in slow motion” is exactly what this trifle sounds like: too well-behaved for Toby Keith and his red solo cups.
    [6]

    Patrick St. Michel: “Reach your hand down into the cooler/don’t drink it if the mountains aren’t blue.” Look, I get that the bills have to get paid, but why can’t we draw the line at cold-activated bottles?
    [3]

    Jonathan Bogart: Is my mind just extra dirty, am I addled by rock & roll (same thing right), or is there some lecherous suggestion to the way Karen Fairchild’s voice caresses the single word of the title, something that “motorboatin’” goes out of its way to underline?
    [6]

    Brad Shoup: All around the mammocentrism is a sundown country jam, slathered with reverb and the insouciant delivery of a Sheryl Crow. The recurring mandolin riff is wicked; if this song weren’t pitched at the lake, I’d half-expect this to be a Southern strip-club joint. Long story short: I don’t want to miss out on the next “Sweet City Woman.”
    [8]

    Will Adams: I already have my summer anthem picked out, but thanks for the offer. Here are some tips for next time: try having a different rhythm track (one that isn’t so listless), reconsider intoning “partying” in a Rebecca Black inflection, and don’t drown your vocals in delay and reverb. Your video looks really fun, though!
    [4]

  • Charli XCX – You’re The One

    She’s the one, alright.


    [Video][Website]
    [8.40]

    Will Adams: I tend to not merge the worlds of different songs together; for me, each song exists in its own space. That said, I can’t help hearing this as anything but a sequel to “Stay Away.” “You’re the One” opens the same, with buzzing bassline and cavernous reverb. Yet while Charli pushed against a dangerous lover in “Stay,” here she pulls him close, though he might as well pose the same threat. The chorus bubbles with a major-key love profession, but that angry bass is still there, violently twisting around her. That’s the first moment we sense something is wrong, but the killer is in the rapped outro: “My body is screaming,” Charli deadpans, and you’re left spending the next hour or so deciding whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
    [8]

    Brad Shoup: The serrated gloom of the verses seems so obviously crafted to let the chorus hit like pillows. She admitted as much before an MTV performance of “You’re the One” a couple months ago: she’s transmitting “dark aspects… mysterious, haunting lyrics crossed with these kind of… more bubblegum, sort of pop tunes”. The transition to the nearly hip-hop cadence of the major-key refrain is a shock on a couple levels, coming as it does after text loaded with dark and night and moonlight and crystals. But the chorus repeats a key image — dancing in the dark — and in the moment before the groaning synths return, it speaks of a bedroom reverie, of putting on the headphones with the long cord, transmuting energy.
    [9]

    Edward Okulicz: This is Charli’s very own “Heartbeats,” only with the steel drums replaced by some filthy synth-pop ripped straight out of early Human League. The song’s easily as good as its reference points too.
    [9]

    Iain Mew: Our previous encounters with Charli weren’t quite enough to turn me into a fan, but seeing her live at close quarters last month definitely was, even before “I Love It.” Her energy and connection with the crowd were incredible and she has an awful lot of great songs. This one, blessed with a divine ’90s pop chorus, spoken word bit, and powerful synth work, didn’t even stand out as among the best.
    [8]

    Patrick St. Michel: The gloopy synths and dramatic lyric delivery in the opening verse indicate Charli XCX has another dose of industrial-tinged pop for the world, until the song pivots into light come the chorus.  This is the most hopeful she’s sounded thus far in her career, and even when the song shifts back to shadowy corners on the word “dark,” it only makes the return of her upbeat hook that much better.  Hell, she practically glows during the beat-less bridge.   
    [8]

    Katherine St Asaph: Charli XCX understands that infatuation’s as much about giddy twitterpation as sheer terror. That’s why the synths patrol like searchlights in a dystopia, why Charli’s every note is clipped, as if she’s trying to tamp down her hyperventilation, and why the chorus is buoyant, the melody and strings and cascading-waterfall effect and love-note lyrics trying to soar over one another, but also a little like admitting defeat — those grim sounds haven’t actually disappeared. Fuck “Call Me Maybe,” rendered useless by “all the other boys try to chase me.” This is the crush song of the decade.
    [10]

    Alfred Soto: While the synth menace on the verses do their best to uglify Charli’s meltdown, the synth pads on the chorus soften it. I’m still unmoved by her gurgles and burps though.
    [6]

    Pete Baran: PARP! I love a parping bassline, and its cleverly upfront enough to distract you from what might otherwise fall into some sort of goth tinged ballad. Coupled with a wonderfully overproduced chorus, and what we used to call raps in Britain before we actually learned how to rap, it instantly gains a replay. I like music with a sense of drama and it almost demands a non-ironically waved lighter!
    [9]

    Jonathan Bogart: “Nuclear Seasons” wowed me from the get-go; “Valentine” was too indistinct — and too not “Nuclear Seasons” — to win my love; and to complete the trilogy, “You’re the One” started out feeling like “Valentine” but by the third or fourth listen was getting close to the awesteppery of “Nuclear Seasons.”
    [8]

    Alex Ostroff: There is nothing I don’t love about this. There is nothing I will ever not love about dramatic throaty gothy 80s vocals mixed with 90s teenpop crushes and 00s songs from Gothenberg and All Saints-aping spoken word bits. Nonetheless, I remain disappointed that the lyric is supposedly actually “You’re the one who came along and unlocked the cage.” Love that frees you is romantic, but more pedestrian than I want from the writer of “Nuclear Seasons.” Love that imprisons you until “I love the cage” is more interesting, and more in line with that gothstep wobble and the implicit threat of her song’s audience. Minor quibble, though, about an otherwise perfect song.
    [9]

  • Frank Ocean – Pyramids

    Angling for Earth Wind & Fire cred…


    [Video][Website]
    [6.56]

    Patrick St. Michel: “Pyramids” doubles as its own extravagant music video treatment. It begins in what we assume is ancient Egypt, and after some scene setting it segues into an electro-funk dance scene inside a palace of some sort centered around our protagonist trying to woo a certain “Cleopatra.”  After  nice choreography and presumably shots of cheetahs running wild, we jump ahead in time courtesy of a woozy time-machine interlude to modern times, of our protagonist now in a shabby “motel suite,” fretting about his “Cleopatra” as she prepares for work “at the Pyramid tonight.”  End with melancholic sex scene and maybe a shot of a lonely street.  It sounds preposterous – I can’t name any other ten-minute robo R&B jams that mention cheetahs three times – and in the wrong hands it would have been ridiculous.  The star here, though, is Frank Ocean, who makes every minute worthwhile, his voice shifting from smooth-pop mode to downtrodden everyman capable of making the word “VCR” sound rich to sensual lover. 
    [10]

    Iain Mew: It feels a little wrong to give a middling mark to a song that’s ten minutes long. That’s a serious time demand and one that would normally harden my opinion for or against something. In this case, though, “Pyramids” doesn’t seem like a ten minute long song. It just sounds like listening to two different thematically linked Frank Ocean album tracks plus a bit of instrumental wibble. He doesn’t even make a big deal of the transition between the two. They are definitely album tracks rather than singles, too. He shows a lot of the strengths vocally and in construction of mood as in “Novacane” and “Swim Good”, but both parts are less focussed and powerful.
    [6]

    Colin Small: This prog-R&B doesn’t prove that any genre can be progged, just that prog in general is an iffy idea. Frank should feel free to explore a concept as long as he likes, but an obtuse, multi-act strip club is still a strip club.
    [5]

    Anthony Easton: Diamond’s strip club in semi-industrial Mississauga is right next to the Rona distribution center (Rona is the Home Depot of Canada). It has a free lunch until 4 p.m. I imagine that it would be cheaper but more depressing to go for lunch there than bring one from home or go to one of the local restaurants. I imagine the eating and the stripping could function as a kind of workers’ solidarity in ways that are rarely represented in media about erotic dancers – media like this 10-minute soliloquy about ego and boredom. 
    [3]

    Will Adams: Sometimes you encounter something so perfect that you’re overwhelmed with where to start. The first half is a vivid history lesson that weaves in between spooky synth arpeggios over reversed beats and glorious synthfunk; the second half is a woozy trip through a pimp’s loss of a modern day Cleopatra, where the tension between the narrator’s ruby-encrusted chain and the motel suite with VCR builds to a devastating switch: “But I’m still unemployed… your love ain’t free no more.” As if that weren’t enough, it’s all held together by a seamless past-to-present cross dissolve that could fill the space of an entire desert. And THEN there’s the slow-burning finale with John Mayer’s guitarwork, in which Frank seems to say two things. First: “Yes, this sounds like the end of ‘Runaway’,” and second: “That doesn’t matter anyway because I did the ten-minute epic way better than Kanye.”
    [10]

    Brad Shoup: Within which pyramids Ocean gets all Charlie Wilson, popping bass strings and snapping off taut synth riffs and turning “serpent in her room” into a full homage. Extra vocal tracks cos it’s necessary: he’s not got classically sturdy pipes, but his imagination more than compensates, dropping a half-dozen arresting melodic flourishes over the course the song. Still, it’s practically bound to happen if you give yourself ten (!) minutes. I love the feverish connection between a bygone African reign and Ocean’s present-day empire of two. I’m not so nuts about the laggardly pace, even as it’s the point. More Gap Band, fewer gaps.
    [7]

    Katherine St Asaph: A ten-minute prog&B slab about time-traveling Egyptian prostitutes straddles the line between epic and dumb by default. It’s nudged toward the latter when you realize Ocean still hasn’t grown into his voice — I’m all for ambition exceeding grasp, but at this length you should probably be singing at least as well as the freaking Weeknd. Then it gets a running shove, past ludicrous and into sheer camp, when you realize it’s the same plot as Disney’s Aida. When he covers “Another Pyramid,” this score’ll become [20].
    [6]

    Edward Okulicz: So many individual sections of 20 seconds of “Pyramids” could conceivably have come from one of the year’s best songs. It’s not so much that stringing all these great bits together makes it too long, it’s just that it takes a special kind of godlike genius to write enough of those bits to fill a ten-minute track. Eventually, quality control will dip even for a talented mortal like Ocean. There are moments of magic like the grainy synth noise that comes in a minute in and the prowling-lion bass that make gauche production gimmicks like reversing parts of the track seem more frustrating than they need to be. Ocean’s voice suits the numbed second half better than the first, but it’s that first half that’s brimming with impressive sonic ideas.
    [7]

    Alfred Soto: In timbre and art Ocean is too light; he works best within song forms that restrain his dull confessions. I’m thinking only Maze + Frank Beverly and Gap Band (on its twelve-inches) could have made (and did make) triumphant longform R&B. Crooning instead of shouting dumb lines about jewels and Cleopatra over choirtron programs, he’s just not fucked up enough to fling darts in lovers’ eyes or allude to the Kabbalah, not when he’d rather tell you about the side effects of the cocaine.
    [5]

  • Grizzly Bear – Sleeping Ute

    Okay, we’ve had D and G, now where’s APY?


    [Video][Website]
    [5.33]

    Colin Small: With Passion Pit and Grizzly Bear releasing new music within the same month, I’m reminded of how different 2009 was from 2012. To some extent, Grizzly Bear is following the path that Beach House has recently laid out: keep putting out music that sounds like your other music. That being said, is it that I’ve lost my college sophomore’s thirst for sincerity, or that much of their swelling Romanticism has been replaced with a structure that may have been stolen from Geddy Lee’s desk. I’m really not at all sure where this song begins and ends. Given that the power of Grizzly Bear was once built upon layering, I’m going to have to call this a relatively unsuccessful experiment.
    [3]

    Brad Shoup: Oh good, the long-lost prog record by America. They even do rhythm-jarring clatter with politesse.
    [5]

    Anthony Easton: Can something this nostalgic for rock ambition of the 70s call itself ambitious, and does the attempt to drop contemporary ambiance for the commercial sales of that historic rock and roll make it more or less ambitious? Because I think I like this because it hits the buttons that say ambition to me (see Eric Burdon), but it might not have down that work. 
    [6]

    Alfred Soto: The ear-catching riff notwithstanding, it boasts the kind of “use of space” valued by Talk Talk fans. Eccentricities for pop-hating kids from sixteen to sixty he’s still got — dig those rhythmic and harmonic shifts.
    [5]

    Patrick St. Michel: The best Grizzly Bear songs either embrace simple pop pleasures (“Two Weeks,” “Knife”) or sound so expansive as to make the listener feel tiny (“Southern Point,” “Lullaby”).  “Sleeping Ute” tries to have it both ways, but ends up a muddled affair with a few some decent moments.  Daniel Rossen’s vocals and the guitar cutting through the song are strong points, but the electronic touches add nothing and the snoozer of an outro is a needless structural switch up that makes me feel like hitting “stop” a minute early. 
    [5]

    Iain Mew: I liked “Two Weeks”, but I had trouble explaining why and I now can’t remember how it goes. I don’t really like “Sleeping Ute,” and also have trouble explaining why. I still think of gentle broadsheet-friendly indie as being my music in a way that has survived beyond the point where it’s stopped being the majority of what I listen to. So my inability to get a handle either way on Grizzly Bear (or Fleet Foxes or Bon Iver) bothers me even though I could have a similar reaction to other music and happily settle for calling it dull. Maybe this is just dull. I do like the thunderclap percussion and interplay of guitars, but for all that he’s singing “I can’t help myself” it hits an uneasy midpoint between natural and fantastic that doesn’t succeed as either.
    [4]

    Katherine St Asaph: Starts promising, its guitar riff clawing and clawing forward, but when it comes time to do more, Grizzly Bear opts for more shimmer, not more blues. The arrangement’s still intricate and fascinating; it’s a little bloodless, is all, to be repeating “I can’t help myself.”
    [6]

    Will Adams: Super pretty guitarwork toughened by massive clattering drums. A rough vocal slicked up by a wild synth arpeggio. Three minutes of classic wanderlust folk diverted into an almost otherworldly outro. I can’t decide if this wants me to write a dissertation on the concept of “opposites attract” or blissfully lull me to sleep.
    [8]

    Jonathan Bogart: Prickly waves of plucked acoustic strings running like a cuddlier Harry Partch? Check. Vaguely yearning lyrics sung in the duffest possible voice? Check. No sense of rhythm whatever? Check. They’re baaaaaack.
    [6]