There’s a few “important” albums most bands make: the first album, the first album on a major label, the breakout, the follow-up to the breakout, the new-sound album…
And Tennessee rock band Kings of Leon are on that followup to 2008’s breakout, Only By the Night, which featured the two giant singles “Sex on Fire” and more importantly “Use Somebody”. Going from relative obscurity to iTunes top sellers with your 4th album does weird things for a band; the fanbase changes entirely, and all of a sudden you’re turning down Glee. What do you do for your fifth album? Do you pander to the fans who remember “Molly’s Chambers” or the ones that are still learning the words to “Use Somebody”?
Come Around Sundown doesn’t so much answer this question as much as turn it into a problem. In some effort to validate their “We don’t want to be mainstream, we swear” comments in interviews, there’s no true rewrite of “Use Somebody”, but the influence of success is easy to see. The whole of Come Around Sundown tastes like arena rock; U2 from down south, y’all.
But an underdeveloped Y’all2. Too often these songs feel like jams that never quite came up with enough ideas to justify their length. Album opener “The End” (real clever, guys) feels like repeating one minute for four of them, and once you clear “Radioactive”, a lot of these songs sound uncomfortably similar.
Most of the album sees Matthew and Caleb Followill’s reverbed guitars etching out scattered but tasteful melodies while Jared and Nathan’s rhythm section bangs out some prominent bass riffs and groovy beats. KoL is too musically competent for it to be bad, but if you leave “Beach Side” or “Pony Up” on in the background, none of them will jump out at you.
Not that it’s a terrible thing. First single “Radioactive” furious riff and arms-in-the-air chorus sees the Followill’s stadium rock aspirations being realized. “Back Down South”, despite the almost shoehorned “Look at how southern and rootsy we are!” implications, is a pretty decent country rock number that breaks up the album’s threatening monotony. And rawker “No Money” features some stellar guitar work by Matthew Followill. Jacquire King’s production is pretty solid; everyone comes through in the mix, and with KoL that’s a definite plus.
But Come Around Sundown isn’t without its troubles. The band said in interviews that they more or less made up the lyrics on the spot, and it shows. These are bottom of the barrel lyrics, with lines like “I never look back/At all the things I’ve done/I never look up/Seeing that he’s on the run” and “It’s a big thing/That the heart desires/And now I have to/Try to outdo the fight”. I can put up with oblique lyrics, but those are just two stanzas of “I have nothing to say”. Then again, with Caleb Followill’s SeetherCreedNickel vocal style, lyrics take a backseat anyway. And sometimes that style works, and sometimes it makes a song almost unlistenable (hello there, “Mary”). The band’s desire to be a Southern U2 bites them in the ass on closer “Pickup Truck”, a mawkish trainwreck of bleary-eyed sincerity crashing into overambition.
Come Around Sundown could have announced that Kings of Leon were ready and able to embrace their potential as the biggest mainstream rock band in the world. Or it could have told everyone to take that potential and shove it. Unfortunately, instead of being an explosive record that swung one way or another (which would have been the better move), Come Around Sundown plods in the middle. Two and a half stars.
tl;dr: If you appease everybody, you thrill nobody. Two and a half stars.
So, Radio Rant time, cool. Let’s see…not much has changed in the Top 10, I see. T.Swift has another single I’ll get to eventually, “Dynamite” is still hanging on somehow, “Like a G6” is still somehow number two…screw this, time for the Top 20.
Whoa. Is that “Fuck You” in the top 20? Seriously? We are so doing this! And I just took some PM cold pills, so we’ve got a race against the clock, let’s go!
Cee-Lo’s had a fairly prolific carrier here and there, and hit it big in the past decade by forming Gnarls Barkley with Danger Mouse, whose hit “Crazy” was one of the first big singles of the 00s. He’s also been a member of Goodie Mob, and tried his hand at a solo career every few years with limited success. Then came “Fuck You”, which went viral in a week back in August, and is now working its way up the charts.
And boy am I excited to hear that. Looking at just the music, “Fuck You” sounds like it was taken straight from the Motown scene of the 60s. The instrumentation is tight, the arrangement fits nearly perfectly (soulful piano leads flirt with bouncing basslines and funky guitar lines), and the production is great. This is probably one of the best crafted pop songs of the year, and I’m not just saying that because it’s nearly synthless.
But the real reason that “Fuck You” works so well is Cee Lo, pure and simple. His lyrics gracefully move from bitter (“I see you walking around town with the girl I love/And I’m like fuck you and fuck her too”) to hilarious (“I guess he’s an Xbox/And I’m more an Atari”) while being supported by a killer melody with the best use of backup singers that I’ve heard in awhile. And his vocals here are really just top notch; he can go from soulful smooth to neurotic and out of control (check the bridge) while still keeping everything under control.
The only possible detractor I can see is the profanity. I mean, in a song called “Fuck You”, the word “fuck” comes 16 times. There’s 16 “fucks” here. As well as a dozen or so shits, ain’t that some shit? And there’s a kinda hidden “nigga” in the verses. But most of these get bleeped out anytime you hear the song anywhere that isn’t YouTube. And honestly? This is one of those cases where copious profanity isn’t really a detractor. It flows seamlessly into the song the way a disenfranchised 40 year old puts them into conversation, not like a 14 year old found out how to swear for the first time.
So who gives a fuck if it’s dirty? It’s a great song.
There used to be a time where I’d be talking to my friends and say “EP” and everyone would start saying “Phoooooone hoooome”. That time is usually referred to as “the past fifteen years or so”. So let me bring us all up to speed; an EP (short for “extended play”) is one of the three mediums used to release music; the others being the single and the album. Without boring you with the history (short version: all three terms date back to vinyl records), an EP is basically the middle child of the two: more material than the lone single, but leaner than a proper album. Since vinyl phased out, EPs have been used as afterthoughts; throw down a new song or three, tack on some live cuts of old favorites, give it a low-key release, and you’re done. Alternatively, new artists recently signed to labels make an EP to test the waters for a proper album. Basically, EPs have become reserved for die-hard fans or music geeks.
Until now?
In the past year, we’ve seen big artists start dropping EPs. The alpha example is Lady Gaga, whose EP The Fame Monster affirmed the pop megastar status that her lackluster The Fame implied. Usher also released Versus to compliment Raymond V. Raymond a few months back, and as I learned today (to my disdain), Ke$ha is releasing Cannibal with Animal. Rihanna has something similar going on with Loud, but that has enough material to put it into Album territory (Rated R just came out in 2009).
So why the change in tactics? Why is the method used by no-names and undergrounders gaining more mainstream use?
I might have an answer. Pop artists’ album sales are declining. And usually, there are at least some duds in a 13-16 song album. In the whole digital distribution fiasco, iTunes’ pick ‘n choose individual download friendly tactic has become the norm for pop music. That means that in a lot of cases, you’re able to look at an album, download the singles and a handful of the album tracks, and be done.
Boy, wouldn’t it be great if the artists just cut the filler out and put their best material forward? Like, the best twenty to thirty minutes of music? The best seven or eight songs?
Because that’s exactly what an EP is. With an EP, artists are able to streamline their best ideas and not pad out the rest with filler. It fits iTunes to a tee, too: fewer songs, lower price.
But there are downsides: EPs aren’t the norm for a reason. Building an EP as a main event means you’re delivering a slimmer package with less room for experimentation, which can lead to musical stagnation and fewer new ideas. Also, EPs every 10 months to a year means less turnaround for touring, and breathing room. If you keep it up, it also gets your fans used to new music, and when you fall behind, they leave you (but that barely scratches the surface on today’s instant-gratification problem in music). An EP won’t be a saving grace for artists that can’t sustain quality for a full album either; they can still feel very underwhelming.
But since an EP is the happy middle of an album and a single, I do think we’ll see more of them in the future. Hopefully they’ll be good.
Ah, the music video. No other medium to date can offer such a wide range of creativity or egotism (or, if you’re Kanye West, both) or fall flat on its face while trying for both. Some videos are great. Some aren’t so great.
And then some are overstuffed disasters that become hilarious with the passage of time. So guess which ones I’m gonna talk about!
#6. The Smashing Pumpkins – Ava Adore
A lot of people argue about The Smashing Pumpkins’ quality, but the one thing everyone can agree on is they made some crazy awesomemusicvideos. And “Ava Adore”, lead single from their 1998 album Adore, is not one of those videos. In some bad attempt at the whole “goth” look, frontman Billy Corgan walks around while wearing what I assume are rejected designs of Harry Potter dress robes.
While working on his karate skills.
And it doesn’t go away. The whole freaking video is Corgan walking against some fantastically dated CGI background. If it was any one or two of these elements (the weird arm thing, the staggering walk, the awkward-not-seductive singing, or the “Marilyn Manson’s make-up artist had some free time” facejob) I’d let it slide, but this is just bad. And the rest of the band jumps in later, and it doesn’t make things better.
Alt Rock giants or a promo for "Hocus Pocus"?
#5. Europe – Carrie
I could have made this list out of just songs from the 1980s. But one still gets me every time, and that’s Europe’s smash hit “The Final Countdown” “Carrie”. Every frame of the video is one cliche or another, but the real seller is Joey Tempest’s total misfire of a sad face. It comes off more threatening than anything else.
I'd hate to see his "I love you" face.
And when I say every shot is a cliche, I mean every shot. There’s the grand piano that somehow sounds like a synth, the dark background with the band drenched in light, the drummer rocking out on his own, and of course the flamboyant frontman. You can tell everyone here is putting every ounce of emotion into the song…which just makes “Carrie” that much funnier.
#4: My Chemical Romance – I’m Not Okay
Oh yes, modern music, you have your share of bad videos too. When I got the idea for this list, I just knew I had to include MCR, but the competition between “Helena” and “I’m Not Okay” was so hard I had to enlist outside help. And talking to those people led me to the following conclusion: “I’m Not Okay” is a lesser and way lamer video than “Helena”.
As they pointed out, “Helena”, despite the rather high lame factor, is actually a pretty well put together video. Some good choreography, pretty decent as a narrative, and it does have a pretty epic feel. Even if Gerard Way wears more makeup than a prom date.
Then again, he's not much better in "I'm Not Okay", either.
Meanwhile, “I’m Not Okay” is a bunch of dorks trying way too hard without any substance to back them up. And I think they’re trying to be silly here, like Blink-182’s younger brother that found his sister’s jeans and makeup, but the video’s faux-trailer approach with the subtitles makes me think otherwise. Yeah, 10 years down the road, I’d be embarrassed to be in “Helena”, but at least it’s not a high school revenge trip done by guys who are a decade out of high school. Speaking of which…
#3. 30 Seconds to Mars – Closer to the Edge
So, speaking of lame hits from the present day, look what we have here. The first thing you’ll notice is we don’t get to see the band, instead, we have to watch a few awkward as hell teenagers talk into the camera. Now, I’ll get to the band proper in a moment, but the main source of lame in this video has to be the fan shots. You get great lines like, “I just wish there was no such thing as fighting. That the world could just be like, perfect, and everybody could get along…but obviously that can’t happen.” delivered over pictures of kids not quite looking at the camera like they were just told 30 Seconds to Mars killed their dog before filming started.
The band will be here just after they're finished playing hackie sack with Sparky's corpse. Smile for the camera!
But I can’t just blame the fans for this, especially when the band adds so much to the entertainment factor. To be fair, most of the performance shots are pretty decent, and show a dedication to the fanbase not seen that much these days. However, the video also has as many slow-mo shots as New Moon did, and plays into the modern version of the “Alone in the dark” cliche that plagued “Carrie”. The other part of the problem is that the shots taken specifically for the video reek of overambition, like the guys in 30 Seconds to Mars forgot that they were in 30 Seconds to Mars.
Then there’s Jared Leto, our ice blue contacted, blond and pink mohawked protagonist. The first couple times I saw the video, I didn’t really mind him all that much, but I did some research. Turns out, he’s 38. No, I didn’t make a typo and mean to say 28, I mean that in two years, he will be 40. I ragged on Billy Corgan and Gerard Way for playing dress up, but being as old as your fans’ parents and still going around writing songs and dressing like that is just a cry for help.
#2. Lady Gaga – Telephone
Oh yes, I went there. When I started this list, I made sure to avoid cheaply made videos; the ones that came off as embarrassingly bad just because of a lack of budget or someone giving a damn. And for Gaga, nothing but the best can bring you the worst.
“Telephone” enters into a whole different realm of lame music video with the sheer excessiveness of it all. It’s a 9 and a half minute video for a song that doesn’t even crack the four minute mark. Before we get to any music, we’re “treated” to Gaga getting stripped, making out with another chick, and a random catfight, because this that’s what happens at a women’s prison: fanservice!
Support America's prison system!
As Beyonce says, “this is a disaster!”. After being sprung from prison by Beyonce (just go with it, ok?), the two of them go to a diner where they end up poisoning everybody and there’s this “Let’s Make a Sandwich!” scene with tons of product placement, and just…yeah.
It doesn’t matter if someone says, “You don’t get it, they’re acting like that on purpose!” the point is, “Telephone” is still there. The lame factor here comes from how mindlessly over the top and messy the whole video is, the kind of mess that could only be made with complete control and a big budget. And on that note…
#1. Guns N’ Roses – November Rain
There are very few bands that are democratic, but few had the dictatorship that Axl Rose had on the classic Guns lineup. Axl’s vice grip on the direction of the band was so strong it inspired awe in despots and politicians everywhere, and you can’t find a better case of Axl’s control than the video for “November Rain”. Pick your place to laugh: Axl in full rock band gear sitting at the piano in front of an orchestra? The barn church transforming into plains while Axl plays? The glammed out other members of the band awkwardly chilling on stage?
Or maybe, and it’s my favorite part of the video (start at 3:03), where Slash discovers that he misplaced the ring, and has to rely on a backup. And it includes a hilariously hammed up “Oh no!” face on the priest’s part.
This image exists in a video by one of the most rock and roll bands ever.
Speaking of the other members, it is so clear this wasn’t their idea. The most prominent member who doesn’t have “Rose” in his name is Slash, and even that might just be because he has the solo. The others huddle together from place to place (the stage, the table at the wedding reception) without doing much to stand out. And it ends with a funeral, which is either for Axl’s woman or for any integrity held by the band, I can’t tell which.
Ranting About Music! 