Radio Rant: Nelly – Just a Dream

Posted on October 12, 2010 by bgibs122

Welcome back to Radio Rants, where the hits just keep a-comin’.

Alright, so what’s on the agenda for this week? I swear, if it’s as bad as “Like a G6”, I’m done. Granted, you have to really try to hit that level of bad, but…alright, what am I looking at here?

Huh. Sure, alright, he’s never really bothered me before. What’s my opinion of Nelly? Well, that’s the thing, I don’t really have one. And I think a lot of other people are with me on that. I mean, everyone remembers “Hot in Here Herre” as one of the most parody-ready songs of the decade, and I bet that most people would remember “Air Force Ones” if bothered. Then there’s “Over and Over”, his duet with Tim McGraw that set a personal milestone for me by being the first pop song I actively hated. It’s not that Nelly’s a bad performer, it’s just that all of his hits are so inconsequential that I don’t think he’ll be remembered in the next decade or two.

Anyway, Nelly’s back with the lead single for album number five (?!?): “Just a Dream”. I’ll be honest, for those first fifteen seconds or so, I thought I was listening to 30 Seconds to Mars or some such band with the clean guitar intro. Then comes Nelly with a few “Uh”s, which might be his “trademark” (sad as that is). We get right to the chorus with pretty synths, a decent if dull beat, and some shockingly Sensitive Guy lyrics. “I was thinkin about her/Think about me/Thinkin about us/What we gonna be?/Open my eyes/It was only just a dream”.

And once we get to the first verse proper, “Just a Dream” reveals itself as a slow-song love jam about Nelly’s shorty, who’s gone for whatever reason. “Shoulda got that ring”, Nelly raps. Oh, ok. She left him for some other guy because Nelly was…*sigh* afraid of commitment.

Now, here’s an interesting thought. A lot of rap songs make at least some mention of the performer’s skill with the ladies; having them like grocery bags (“Bedrock”), your penchant for getting them drunk while being inebriated yourself (“Bottoms Up”), or about going back to your steady after striking out all over (“Nothin’ on You”). A few lines tossed into “Just a Dream” acknowledges the often flippant attitude taken by rappers towards serious relationships, and how it’s come back to bite them in the ass. It could have been a seriously deconstructing song.

But nah. The rest of the lyrics expound on the “my baby’s gone :(” message in unsurprising ways (“When I be ridin’ man I swear I see her face at every turn”, “I’m going through it every time now that I’m alone”, “And now I’m missin’/Wishin’ that she’d pick up the phone”). Then there’s the bridge, which is, I kid you not: “If you every loved someone put your hands up/And they’re gone and you wish you could give them everything”.

At least the music’s really pretty. It starts the chorus really minor, but by the second line the tinkering synths have jumped into major. It’s not the best thing I’ve heard, but it works. Nothing special happens during the verses, and there’s no change throughout the rest of the song.

Nelly as a performer does an ok job here. His multi-layered self call and response thing is decent if a little repetitive, and he does the “Uh, uh, uh” thing way too often. But his biggest downfall is the mostly flat delivery. Occasionally on the verses he sounds like he gives a damn, but other than that he just reads the lyrics off like the newspaper.

Ultimately, Nelly’s latest single ends up being like every other one of Nelly’s singles. It never strays into being bad, but it never does much to make itself different either. It’s way into Sensitive territory with a side of “emo”, but never capitalizes on being anything special. But at least it’s not especially bad.

Posted in Radio Rants | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Steal This Music: Some Thoughts on Piracy

Posted on October 10, 2010 by bgibs122

Music piracy, like I’m sure real piracy was at some point somewhere at some time in someone’s history, is kind of a hot topic these days that gets kicked around every now and then. Metallica vs Napster, the RIAA’s great PR move to sue random file-sharers…the whole issue of digital distribution and it’s implications for the music industry has been the biggest issue of the past decade.

Anyway, KISS frontman and avowed tool Gene Simmons recently said that the music industry should, direct quote, “Sue everybody. Be litigious. Take their homes, their cars. Don’t let anybody cross that line”. Yes, if you’ve ever used LimeWire, BitTorrent, 4shared.com, Pirate Bay, those sites that can pull audio out of a YouTube video, or any other method of file sharing or piracy, Gene Simmons has declared you deserve to be homeless. He said all this at a convention for TV execs while giving a talk on “building successful entertainment brands”. Interpret that fact as you wish.

I could write Simmons’ comment off ad hominem by saying that KISS has always been a ruthlessly corporate band so interested in making money I’m surprised they aren’t on Wall Street. I could mention his stint on “The Celebrity Apprentice”. I could mention his shilly endorsements (I’m thirsty, where’s that cool, crisp and refreshing Dr. Pepper I bought?). I could mention Family Jewels.

Or, I could look at what piracy’s done for the music industry and listeners, for better and worse. So I think I’m going to do that one.

Well let’s get the obvious out the way, music piracy hurts the industry, and yes that is very deliberate wording on my part. I haven’t been able to find the exact figures, but suffice to say that album sales have plummeted and a lot of smaller chain stores and indie stores have taken the hit (Tower Records, anyone?). Pirating in and of itself doesn’t help the artist. And as a sharp friend of mine observed, it doesn’t tell labels, “This is what I want to buy, you should put more funding in this”. But let’s face it, pretty much everyone knows the problems with pirating.

So how can pirating be seen as not a bad thing? Well, first of all, it’s a way to discover new artists with no-cost to you. Now, just saying that doesn’t really lend itself as a good argument, but consider this. The first Arcade Fire song I heard was a copy of “Wake Up” that I got off a file-share site. As I’m sitting here, I can look over to my overstuffed CD rack and see Funeral, Neon Bible, and The Suburbs sitting there, each one legally purchased. While I’m aware that a lot of pirating is just downloading songs and never giving back, there’s that potential for a stolen song to become a bought album to become a bought t-shirt to become a bought concert ticket (which is where artists make most of their money).

And artists have caught wise to this. Especially anyone in the Nine Inch Nails camp. Radiohead had the first success with direct artist digital distribution, but Trent Reznor and his ilk have modified it. They take a “meet me halfway” approach as seen on NIN’s post-label output and projects like The Social Network soundtrack and Sonoio‘s album. Before the proper album comes out, they’ll release a free-to-download sampler or 4 or 5 songs. Listeners are free to keep these, or can buy the whole album various ways for various prices. That can be everything from a $2.99 digital download to a $159 collectors edition including a portable synthesizer (I am not making this up). This is the business model I’d like to see more of in the future.

Then there’s a side of the argument I haven’t seen, but am amused by. “Musicians make most of their money touring” is the argument pro-piracy people make all the time, but after taking a look at this, I was surprised by exactly how little they get. Once you get down past iTunes, apparently things get questionable, but just looking at album sales alone says a lot. If you bought Coldplay’s Viva La Vida in F.Y.E. for $10 (must have been a sale), then Coldplay gets a buck. But if you pirate it and end up seeing them live, then you and the other couple thousand people there all gave substantially more.

So at the end of the day, I am against straight pirating, but if you then “pay it back” and support the artist, then it’s just another way to break into music. And either way, it’s more exposure for the band. Oh, and on a related note, my girlfriend and I went to F.Y.E. yesterday. We both remarked that we saw way more $9.99s and $13.99s than we used to and way less $17.99s and $19.99s. So prices are coming down, good stuff.

Or hell, the internet has it for free anyway.

Posted in "Thoughts" | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mini Mixtape #4

Posted on October 10, 2010 by bgibs122

Two days late, my bad. Friday involved some school stuff all night, and Saturday was consequentially labeled “Sleep”. Anywho, here we are. Just thought I’d do a random mix this week.

The Clash – The Guns of Brixton (1979)
One of bassist’s Paul Simonon’s lone writing contributions that also happens to be one of the band’s best songs. Painting a vivid portrait of the discontentment of 1970’s Brixton, Simonon’s paranoid lyrics are backed by a killer bassline and a beat sampled in numerous rap tracks. Not bad for a bunch of punks.

Soundgarden – 4th of July (1994)
Soundgarden always flirted with heavy metal, but “4th of July”s slow, crunchy riff sounds like something straight out of drone metal. But what really sells this song is the interplay in Cornell’s layered vocals; the lower one keeps the song’s feet on the ground while vocal track #2 is Cornell’s trademarked wail in all its glory.

Pixies – Monkey Gone to Heaven (1989)
Ignoring “Where Is My Mind?” and “Velouria”, “Moneky Gone to Heaven” is one of  the Pixies’ more popular songs (“popularity” of course being very relative). It’s also one of their most bizarre; vaguley environmentalist verses give way to the “This monkey’s gone to heaven” chorus backed with piano and strings…then the hilariously surreal “If man is five…” bridge.

David Bowie – Starman (1972)
I’ve only ever bought one Bowie album, but when you get something as good as The Rise of and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, one is all you need. And “Starman” has so many great parts: the gorgeous chorus, the off-kilter intro, and that final solo. Great stuff.

Posted in Mini Mixtapes | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Album Review: Sonoio – Sonoio

Posted on October 8, 2010 by bgibs122

When a band breaks up/goes on hiatus, the most common thing for its members to do is venture off onto their own projects. The disbanding of the latest incarnation of Nine Inch Nails last year is no different; Trent Reznor went on to do some groovy electronica with his wife (and score The Social Network), Josh Freese has gone back to appearing freaking everywhere, Robert Finick’s appearing here and there, and Justin Meldal-Johnsen’s trying his hand at studio production.

Keyboardist Alessandro Cortini, meanwhile, has followed in Reznor’s footsteps and started a new musical project, Sonoio (or SONOIO). But while Reznor’s How to Destroy Angels consists of himself, his wife Mariqueen Maandig, and Atticus Ross, Sonoio is just Cortini (fun fact: “Sonoio” is Italian for “It’s me”), and is the first time he’s worked on a project all on his own.

Now, reviewing this is something different for me because I typically don’t review electronic music, and Sonoio is very much an electronic album. But while it’s electronic, it’s not dance-centric, nor is it poppy. Just to get the assumed NIN comparison out of the way, Sonoio sounds closest to Year Zero with some big chorus moments here and there.The songs find their sound by stacking various effects on top of each other, or by letting a minimal arrangement work on the atmosphere of the music. There’s more than a few ideas on this album.

Sonoio starts off strong with “Just Me”, which exemplifies the “building song” talked about above. It starts with a simple beat and starts tossing in layers of electronics until coming together for a smooth chorus. Cortini’s vocoder vocals (which appear throughout the album) are especially strong here, and this was a great choice for an opening track. Next song “Suck Everything Up” utilizes a paranoid beat and repetitive vocals to be a fairly good slowburner with a more subtle buildup.

Next song, “Not Worth Remembering”, is definitely worth remembering (I am so sorry for that) with it’s giant chorus and sense of tension throughout. Cortini uses a tight attack and release approach here, and it works great. “Not Worth Remembering” is probably the best crafted song on Sonoio. The album’s other standout (and best song) is “Heartbeat”, is a distillation of all the better parts of Sonoio: it builds from nothing, there’s just the right amount of noisy electronics, Cortini sounds poised, and the chorus is to die for. Trent Reznor wishes he would have written this song.

The other five songs on Sonoio aren’t bad. “Silence” and “Memory Loss” are pretty atmospheric tracks that erase the potential sameness of the album, and “Hold On Let Go”‘s shot of energy gives it a decent edge. “Houdini” is ok, and closer “Happy” is a slowed down, remixed version of “Heartbeat”‘s ridiculous chorus that’s flimsy on its own, but helps give the album a sense of closure.

As an album, Sonoio comes off as slightly less than the sum of its parts. If you pay attention through the whole thing, each song has at least moments of brilliance, and even if you don’t, it’s good background music. The lyrics are pretty solid, but not a selling point if you’re on the fence either way. The better songs are definitely the ones that have some bite to them (“Heartbeat”, “Not Worth Remembering”, and “Just Me”) or the shorter songs that focus on being pretty (“Silence” and “Memory Loss”). The kicker is that Sonoio itself barely runs over half an hour, and a solid third of that is the more middling songs that, while they aren’t bad, essentially act as padding. In any case, Sonoio shows that Cortini has a lot of talent and a lot of potential. Three and a half stars with a positive recommendation.

tl;dr: With some editing, a decent album could have been a fantastic EP. Still worth getting, though.

Sonoio’s site is here.

Posted in Album Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment