Radio Rant: The Weeknd – The Hills

Posted on October 14, 2015 by bgibs122

Hello, and welcome to Radio Rants. Let’s get working for this one today.

Today, we’re here for The Weeknd (aka: Abel Tesfaye), a guy who, depending on your circles, was only really known last year as either “dude on that Ariana Grande track” or “Indie Critic Boom, Pop Market Bust #86″. He’s been in music for a few years, but 2015’s his pop takeover, first with “Earned It” from the 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack, and then “Can’t Feel My Face” and “The Hills” from his new album Beauty Behind the Madness, a record that’s played great with critics and audiences alike. He’s going to be a pop force going forward, so let’s take a look.

A driving force behind The Weeknd is he’s very much a Drake or Taylor Swift; someone with a distinct persona that’s readily apparent in their songs. For Tesfaye, that persona is basically the Venn diagram overlay of “Dirty Diana”, “Closer”, and “Say You Will” while totally missing the point that those songs are about freaked out, lonely, pathetic dudes. His music plays with control and sex (and a lotta drug use) on the most surface level possible; he looks at coked out, needy hook-ups and thinks “shit’s dope” without considering what kind of fucked up baggage a person needs to get there. It’s like that bro who sees Fight Club and thinks Brad Pitt’s the good guy. I wouldn’t call it a coincidence that Fifty Shades of Grey was the Trojan Horse aspect of The Weeknd’s campaign for pop stardom.

And I mean campaign very nearly literally. Every move from “Love Me Harder” until now has been selling a palatable version of The Weeknd to a mass audience; it doesn’t get much closer to shaking hands and kissing babies in the pop world than slick collaborations with Max Martin and features with Possible Actual Baby Ariana Grande. Then you’ve got “Earned It”, where Tesfaye got to pretend models in high-waist bikini bottoms with taped up T-and-A and “you earned this dick” lyrics were in character for Fifty Shades of Grey, and not just his usual aesthetic hemmed at the edges. But “The Hills” going to number one feels like the campaign has ended in triumph.

“The Hills” is The Weeknd back in his moody, hazy, wheelhouse. The song opens with stabs of massive synth fuzz like a drug trip before dropping down to a sparse hi-hat/snare beat with light synth for the verses. Horror movie style strings start playing under the beat as the verses build, and, because I guess The Weeknd just wanted to make a Halloween banger, the chorus starts with a woman’s scream. The strings reach fever pitch while the beat goes full on pop-trap and Tesfaye jumps into his falsetto for a chorus that might be as on the nose as white powder from a glass table, but is still fairly catchy. The music doesn’t deviate from this palette too much–there are no sweeping flourishes to the final chorus or anything–but the bridge/outro is an appropriately haunted sounding bit of atmospherics and piano interplay (complete with an outro sung in Amharic, the language Tesfaye grew up with and the first language of Ethiopia). Interestingly enough, “The Hills” is technically Beauty Behind the Madness‘ lead single; it was released before “Can’t Feel My Face” but has only just now peaked. I get it though: if you liked the winking entendre there and in “Love Me Harder”, then you can get through the sex and drugs on “The Hills” just fine.

With the order his singles have crested, “The Hills” can’t help but feel like The Weeknd rebranding on some level. Not only is his normal schtick back, but it’s back in the bluntest way possible. Dude’s two albums, three mixtapes, and four years into his career; using “When I’m fucked up, that’s the real me” as a hook is uninspired. Let’s see some more lyrics.

“Your man on the road, he doin’ promo/You said, ‘Keep our business on the low-low'” Would it surprise you to know that The Weeknd has a pretty big Drake cosign?

“I’m just tryna get you out the friend zone” Bro, if you’re coming over for an agreed upon smash, I don’t think either of y’all have to worry about the friend zone.

“I can’t find your house, send me the info” I only mention this line because Tesfaye sings it in this lecherous croak, and the image of him trying to still seduce this woman while being totally lost in her neighborhood is too funny to pass up.

“I only call you when it’s half-past five” As someone who used to have to wake up and be out the door at half past five, no one is having fun at half past five. Trust me.

“I only love it when you touch me, not feel me/When I’m fucked up, that’s the real me” #TinderBiosBeLike

“I just fucked two bitches ‘fore I saw you” Holy shit, Abel, you have a flippant attitude toward the people you rely on for sex, we get it.

“Drugs started feelin’ like it’s decaf” Holy shit, Abel, you have a flippant attitude toward the substances you rely on to feel ~alive~, we get it.

I did a catch up on The Weeknd before Beauty Behind the Madness came out, and I like a lot of his stuff, but his biggest downfalls are always going to be subject matter and a painful lack of self-awareness. Like Lana “the most problematic of faves” Del Rey, Tesfaye’s playing around with a purposely fucked up character here, but doesn’t do enough on “The Hills” and elsewhere to make the character seem big enough or removed enough to be meaningful in any way, and the “don’t like me, just fuck me” attitude gets wearing in how unthinking it gets. Even Del Rey feels like she’s inching toward awareness these days. For the short term, though, “The Hills” is a decent song and an introduction to The Weeknd proper. Welcome to his twisted fantasy.

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

Radio Rant: Billboard’s Top Ten (Probably) Songs of the Summer 2015

Posted on October 1, 2015 by bgibs122

So, you might be asking yourself why you’re reading about Songs of the Summer now that we’re ankle deep in college football season and drowning in Pumpkin Spice Everything (I’m more a fan of the Caramel Apple Spice, but that’s neither here not there). A year or two ago, Billboard switched their Songs of the Summer chart from being one final chart for the whole summer to a chart that updated every week between Memorial Day and Labor Day. I kept an eye on this damn thing for the last month for some sort of final list, but they finally stopped updating it this month without doing one final summer list for me to cover. I’m late enough already, so I took the confirmed top five, and fiddled with Billboard’s math to rig an approximate top ten. It’s not the Official Billboard Songs of the Summer, but it’s pretty damn close. Also, their list is now twenty songs, which is like, entirely too much work. Anyway, here we are.

10. Major Lazer & DJ Snake feat. MO – “Lean On”

“Lean On” is one of the better distillations of Diplo’s “world EDM”, and probably my favorite EDM crossover hit of the summer. That production is slick as hell–it even manages to make DJ Snake’s signature wheup wheups sound light on their feet–and MØ’s cooler than thou vocals give the song a color to stand out on the radio. Apparently Rihanna turned down the song, and I get why: you can practically hear her on it, but it’s also the sort of thing she seems bored with, if her new stuff is any indication. I’m glad someone picked it up, though.

9. Skrillex & Diplo With Justin Bieber – “Where Are U Now?”

Man, two music villains and the dude who has the sins of dubstep laid at his feet. This song shouldn’t have had a chance. And yet, it works more or less because everyone involved is a goddamn professional. Skrillex and Diplo’s beat has a nice build to it with one hell of a payoff in that post chorus that thumps in like six different ways, and doing a feature like this was a nice soft opening for the inevitable Biebaissance. Bieber’s vocals are best when they’re pitched beyond belief; he’s just a little too mewling here for my liking–but this is still better than it had the right to be.

8. David Guetta feat. Nicki Minaj, Bebe Rexha, and Afrojack – “Hey Mama”

Oh my God, the bottom third of this list has enough people for its own fantasy league. Anyway, the beat’s a standard D.Guetta speaker destroyer that feels claustrophobic, but with a few Caribbean tones thrown in. Nicki’s at that level where she can show up in mercenary hitmaker mode, add a touch of her own Trinidadian roots (and a solid verse), and redeem what would otherwise by complete filler. I didn’t think I’d look at a David Guetta song in 2015, but here you go.

7. Walk the Moon – “Shut Up and Dance”

I’m conflicted about these dudes. On one hand, I’m happy to see anyone from Cincinnati blow up, but on the other hand, they feel made up of the least interesting parts of The Killers. That Edge-biting guitar riff, the manic dance beat, corny lyrics, unabashed delivery, and the shamelessly 80s revivalism? All Killers standbys! This song is Walk the Moon’s chase the radio moment, and while it’s basic as shit, that “Whoo-hoo-hoo!” on the chorus is one hell of a hook. Sometimes a song doesn’t make you just shut up and dance, but smile like you mean it.

6. Fetty Wap – “Trap Queen”

It’s been so much damn fun to watch the critical consensus on Fetty Wap shift as this year’s gone on. With its gleefully amateur, well, everything, “Trap Queen” is one of those songs that kind of nags you when you first hear it. And then everyone realize the beat hits kind of hard while still being catchy, the whole concept is kind of crazy awesome, Fetty Wap launches himself into the song, and he did it two more times, and Fetty Wap became one of the year’s bigger success stories. “Trap Queen” still isn’t as much fun for me as “My Way”, but putting this many hits up at once has rightly put Fetty Wap in pop rap’s center. Couldn’t have happened to a more beautiful cinnamon roll.

5. Silento – “Watch Me”

In my younger and more vulnerable years, I worked as a summer camp counselor, which meant tons of exposure to whatever that year’s dance craze was, along with whichever teen stars were big at the time (it’s entirely possible this is why I’m still weary of Bieber). I mention this because I am positive that, if I still worked there, I would have heard “Watch Me” at least four times a week, and hate it. As it stands, I have only heard “Watch Me” in full recently. And hate it.

4. The Weeknd – “Can’t Feel My Face”

Earlier this week, I surmised that Max Martin in 2014 wasn’t Quincy Jones in 1982. Max Martin in 2015 is still not Quincy Jones in 1982, but damn is he close. No small part of that is Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, who officially overtakes Bruno Mars for Most Baldfaced Michael Jackson Impression for “Can’t Feel My Face”. The intro still feels a little disjointed from the rest of the song, but once that first chorus (and that bassline, dear God that bassline) kicks in, “Can’t Feel My Face” becomes downright addictive. Is a G-rated banger written in collaboration with the mainstream pop producer a sell out move? Absolutely. Do I care? Not at all, and neither should you.

3. Taylor Swift ft. Kendrick Lamar – “Bad Blood” [remix]

This remix only kind of works–the beat feels a little slapdashed and like someone’s idea of a remix instead of an actual one–but can we appreciate how hilariously out of place Kendrick Lamar sounds here? Kendrick on mainstream pop remixes will never not be funny to me because he sounds good, but so out of his lane. He’s such a wordy rapper, and even though he gets in a nice Deez Nuts joke and “Backseat Freestyle” reference, he also namechecks the Iraqi Civil War and West Coast gansta rap on a goddamn Taylor Swift song. His airy delivery goes a long way, but still: Swift’s rhyming “problems” with “solve’em” while he’s playing tongue twisters with the letter “b” and stringing “need ya”, “procedure” and “amnesia” together. You’re working too hard.

2. Wiz Khalifa feat. Charlie Puth – “See You Again”

Man, this list almost made it without a brick (you could count “Watch Me”, but it’s more meme than song), then it drops a big one. This is one of those songs that clearly wants to feel deep and important but comes off maudlin and trite. The beat sounds like it was thrown together for someone’s high school graduation slideshow, asking Wiz Khalifa for emotional insight in the face of loss is akin to nurturing a plant with bong water, and Charlie Puth just an exceedingly poor version of Sam Smith. It’s blatant emotional profiteering at Paul Walker’s death; I feel like a chump just for listening to it.

1. OMI – “Cheerleader” [Felix Jaehn Remix]

Normally, this is where I’d say congrats to OMI for winning the annual Song of the Summer fight, but I’m starting to think the position’s cursed. LMFAO from 2011’s Party Rock came down hard the next year, and have been regulated to club hell since launching solo work. 2012’s winner Carly Rae Jepsen is trying so hard for a career that the blogosphere can’t will into existence no matter how hard they try. And then you have 2013 and 2014’s winners. Robin Thicke paid for “Blurred Lines” basically with his life, while last year’s breakout star Iggy Azalea’s career came crashing down so hard she had to cancel her tour. So congratulations OMI, but be careful, dude. Hope this thing comes after Felix Jaehn; he’s the one who got you here in the first place.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Album Review: Ryan Adams (and Taylor Swift) – 1989

Posted on September 28, 2015 by bgibs122

There are some releases that feel inevitable, and some that, even on repeated listens, still inspire a dull amusement that, holy shit, this actually exists. Ryan Adams’ version of Taylor Swift’s 1989, an album that’s spent the last week in ubiquity despite not existing in an ethereal or corporeal form in July, is firmly the latter.While  most musical endeavors are an end result of “anything can happen”, 198Adams (I gotta find a better abbreviation) is an end result of a very specific chain of actions.

For starters, Ryan Adams is exactly the sort of fringe lifer who could make this project happen in its best possible form. Adams is an insanely prolific songwriter; in addition to his workaholic solo discography, there are a litany of EPs, and even a number of straight up lost albums out there. Dude will start in on something like a “sci-fi metal concept album” or “three songs with Johnny Depp”, and, not only it will be made so, but it will be done because that will be what he genuinely wants to do. So, when starts posting fairly complete (and enticing) clips of Taylor Swift songs and says he’s gonna do it in full, there is a very real chance that this might actually happen.

Of course, Taylor Swift is largely responsible for RY989‘ release as well, and not just because they’re her songs. Support for Adams was as broad as it was immediate, but Swift campaigned loudest and hardest (such to the point that some fans groused she gave it more promotion than some of her own videos). You could easily argue that 19Addy9 was going to get released in some form or another, but let’s be real, it was Swift and Swift alone who got this thing finished in landspeed time and rubbing elbows with albums by The Weeknd and Lana Del Rey on iTunes as opposed to a quieter and later release ala Meow the Jewels.

But, hey, it’s here. Is it enjoyable? Absolutely! Adams dresses the album up in jangley, droning, roots rock melancholy without irreparably damaging the songs’ core structures. He makes some tweaks–reorients genders, drops the cringing rap-talk from “Blank Space” and “Shake It Off”–but these changes are Adams digging into a song’s pathos instead of doing some yahoo ironic cover. The changes are superficial; “Welcome to New York” is still an arms wide open, romantic greeting, but now it’s done as charging arena rock instead of blipping synth pop. “Out of the Woods” gets recut as a shuffling acoustic ballad with an extended coda, but the yearning in Swift’s original is still there. The most inventive recut, I’d say, is “Style”, which swaps out the exacting, hotblooded pulse of the original for a delightfully slurred and strutting rock tune that apes the original’s wide-eyed passion.

Only two songs strive for drastic reinvention. “Shake It Off”, which still feels like Taylor Swift’s first mean girl moment, is a quietly seething comeback that starts a little limp, but ends kind of awesome because of the Smiths-style guitar lead and Adams turns a repeated mantra of “I’m just gonna shake” into something kind of hopeful and kind of pissed. It’s cool, but I’m still partial to Screaming Females take. Much less successful–in fact, the only outright misfire here–is “Blank Space”. I’m not hot on the original, which we will get to in a bit, but recasting it as a lifeless Avett Brothers number is a downturn. These two songs highlight the key difference between Swift’s and Adams’ approach to the material: Adams plays up the vulnerability and introspection that’s always been (and ideally always will be) part of Swift’s songwriting, but in addition to those features, Swift on 1989 is very much someone performing in their moment, and Adams either can’t or won’t replicate that. You can feel that discrepancy most strongly on “Wildest Dreams”: I really like the Adams-ized shimmering, California pop rock version, but he doesn’t have the performance power Swift does. He blusters his way through the bridge, whereas she shines (“Wildest Dreams” is still one of Adam’s better compositions, though). Adams knows when to get out of the way, though, and “This Love” and “I Wish You Would” are the best songs on both versions.

While I like 198Ryn liking it feels complicated. A lot of that is because my opinion of 1989 is still complicated. Last year, I wrote that it was a smartly prepared, if undercooked, album that had a clear narrative, but felt cloying at the end of the day. Like, take “Blank Space” for example. I can sit here and praise it as an incredibly self-aware piece of songwriting that sets the stage for the album’s emotional and narrative punches while the video weaponizes and reclaims Swift’s status of “crazy ex-girlfriend” that the media (of which I am part) has perpetuated for years, all while looking poised as fuck, and mean every word of it. But, as a song, I would much rather talk about it than listen to it. That’s 1989 for me: the album is Swift at her most realized as a writer and especially as a performer, but she is so letdown by Max Martin, Shellback, and Ryan Tedder to the point that her success is in spite of the production, not because of it. 1989 wasn’t the best pop album of its year; it didn’t even have Swift’s best pop song. Even when the tempo throttles on “Shake It Off”, the end result is still too shellacked to be the pop gush it wants to be. Max Martin in 2014 ain’t Quincy Jones in 1982, you feel me?

All this is to say that I want to make sure I like the Ryan Adams version because I like vaguely alt. singer-songwriter schtick, not because Adams made something real or gifted her credibility. If anything, Adams has made these songs sound “deeper” while actually flattening them: the original “I Wish You Would” balanced its falling-in-slow-motion sadness with a bright edge to show the romantic conflict while Adams just has the sads. But, this is an awful lot to dump on a project that began life as a lark and ended as a well-sounding lark. I can’t imagine any of these becoming someone’s “definitive” version (at least I hope not), but anyone who found even a little to like in the original will like something here. I’m just waiting for Swift to announce her and Adams’ joint tour.

Posted in Album Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

You Should See Them Live: Marilyn Manson and The Smashing Pumpkins at Riverbend Music Center

Posted on September 9, 2015 by bgibs122

How did it take The Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson this long to go on tour together?

I mean, you look at Marilyn Manson’s The-Face-That-Launched-A-Thousand-Hot-Topics aesthetic, and The Smashing Pumpkins’ penchant for goth-y imagery that surfaced around 1998, and you’d think someone would start calling venue managers. But, that’s not the case, and now that elder-state alternative bands are sharing audiences more than they’re competing for them, a joint tour makes more sense than before.

Of course, I wasn’t really thinking about this when I bought a ticket. It was a lot more holyshitmyfavoritebandandMarilynMansonIguessiscomingtomytownandIshouldprobablygo. This hasn’t really come up on the site, but somewhere in my junior year of high school, I got in deep with The Smashing Pumpkins, and to this day, they remain my sole favorite band. I love all sorts of other cooler and smarter artists, but for whatever reason, the band led (and more or less defined) by a strident, bald, and perennially uncool Midwesterner is my long running favorite. So, I threw on my Zero T-shirt and Chucks, and a friend of mine and I made our way to the Riverbend amphitheater on the banks of the Ohio River.

But, to get to the bald man, I had to spend some time with the pale man.

Honestly, I figured Marilyn Manson would be an added novelty at best and a tolerated gimmick at worst when I bought the ticket. His stuff’s familiar enough to me that I figured outright boredom wouldn’t be an issue (you listen to enough Nine Inch Nails in high school, you kinda happen into some Manson singles eventually), but I didn’t have high hopes.

But here’s the thing: Marilyn Manson is kicking ass in 2015. His new album The Pale Emperor has a bluesy, glammed out, and outright mean edge to it, and that equally campy and sinister snarl carried over to his live show, as well. From my friend and I’s incredibly strategic “No one in the immediate vicinity seems annoying and the sightlines aren’t terrible” spot on the lawn, the band’s sound comprised of lumbering drums, shotgun-to-the-gut guitar, staggering bass, and Manson’s characteristic croaks and screams all turned up to eleven. Was it elegant? Shit no, but blasting through “Day Three of a Seven Day Binge” and “The Dope Show” like teenagers kicking over trash cans and smashing mailboxes with baseball  bats isn’t supposed to be.

More than high-grade new material, the Manson boom of 2015 is because he’s figured out how to survive without being a cultural lightning rod. In lieu of shocking a long gone moral majority, he’s focusing on owning the shit out of his image and making the most entertaining show possible with it. This meant a handful of wardrobe/suit changes (winner: a furry sportcoat and “Smooth Criminal” hat combo that I couldn’t get a good picture of–why did I only spring for a lawn spot?), an array of kitchen knife or brass knuckle grafted microphones, and a prop beer bottle that inked blood that Manson would occasionally use to “draw” on himself. The stage went through changes, too: the old banners and podium made their way out for “Antichrist Superstar” and “The Beautiful People”, and Manson sang one particular song from behind a customized pulpit (I’ll let you guess which song). Then there was his choice to sing “Sweet Dreams” while on a pair of stilts, complete with his own Britney-style headset mic. I’ve been part of musicals with lesser production values.

The spectacle of it all sprang to life (death?) because Manson seemed to be truly having a blast, whether he was strutting around while casually knocking over mic stands or amps, telling off the wall stories between sets, or flailing behind a podium like a coked out jack in the box; he was committed to playing as large as possible. Somewhere in the set, Manson said he’d grown up in Ohio and developed his persona here. It felt fitting that he’d be back while on a new high. I guess even the devil gets a redemptive arc.

So, after a surprisingly rad set from Manson, it was time to wait for The Pumpkins, and even though I was watching their stage be set up, it didn’t quite feel real yet.

Source: Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, Big Talk Films

Source: Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, Big Talk Films

If you ever get the chance, see your favorite artist live. The one who you listen to when no one’s watching. The one whose songs you know by heart (even the bad ones). The one who you don’t talk about often because so God help if you start, good luck finishing. Yeah, see them the second they come to your town. It’s the most validating fucking thing. Being there and experiencing moments you’ve internalized for years, like the floating guitar intro to “Mayonaise”, or the part in “1979” after the first verse when the band kicks in, as part of a world bigger than your headphones or your stereo or discs or data files is its own form of exhilaration.

The more we internalize our favorite music–or anything, really–it becomes more personal, sure, but it also gets easier to forget that it exists outside you. You pour enough of yourself in, and your favorite music becomes less of an arrangement of music and lyrics; it almost becomes an imaginary friend, if you let it. And feeling that rush crashing to life among a crowd of thousands (or hundreds or dozens)? There are few things that feel just that cool.

Of course, all this ~deeper meaning~ hinged on a good set, and The Pumpkins were more than happy to oblige. The stage dressing was minimal outside the draperies (so many draperies) hung from the stage’s electrics, and outside a crack about playing parties and funerals, the banter was kept light. The band let the songs do the work for them.

2015 seems like a fairly kind year for The Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Corgan in particular. Lineup woes have tapered off some, studio time has been productive, Anderson Cooper hasn’t talked any shit, and last year’s Monuments to an Elegy shored up the band’s reputation; for the first time in post-reunion Pumpkinland, things look stable and Corgan’s alright with his place in the world.

The setlist reflected this. Perhaps not surprising for a known contrarian, Corgan’s never been reliable for a “greatest hits” set, instead opting to use a few big songs to justify pulling deep from an extensive back catalog. Possibly because he was playing with Jimmy Chamberlain again, that policy changed for The End Times Tour–if was a high profile single, they played it (the only hit we missed was the encore of “Today”, which was apparently the tour’s stretch goal). A trio of songs from Monuments made their way in, as did a handful of deep cuts that were more illuminating than the rest of the set.

“Thru the Eyes of Ruby” and “Mayonaise” are long beloved fan favorites (“Mayonaise” is seen by many as their best; it spent years as my favorite song ever) that have been in and out of live rotation for years. Meanwhile, including “United States” and “The Crying Tree of Mercury” showed Corgan’s contrarian streak is alive and well: both come from lesser Pumpkins albums, and don’t have special traction with fans. It’s like Kanye breaking out “Drunk and Hot Girls”. It’s entirely possible that these songs made their way to Riverbend for the simple reason that Corgan likes playing them. And hell, it was entertaining: Corgan, a paisley-clad, lanky, six-foot-three Chicagoan, looked like he was having honest to God fun slow jamming on “Mercury”, and subbing a Hendrix-y take on “The Star Spangled Banner” into the ten minute metallic jam of “United States” instead of the song’s listless middle section on the record made for an awesome listen once the shock wore off.

I left with the last notes of crazy awesome encore “Geek U.S.A.” rattling in my head. To end with what might be Corgan and Chamberlain’s crowning achievement seemed like a perfect choice, and the whole band seemed thrilled to blast their way through it. Alternative Nation’s a world away from any relevancy, but for The Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson, it no longer seems to matter. They’ve settled into the long haul within their respective crowds, and sound comfortable in their own skins. And if you’re in that crowd, even from an emptying lawn spot, it’s a hell of a ride from here. Well done, bald man.

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