On Yr. Radar

Posted on February 9, 2014 by bgibs122

Welcome back to On Yr. Radar, where we feature bands old and new with new material out now, or soon!

Celleste – “Superstar (By Myself)”

Montreal artist Celleste might be a singer-songwriter by definition, but don’t let the categorization mislead you: there’s not a trace of sleepy adult alternative in her strutting brand of rock and roll. Built on garage rock verses and a taunting chorus under Celleste’s bratty vocals, “Superstar (By Myself)” is a fun, sneering track with more going on than you’d think–check the descending riff in the chorus, the quiet bridge, and the early-Strokes interlocking guitars on the verses. Check out her Facebook here.

Escapists – “Breaking It Up”

Never underestimate a kickass bassline. “Breaking It Up”‘s high-swinging arena rock wouldn’t have the same punch without the overdriven bassline that snakes through guitar histrionics and anguished vocals. That’s not to discredit the rest of the song, though; throughout “Breaking It Up”, Escapists stick the landing on a sound that hits hard emotionally and sonically while sounding effortlessly huge. It’s a refreshing modern rock track that’s definitely worth a listen. Stay in tune with Escapists here for more.

IYES – “Crazy In Love (cover)”

There’s no way to get around it, this is simply my favorite cover of this song. UK eletropop duo IYES give Beyonce’s seminal hit a lush makeover without losing any of the song’s inherent charm. The drum and bass combo ground the track, giving some momentum to the dreamy keyboards and vocals that all together make for a hypnotic listen. The attention to detail here from the moody piano opening to ambient wails add to the song’s depth, and capture the feeling of being head over heels with someone while in their arms. The rest of IYES’ material is great; this is a group to watch, and you can do so here.

Grey Gordon – “500 Miles”

Today’s customary On Yr. Radar acoustic punk track is courtesy of one Grey Gordon, offering up “500 Miles” from his Still At Home Here EP. “500 Miles” (no, he’s not walking them) is a wintery emo track that’s as comforting as your favorite black hoodie on a cold day, complete with lyrics to match. Every note of Gordon’s fingerpicked guitar resonates in the song’s crisp productions, and his subtly double-tracked vocals bring Ben Gibbard of Death Cab to mind. The strummed interlude provides a smart bit of structure, making the final chorus feel like coming home. Grey Gordon’s launching a tour soon, keep an eye on his Facebook for updates.

Maggie – “Tidal Waves And Hurricanes”

“You know I’m stronger than that” is the overriding message on Ontario-by-LA singer Maggie’s new single, “Tidal Waves And Hurricanes”. Maggie’s powerhouse vocals are the main attraction, but the galloping pop-soul track behind her isn’t lacking, either. “Tidal Waves…” features a huge chorus with plenty of room for vocal gymnastics reminiscent of Adele, although Maggie’s music feels looser and less restrained (see the post chorus jam). Regardless, “Tidal Waves” is great for empowerment, singing along, and both at the same time. Keep an eye on Maggie’s website for more.

Reverend Horton Heat – “Longest Gone Man”

Let’s spin a legacy song for a second. Rockabilly legends Reverend Horton Heat have been around since the mid-80s, and “Longest Gone Man” comes from their first demo. The song is a traditional live favorite for the Rev, and finally got put to an official LP this year (REV), and as detailed on Dangerous Minds, was a favorite of Johnny Rotten’s. It isn’t hard to see how–the song’s full of twangy rockabilly punch that sounds best coming from a convertible’s stereo, or a beat-up bar jukebox. It’s worth a listen, as is the rest of back-to-basics REV.

SKATERS – “Deadbolt”

If the rest of SKATERS’ forthcoming debut album Manhattan is anything resembling “Deadbolt”, these guys are going to be someone to watch this year. Incessantly catchy and delightfully brash, “Deadbolt” restrains itself to a low simmer during the verses before all noisy hell breaks loose on the chorus. Underneath the guitar fuzz and dead-eyed vocals, there’s a pop song hiding here, but isn’t it so much more fun to hear something fucked up like this? Manhattan comes out on February 25th, and I can’t wait to hear more. Countdown with the band on their Facebook page here.

Sunday Guts – “Truthman Who?”
Closing today out with a bit of synth pop, care of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania group Sunday Guts, whose new three song EP Wet Salvos is available now on Bandcamp. “Truthman Who?” (from Wet Salvos) is a great song for zoning out; it’s easy to get wrapped up in the dreamy production and textured guitars, while the propulsive beat keeps everything moving forward. It’s excellent on its own, and as a part of Wet Salvos as a whole. Follow Sunday Guts’ Facebook for updates.

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Grammys 2014 Recap

Posted on January 27, 2014 by bgibs122

The Recording Academy of America celebrated itself and some of last year’s biggest music with the 56th annual Grammy awards last night. The Grammys are a bit odd for an industry award show; for an artist, they’re better as exposure than a prestigious award of merit. Like all of the institutional awards ceremonies, you know what you’re in for out of the gate: the award will have more disappointments than actual surprises, there’ll be some spectacle, a few laughs, and oh my God it’s going to take forever.

One thing the Grammys gets absolutely right is putting the focus of the ceremony on the music more than the awards, simply because watching Keith Urban get in a guitar duel with Gary Clark Jr. will always be more fun than seeing Reba McEntire put a trophy for Best Country Solo Performance in someone’s hands. Few among this year’s gamut of performers truly bombed–doe-eyed country singer Hunter Hays in over his head came closest–but few went above and beyond, either. Daft Punk’s soul love letter performance with Nile Rodgers and Stevie Wonder is a lock for best of the night, while performance vets like Beyonce and Jay-Z, John Legend, Taylor Swift, and Metallica (with pianist Lang-Lang) put in solid if not showstopping work.

It was an uphill battle for top 40 pop stars, though. Katy Perry’s Maleficent trailer rendition of “Dark Horse” was a bloated mess that felt much longer than its four minute run time. Robin Thicke’s collaboration with Chicago won the “WTF?” award, but little else. Pink’s solo take on “Try” while doing aerial silk moves was rightly awesome, but “Just Give Me a Reason” with Nate Ruess (sporting a new “I Wanna Be Freddie Mercury” mustache) had its normal sleepiness compounded by coming on the heels of an engaging performance. Lorde made an interesting extended intro to “Royals”, but her minimalist style made the actual song feel a bit flimsy; there was little variety to it. Maybe pushing the multi-layered minimalism to its logical conclusion could work. Speaking of which, Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, Mary Lambert, Queen Latifah, and Madonna (what?) finally removed all of the subtly from after school special “Same Love” by straight up marrying 30-something straight and gay couples in a heartwarming, IMPORTANT, and vaguely exploitative performance.

There was one constant, though: you had to bring the energy. Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Dave Grohl, and Lindsey Buckingham blew the roof off the ceremony with their closing (and unfairly cut short) medley that woke everyone up as the clock marched toward hour four. I was ready for the Kendrick Lamar/Imagine Dragons “m.A.A.d. city”/”Radioactive” mashup to go up like its own smoke machine, but it was a highlight due to Imagine Dragons playing like an actual rock band, and Kendrick going absolutely off on his verses.

Let’s stay on Kendrick while we go to the actual awards themselves. Lamar went into the night with seven overall nominations (AOY, Best New Artist, multiple rap category nods, and two features), and came away entirely empty handed. It was a long shot for him to get Album of the Year, so I at least thought he would pick up the consolatory Best Rap Album award, but Macklemore even got that (I know the Grammys are more generous to pop-rap, but The Heist wasn’t even the best pop-rap album nominated). That an artist as culturally admired and critically respected as Kendrick Lamar got nothing would be a shock in most other mediums, but for the Grammys, it’s nothing but business as always.

That, I think, is why the Grammys are so frustrating. The academy has made conspicuous attempts to modernize in recent years from hashtaging everything to throwing in more pop performers to tossing more nominations at blog/magazine favorites, but underneath it all, they’re still the stuffy old white guys everyone lampoons them for. Look at the rock categories: Paul McCartney, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin competed against youngsters like Neil Young, The Rolling Stones, and David Bowie, with Imagine Dragons, Queens of the Stone Age, and Muse in there for the kids. Macklemore’s sweep of the rap categories is shocking, until you remember that the guy’s so safe, that your high school guidance counselor would want you to be friends with him.

That said, this year’s Big Three awards, the Song/Record/Album of the Year went to solid choices: Song and Record went to the best in category (“Royals” and “Get Lucky”, respectively), and while Daft Punk wasn’t my first choice for album of the year, it’s an understandable choice. Random Access Memories was a wonderful listen, but it was also steeped in wide-eyed idealization for the music of the 60s and 70s with immaculate production and emphasis on the quality of the musicians and the authenticity (read: as few synthesizers as possible) of the music. All of which are also true of past winners Mumford and Sons and Adele, who were also favorites in the race when they won.

So, there it is, another Grammys. We rolled our eyes, we sneered, we liked some of it, we feigned shock, and we’ll watch it again next year.

PS, here’s the quick ‘n dirty of who won in the categories I guessed.

Record of the Year
My Guess: Daft Punk – “Get Lucky”
Winner: Daft Punk – “Get Lucky”

Album of the Year
My Guess: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – The Heist
Winner: Daft Punk – Random Access Memories

Song of the Year
My Guess: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ft. Mary Lambert – “Same Love”
Winner: Lorde – “Royals”

Best New Artist
My Guess: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Winner: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Best Pop Vocal Album
My Guess: Lorde – Pure Heroine
Winner: Bruno Mars – Unorthodox Jukebox

Best Dance/Electronica Album
My Guess: Daft Punk – Random Access Memories
Winner: Daft Punk – Random Access Memories

Best Rock Album
My Guess: Led Zeppelin – Celebration Day
Winner: Led Zeppelin – Celebration Day (and they say cynicism never wins)

Best Alternative Music Album
My Guess: Neko Case – The Worse Things Get…
Winner: Vampire Weekend – Vampires of the Modern City

Best Rap Album
My Guess: Kendrick Lamar – good kid, m.A.A.d city
Winner: Macklemore & Ryan Lewis – The Heist

Four out of nine, yikes!

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Radio Rant: Pitbull ft. Ke$ha – Timber

Posted on January 14, 2014 by bgibs122

Hello, and welcome to Radio Rants. Let’s start this year off, yeah?

Does Pitbull actually release albums? Everyone else comes and goes from the charts in album cycles, but Pitbull always seems like he’s just there. If pop music was college, he’d be that sixth year senior everyone knows, and no one knows where the hell he came from, but he somehow always manages the C- he needs. And he gets that C- by leaning on someone else’s choruses notes to hide the fact that you rarely see his actual work. Like a slacker senior, Pitbull knows to work smarter over harder, and while that might make for some (ok, a lot of) mediocre songs, it’s a respectable way to operate.

Take, for example, “Timber”. Whatever you feel about “Timber” as a song, it’s goddamn transcendent as a marketing move. People like EDM with country/folk flourishes, so let’s just gut any of the subtlety from “Wake Me Up”, “Cruise (remix)”, and Kesha’s own “Die Young”, slap Pitbull with a bolo tie and Ke$ha in ass-less chaps, sample an old funk fushion jam, and make this song as absurd as possible, because fuck it. This is what it sounds like for pop to go for broke while bastardizing its own trends (which, admittedly, is what made Kesha a hit in the first place), and it ain’t good, but at least it’s something.

I could just make this a rage review, but the more I think about “Timber”, the cooler I think it is. Discounting Lee Oskar’s crowd, “Timber” still has some nine credited songwriters and producers, not to mention several engineers, label heads to give it the go ahead as a single, and promoters to push it on radio stations/streaming sites. The company that made it spent up to a million dollars in its creation. Everyone involved listened to the song where a Cuban American rapper from Miami says straight-faced “Swing your partner round and round”, and said with conviction, “Yes, this will be a successful product”.

That’s just too awesome to make up.

Less impressive is the product itself. Unsurprisingly, Kesha’s chorus is the best part of the song to actually listen to. Even that’s more due to personality than anything else; Kesha calls it a night you won’t remember, and she doesn’t have any fun details, either. But still, it’s catchy enough, and sticks more than the verses. In fact, with the extended “Whoa oh whoa”s included, there’s far and away more Kesha on the track than Pitbull, who has a measly pair of thirty second verses. Who’s on what side of the “featured” tag for this one?

The beat isn’t anything to write home about, either. The harmonica throughout the song provides any and all distinction between “Timber” and other club jams on the chart; otherwise this is just your usual “thump-thump” beat with light guitar because yeehaw, y’all. Maybe there’s a little “Die Young” in there somewhere, but otherwise this just sounds mailed in.

And speaking of mailed in, we have Mr. Worldwide himself. Pitbull’s never been an MC to call on when you want someone that’s got bars, but even his writing has somehow gotten worse. To wit:

“I have’em like Miley Cyrus, clothes off/Twerking in they bras and thongs” Have fun instantly dating your song!

“The bigger they are, the harder they fall (timber!)”/“Face down, booty up (timber!)” I’d riff on these, but I wouldn’t want anything else from a song called “Timber”.

“That’s the way we like to–Timber!” Right, right, wood.

“I’m slicker than an oil spill/She say she won’t, but I bet she will–timber” Alright, that was actually clever. Bad delivery, but clever.

“Look up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane/Nah, it’s just me, ain’t a damn thing changed” Used up everything you had on the “oil slick” line, didn’t you?

That leaves most of Pitbull’s second verse and pre-chorus (the part that repeats“Swing your partner, round and round/End of the night, it’s going down”) untouched, but he put all of his effort into the first verse, and I might as well, too. The only memorable line to the chorus is another play on “timber”, so you can ponder that one yourself.

“Timber” essentially highlights frustrations felt throughout the pop charts right now: it meshes genres, and just reading the concept behind the song is worth a chuckle or two, but the final product has so-so performances with a beat that has the edges filed off. I wish it did more, but “Timber” falls short.

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Album Review: The Neighbourhood – I Love You.

Posted on January 8, 2014 by bgibs122

“Sweater Weather” has finally become the crossover hit that The Neighbourhood have believed it to be (it’s a holdover from the band’s earlier releases), but I Love You doesn’t have enough to hold your attention once the winter clothes are away. Alt. radio successes that crossover tend to peak early and fall hard–anyone remember Flobots?–ultimately because their signature song is the “right place, right time” coalescing of all of their elements into one accessible, immediate package. In other words, if you’ve heard “Sweater Weather”, well, you know exactly what The Neighbourhood sound like at their best.

The rest of I Love You. finds The Neighbourhood making minor adjustments to their sound of a hip-hop oriented rhythm section, arena rock with Coldplay textured guitars, and some overwrought emo delivery and style to garnish. There’s even some light rapping.

And, to be fair, this isn’t an entirely hitless album, even removing “Sweater Weather”. “Afraid” has a hook that cuts through the song’s otherwise murky atmosphere, and the echo-y paranoia here actually works. The Neighbourhood’s rhythm section puts in overtime on the heavy stomp of “Alleyway” to great effect; even just above mid-tempo, “Alleyway” is still one of the livelier and stronger cuts present, and eases the typical mid-album lag. “Female Robbery” (also from the band’s EP) and “Everybody’s Watching Me (Uh Oh)” similarly benefits from clearer focus.

While those songs could redeem a sturdier base, they aren’t enough to cover I Love You.‘s album-long problems. The production is far too dense, and as a result, everything blends together oppressively, like staring intently at a gray wall. Then again, the blustery production hides the severely lacking songcraft; there’s seldom something interesting happening underneath the waves of reberb and breakbeats, such as the slog of “Flawless”, or “Let It Go” (no, not that one). Vocalist Jesse Rutherford has the double-headed curse of a pinched, mildly grating voice on top of adolescent, petty songwriting (sample lyric: “I had a funny sleep/I didn’t have a dream/because I don’t believe in them”) that means stretches of I Love You. are spent cringing.

The Neighbourhood are dying to be cool and mysterious; everything from the extra “u” in their name (the band is from California), punctuation in the album title, lone icons on the cover, and obsessive dedication to all things black and white scream “take me seriously”, but I Love You. comes up painfully short on charm or substance. Maybe if the band committed as a whole more to a style, or teased out more pop/rock/hip-hop flourishes in each song, something would leave an impact, but aside from “Sweater Weather” and a handful of others, there’s just nothing there. The best summary of I Love You. is the background of its very own album cover: sure, it’s a high-res, detailed, inverted, and foreboding picture, but a puff of smoke is still just a puff of smoke. Two stars out of five.

tl;dr: Did you already buy “Sweater Weather”? Yes? As you were, 2/5.

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