Radio Rant: Imagine Dragons – Radioactive

Posted on August 29, 2013 by bgibs122

Hello, and welcome to Radio Rants. Today, we’re looking at a relatively obscure song you may not hav–nah, I’m kidding. It’s “Radioactive”.

Even though it’s been years since rock was a top 40 mainstay, every year, the charts eek out room for two or three big songs by actual bands. We’ve gotten “Everybody Talks” and “Pumped Up Kicks” out of it, but also the bad version of “Tonight, Tonight” and Gym Class Heroes, so be careful of what you wish for.

Before we get started, I have to get this out of my system: I’ve never been too big on Imagine Dragons. I know a lot of people liked “It’s Time”, but I was never one of them. Lead singer Dan Reynolds always came off as grating, and that mandolin lead always reminded me of a sped up version of the chorus to “Love Story” more than anything else. Going further than that, Imagine Dragons have no personality behind their music. Mumford and Sons might not have any characterization beyond “Earnest Folkies”, but at least it’s something. All Imagine Dragons brings to mind is “rock band”. They fall into the same space that Hot Chelle Rae did: this doesn’t look and sound like a band so much as it looks and sounds like someone’s idea of a band. Like, it’s not hard to imagine a fictional group of plucky teenagers getting permission to go see Imagine Dragons live, complete with a laugh track when the parents get the band’s name wrong.

So, with that, let’s look at the group’s longest charting single and possible rock band-iest song title ever, “Radioactive”.

Credit where it’s due, Imagine Dragons have neatly set themselves up to be this decade’s Linkin Park. Like early 00s LP, Imagine Dragons found the happy medium of having enough rock-sound credibility to come off as genuine while being tame enough for mass appeal. In LP’s case, it meant making nu-metal look a little less Limp Bizkit and more Lance Bass; Imagine Dragons incorporate everyone’s favorite musical punchline into their sound: dubstep.

“Radioactive” has other parts to it–I’ll get to those in a minute–but we all know that the massive, dubsteppy chorus is what’s kept the song alive for this long. “Radioactive” isn’t the first song to co-opt dubstep for a hook: Muse’s rock radio hit M-M-M-“Madness” wubbed along in a surprisingly restrained mood for them, while Alex Clare’s “Too Close” had a dubstep hook that Skrillex would have passed on for being a bit obvious. But, I’d argue, “Radioactive” does it best for blending the electronic sound into their band set up, even if it includes a cartoonishly oversized drum. There’s an organic sound behind the drums, and Reynold’s vocals sound as big as they need to, but still stay out of the way. Add that to the song’s “We Will Rock You” beat, and you have an inelegant but effective chorus.

Ok, now to talk about parts of “Radioactive” that aren’t the chorus…uh…hm. Oh! The song starts with some rather nice acoustic guitar strumming that’s never heard from again, and as late as a month ago, I didn’t know was part of this song. But, considering the wubby stomp of the rest of the song, I don’t feel bad for forgetting. “Radioactive” is a bit of a knuckledragger; the stomping beat, simple melody, and straight forward apocalyptic lyrics don’t leave any room for interpretation or much in the way of depth. It’s just a rock song.

“I’m waking up to ash and dust/I wipe my brow and sweat my dust” That’s actually kind of clever.

“I’m breathing in the chemicals/[GASP AND EXHALE]” And using an inhaler in the recording booth, apparently.

“I’m breaking in, I’m shaping up/then checking out on the prison bus” …prison bus? At what point was there a prison in your apocalypse?

“I’m waking up, I feel it in my bones/Enough to make my systems blow/Welcome to the new age” It’s going to get stuck in your head, but none of this means anything beside “COOL IMAGES”.

“This is it, the apocalypse” Yeah, we know. If this song was any more on the nose, I’d have a nosebleed.

Aside from the overplay, “Radioactive” is in the unpleasant category of being good enough to enjoy without being good enough to like. It’s something a little different than what anyone’s done before it, but doesn’t scream longevity or vital. It’s an ok listen, but nothing I’m ever going to revisit once it (finally) sinks off the charts. If this is the future of radio rock, then welcome to the apocalypse.

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Rage With Age: A (Brief) Nine Inch Nails Retrospective

Posted on August 25, 2013 by bgibs122

One of my favorite aspects of an artist releasing a new album is refamiliarizing myself with their work while I’m waiting for the new one to come out. It’s a pretty universal fan experience; checking your favorite team’s preseason trades and stats, rewatching the last season of a show before the season premiere, or rereading the book before it gets turned into an over-budgeted movie are all fairly equal comparisons.

Nine Inch Nails’ eighth studio album Hesitation Marks comes out in a few weeks (the released tracks for the curious), meaning that I’ve been slipping NIN more and more into my daily listening. From the groups I’ve done this with lately, flipping through Trent Reznor’s back catalog has been one of the easier and more pleasant listens. NIN doesn’t bat .1000, but the discography’s devoid of major bumps; end-to-end albums, a tailored playlist, or “play all” with infrequent skipping makes for great “hands-off” listening. And I’ve realized something about Reznor and his music.

The guy has never let up.

For all of the different artistic bends, concepts, and sounds from 80’s synth-pop to industrial metal to electronic soundscapes, Reznor’s music has burned with the same intensity for over 20 years now. It’s natural enough to sound intense and pissed off when you’re young and starting off as he did on debut Pretty Hate Machine and the Broken EP (the most outright metal NIN ever got), and the dedication to self-destruction surrounding The Downward Spiral and The Fragile naturally lent themselves to rage.

Normally when an artist goes through recovery and rehabilitation as Reznor did in 2001, the result is music more life-affirming and warmer than their past work. For Nine Inch Nails, it meant With Teeth, a politically-minded album that aimed to sound like a band playing live. With Teeth, possibly NIN’s least essential album, was their first as a brand: this anxious and angry distillation of metal, industrial, electronic, rock, and (yes) pop into one, burning package is what Nine Inch Nails is supposed to sound like. That album’s political anxiety bubbled over into Year Zero, an electronic-based album where America has become a dystopia in the name of freedom. Such a backdrop is inclined toward the teeth-grinding, fist-clenching aggression that’s been written into the band’s DNA.

But it was Nine Inch Nails’ initial wave goodbye album The Slip that showed me just how consistently powerful they’ve been over the last 20 years. The Slip‘s first half is a condensed version of the band in “heavy” mode, with the pulsating “Letting You” as a standout. Built on a relentless drum loop and furious guitar with a chorus and outro that pound listeners into submission, it doesn’t sound like the kind of song you’re supposed to pull off in your 40s.

None of Hesitation Marks‘ released songs so far have that same assaulting heaviness, but they don’t lack the intensity. Even “Everything”, which has been lampooned as a Lit or Smash Mouth song, has blasts of chaotic distortion and noise that show the tension under the song’s bright exterior. “Copy of A” layers the ambient electronics on top of each other, and I can’t think of a better welcome back mission statement than “Came back haunted”. These new songs have a bit more shine, but have the quintessential NIN anger and raggedness. As for Reznor himself, he’s happily married with two small children, has a respected career as a composer, a well-received album out this year already, and a lasting legacy.

What’s impressive is that he’s made and kept that legacy now with a decade of being clean. Plenty of artists made music coming from a dark place, but once they make their statement or get famous/clean, the spark is lost. Marilyn Manson, NIN’s contemporary, has spent a decade at this point recycling ideas and clawing for an artistic high that won’t come. Linkin Park, who have been around for half the time NIN has, are already making stunted, warmed over versions of their previous output. Pearl Jam sounds vital again, but had to spend most of a decade waiting to become the free-spirited arena act they always wanted to be. True, Reznor never hit the same critical acclaim as The Downward Spiral brought, but the guy’s had remarkable quality control while sober. Just because the drugs and misery stopped doesn’t mean the art did.

It’s hard to pinpoint the moment where NIN’s attitude became professional instead of personal, but easy to see why it happened. One of the less spoken-of aspects to the band’s output is how intricately the music is put together. If you grab a song from any era of the band’s history, a discerning listener can hear all of the moving parts clicking into place like clockwork, each one a key part to the song as a whole. Reznor’s self-conscious of these parts, and based in how readily he makes the masters available for remixing, all for people getting in on it themselves.

Nine Inch Nails went from being the go-to for teenagers with fishnets and black nail polish to a rock institution by always evolving without changing what made their miserable heart tick. Reznor never tried to “force” a particular sound, or hold the group to one particular skill set, but managed to polish the group so that he grew up with Nine Inch Nails, and not in spite of it. The overwrought flaws have always been there, but the growth has always outweighed the decay. Hopefully, the new album won’t hesitate to do the same.

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New Music: Tragic Hearts – Tragic Hearts (EP)

Posted on August 20, 2013 by bgibs122

Continuing the summer’s hot streak of punk rock is Tragic Hearts’ self-titled sophomore EP. The Toronto band consists of singer Dean Richards formerly of The Artist Life on vocals, Pat Mathers of hostage life on guitar, ex-Moneen skinsman Peter Krpan, and bassist Matt Hemon of The Full Blast.

The point being, this is no one in Tragic Heart’s first time around the pop-punk circuit, and that veteran status is a leg up for their newest batch of songs. “Charity” kicks the EP off with its most energetic tune: relentless drums, dynamic changes, a few stop-starts, well-placed “Whoa-oh-whoa-oh!”s, and a buzzsaw guitar riff that calls “I Wanna Be Sedated” to mind. Richards’ brash, throaty vocals typify punk rock sneer, but he sings with more than enough confidence and variety to keep the formula from going stale.

Aside from the conventional bash of “Bad Habits”, the pop-punk of Tragic Hearts has a distinctly 90’s flavor to it. Essentially, this boils down to Tragic Hearts approaching pop-punk from “cranked-up power pop” angle, which shines through especially strong on “Ache” and ending song “Therapy”. “Ache” opens with a guitar hook that wouldn’t sound out of place in a tune by Green Day or The Explosion, and while the rest of the song is the poppiest Tragic Hearts ever gets, the music never lets up any of its graceful loudness. “Ache”, like “Charity”, is also strengthened by the band’s showmanship; they aren’t afraid of going in for big moments on choruses.

Closer “Therapy” is the lightest song musically, but the lyrics have the vulnerability and biography implied by the title. It’s an appreciated personal touch to close out the EP, and the subtle acoustic guitar and not-so-subtle harmonica give the music a bit of extra color, hinting at future directions for the young group to take. The extra instrumentation plus the slackened beat and airy guitar of the song lend some extra texture, but Richards’ vocals maintain the intensity on the rest of the EP.

Running at 4 songs in a little over 11 minutes, Tragic Hearts offers a glimpse at a band tightening their core sound while exploring more options. And Tragic Hearts has plenty of options to pursue; “Charity” sees them succeeding at firing on all cylinders, while “Therapy” shows them toying with songcraft, “Ache” features the group following their pop instincts to their fullest potential, and “Bad Habits” brings harder punk to the forefront. In addition to punk influences such as their past bands, Rancid, and Banner Pilot, there’s some heavy power pop slap-happiness core to the group that recalls Superchunk.

Sure, Tragic Hearts aren’t offering anything entirely new, but half the fun is seeing them put together old experiences in new ways. Tragic Hearts works both as a singular if brief listen, and its individual pieces are playlist friendly as well. They’re definitely worth checking out.

Stream or make your own price for Tragic Hearts on the band’s Bandcamp page here, and stay up to date with Tragic Hearts on Facebook here.

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Radio Rant: Miley Cyrus – We Can’t Stop

Posted on August 10, 2013 by bgibs122

Hello, and welcome to Radio Rants. Who’s trying to pry the number one spot out of Robin Thicke’s greasy fingers this week?

Dammit, really? I thought the world was through with Miley Cyrus a few years ago; not ready to give her another big hit.

Jumping back to 2009 and 2010, Miley Cyrus was the most prominent of the Disney child actor/pop star circuit faced with the challenge of simultaneously exploiting and abandoning her childhood fanbase as she aged out of her show. Her biggest and most relevant hit, “Party In the U.S.A.”, captured unabashedly her desire to play to the tween-sweet pop rock Hannah Montana crowd one last time while slipping nods to the top 40 audience. But, all of that momentum was shot dead by “Can’t Be Tamed”, a Lady Gaga ripoff that put Miley’s career in a bedazzled coffin. Or so it would have seemed.

Instead, she’s come kicking back to life with “We Can’t Stop”, off her upcoming album called, ahem, BANGERZ. In case the title was too subtle, she wants to continue the more adult themes and include some urban sounds (what, like ambient city chatter and traffic?) in her new work, and there’s plenty of that in “We Can’t Stop”.

Weirdly enough, that doesn’t translate into the music of “We Can’t Stop”, which is more glammy electro-pop than anything else. I guess 808 beat has a hip-hop stomp to it, but the stabbing piano chords and polished synths are nothing but glitzy pop. This is from producer Mike Will Made It, who’s resume includes “Mercy”, “No Lie”, and a litany of trap-tastic beats. The only trademark from his sound is the pitch-shifted vocals, which I suppose is part of the “urban sound” Cyrus talks about.

Which, yeah, let’s talk about that urban influence. Like I said, “Can’t Be Tamed” tanked for–well, being awful, for starters–but because it was too hard a swing too fast from the Hannah Montana days. Even when you’re a teenager, you can’t go from preppy California kid to art school hipster trash without people calling your bullshit. But, spend a year or two looking unstable, keep yourself in the headlines with a few drug use stories, and you’ve suddenly given your newer “I wanna copy black people” edge more credence. And on “We Can’t Stop”, that’s basically all she’s done: the grill and the twerking in the video, the Molly and being “’bout that life” or “getting turnt up” in the lyrics, the pitch-shift vocals…it’s all grabbing generic bits from Southern hip-hop for no real reason other than it’s not her old sound. Shit, Miley, if you’re this desperate to look cool, why not feature 2 Chainz on this song?

And it turns out that slapping generic bits of rap onto a generic premise makes for an utterly boring song. Cyrus has always been a star in spite of her voice, not because of it; she never sound natural or like she’s even enjoying herself, and the extra digitized “Yeaaaah”s on the bridge are torturous in a way that makes me miss fun. The lyrics to “We Can’t Stop” include such winners as “La di do da di, we like to party” and “And we won’t stop, can’t you see it’s we who own the night?” that take as long to sing as they took to write. Andrew WK’s tweets party harder than this.

Yeah, this song’s a no-hitter with me. Despite the edgy drugs & sex lyrics, there’s no real danger or even excitement to be had here. Normally, comeback singles are larger than life, but Cyrus sounds like she’s only recording again because it’s her thing at this point, and not because she wants to. “We Can’t Stop” may mention Molly, but inspires feelings closer to a sleeping pill. It’s like looking at the Instagram of a few crumpled red Solo cups: there might be a crazy life somewhere, but all you see is mass produced plastic.

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