But I digress.  Below are some links that effectively update us on a portion of the fascinating matter that is music in the summer. 

• John Darnielle performs 2009’s The Life of the World to Come in its entirety, and you can view the video at Pitchfork if you act quick-like etc.
• If you live in New York, you should plan to attend Northside Festival.  This year’s tremendous lineup includes Wavves, Au Revoir Simone, Titus Andronicus, Liars, and about 928347 times more.
• Everyone ever has already done an “anticipated summer releases” list, so I’m not gonna rehash. But heyo, Arcade Fire! They’ve put up the track listing for their highly anticipated new album Suburbs, and with this track listing have surfaced also some tracks for listening. Below is a radio rip of “Ready to Start,” gorgeous and slow-building. You can also listen to “Month of May” here.
  Arcade Fire — “Ready to Start” 
   
• Indie Rock Café has a good post on recent summer releases that are easy to miss in the uproar over heavy hitters. Personal highlight for me is the Lou Barlow song “Losercore,” but the post also covers Cary Ann Hearst, Apollo, the Vita Ruins, and Communist Daughter.
• Also, you should know that you can stream the Lou Barlow EP = Sentridoh III at Merge’s website. “Gravitate/One Machine” is so good. It’s hot outside plus a thousand humidity today and this song is making me want to box someone.
• And finally. Does anyone inspire as much crit lately as Lady Gaga? I know this might be old news (and the publication title may be a tad hyperbolic) but I follow this all-Gaga journal with fascination; some recent pieces posted discuss hysteria, commodity feminism, the Gaga/Illuminati connection, and Gaga as Kate Bush response. (Another topic of note might be Gaga as George Bush response, but that’s not an article I’m going to write this summer.)

I was forewarned about the cultural journey I would soon embark upon (fried hard roe, white pidgeons, cervesa with real cerevisiae) but not about its various sounds. I write now from the centre of El Arenal (they have wifi), where the music is probably that new Jacob Dylan album they have for sale at the counter. What surprises me most about the country is a real struggle between preserving the authentic and building the new; in terms of infrastructure and transportation, this world is about thirty futures from my Estados Unidos. They have a working metro system in every city, cheap bike rentals, and trains that serve freshly-squeezed OJ and show Love Happens in a cheap dub. But they also have history — immense cathedrals, rich museums, festivals, restaurants that don’t serve Frosties, etc.etc. Accordingly, their music is caught in a strange limbo between old and new, with some incongruities that add up to sometimes jarring, sometimes pleasurable song/site correspondences.

Here’s a breakdown of the songs I’ve heard over here. Note that these are not merely the songs I recognize, rather, they are the ONLY songs I’ve heard. Forget the bells of La Giralda (I have), here’s the real music of Spain.

1. Mariah Carey — “Fantasy”

This is a real treat for me, seriously; not only is it Mariah’s best single, it’s one of my favorite songs of all time (ask Mike we’ve argued about this). When this is playing in the cafeteria of the Prado, well, I know that something’s come true for me.

2. Smashing Pumpkins – “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”

Okay, here’s another one that was playing in a weird place (gift shop in Reina Sofia), but I think it kinda works. I just walked in from seeing Guernica, and the opening line “the world is a vampire” seemed just and very real.

3. Smashing Pumpkins — “Disarm”

Less acceptable and/or pleasurable, this one was in a Cafe & Te, which was my fault for being there I guess. I had a piece of toast. Bad breakfast conversation.

4. Theme to The Neverending Story

Kabob King in Grenada. Pushing doner kebap into my face. Wistful.

5–7. Every Coldplay single from X&Y

The time I’m thinking of involves shopping for a hoodie (Madrid was cold) and going into a place called “Wazzup.” Here “Speed of Sound” is low in the background. Actually, I’m also thinking of a small pub playing this too. And Dunkin’ Coffee (a “bakeplace,” so I’m told). And the three straight months of hearing this song 37 to 44 times a day on the in-store video loop at work (yes I counted). I like the song I think, but I can’t separate it from it’s cyclic rotation between a trailer for “Be Cool” and GOW ad spots.

8. Russian Red — “They Don’t Believe”

As seen on BTV once or twice, eating white melon and some toast. Russian Red had an album two years ago that did okay in the states. She’s still quite popular in Spain. I hope she releases something new this year, I think two years is the appropriate waiting time. I’m including the video because it’s practically necessary. This is just about the only song here that I felt comfortable acknowledging in public as a song I like, which says a bit about my problems.

9. Ke$ha — “Blah Blah Blah”

The second song I’m okay with acknowledging that I like it because it’s kinda post-ironic (and pre-lapsarian) in a sense. This was playing on a TV in front of El Corte Ingles, the Spain-equivalent of Macy’s, or Bloomingdales, or Piggly-Wiggly. It was also on BTV like twenty times in an hour.

10. The Cranberries — “Dreaming My Dreams”

Staying with primo Saul and su novia Lily, eating nice cheese and playing New Super Mario Bros. I think it couldn’t get any better, and I know it only will.

11. Willy DeVille — “Hey Joe”

Whistled by our host atop Montserrat. I think he said “Willy DeJoel,” trying to make a nice tie-in with my name (Joel).

12. The Tallest Man on Earth — “King of Spain”

Perhaps this is cheating, but I listened to this on every plane, every train, every car, during every sleepless night. Our soundtrack was a single song.

xoxo, J

I co-host an occasional radio show on KSFR. It’s a graveyard shift show, which is great for all the insomniac tweaker types because they probably actually like shiny, hyperactive anime tunes. But there’s that stereotype again: not all Japanese music is cute girls with 20,000 sailor outfits singing about love, burning spirit, and food. Mainstream pop in Japan, like mainstream pop everywhere else, is pretty much the same overproduced, slick nonsense. Of course, Japan has great bands of all types right below the sugary pop frosting. This entry is intended to serve as a brief guide to some of the acts that make up the cake below the frosting (see Rohin’s guide below if you’re more of a just-give-me-the-sweets type).

I’m going to start with “modern Japanese folk rock music,” a term I pretty much despise–so let’s just call it “rock” for now. For English-speaking listeners, it almost doesn’t make sense to listen to it, since rock music in the style of Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell has as much lyrical weight as musical. If you’re listening to the Japanese equivalent of Lady Gaga, the lyrics may not matter so much, right? That shouldn’t be the case for the Japanese equivalent of Leonard Cohen.

Actually, it is the case, since a rock singer worth anything will be singing like they’re about to pushed off a cliff: desperate or defiant, or even both. With this in mind, you don’t need to know Japanese to like Kazuki Tomokawa and Morita Doji. Kazuki is a dude, and Morita is a lady, by the way. Both sing like they go way beyond giving a shit, into the realms of various other kinds of bodily distress.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This video by Tomokawa should make it clear he is not singing about candy and first kisses. Or maybe he is, but he’s very upset about those things. Whatever, I’m basically learning Japanese solely so I can translate this dude’s lyrics (which will take a long time). He’s been performing since the late 70s, variously writing his own lyrics and adapting those of other poets like Nakahara Chūya. He’s often compared to Kan Mikami, who also sings with no remorse or fear, but I like Tomokawa’s furious, punkish intensity a little more. Both are still active and performing in Japan, and neither have lost their style. Listening to his recordings from the 70s and 80s, Kazuki, lovingly referred to as the “screaming philosopher,” seems to have lost none of his vigor and voice, and remains more a force of music than just another singer-songwriter.

Morita Doji is on the other end of the rock-singer spectrum. She’s a suicidal Joni Mitchell. She has nothing to rail against, except her own withering disappointment with reality. In short, she is my dream girl. Her most famous song is “Bokutachi no Shippai,” which can be translated as “Our Failure.” This is fucking weird as hell, since Japanese titles and lyrics are almost never this direct. Regardless of what the lyrics are (and they’re pretty depressing, according to what I remember of a translation I can no longer find), you know she’s singing about something she can’t change. The music tries to be wistful and warm, but it doesn’t really help. This singer is falling a long way off her cliff and she doesn’t really care. Pretty much all her songs are like this; songs that seem like echoes of someone who’s no longer there.

In fact, no one has heard from her in more than 27 years. Some people think “Morita Doji” isn’t even her real name. Her songs became popular in the 90s when “Our Failure” was used as the theme for a popular TV show, which led to the recording of many ill-conceived cover versions. In the mid-90s a psych-rock group formed to exclusively cover her songs, but they didn’t get permission to do so, so their album got pulled from shelves almost as quickly as it was released. These songs are pretty much the only good covers of Morita Doji you will ever hear.

I’m passing over plenty of good Japanese rock music here, but this is just a sampler. This album is a great introduction to the rock scene of Japan in the seventies, but it focuses on folk rock and doesn’t get to the great Kraftwerk and Talking Heads inspired stuff that rose up later in the decade. Hey, what a great subject for a future blog here, huh?

Scott White works with computers, cats, food, bikes, cars, electronics, guitars, friends, words, and deep and important feelings in New Mexico. He plays a 5th-level half-elf female rogue in Dungeons and Dragons. You might hear more from him in the future, but man, who even knows?

Utada presents a welcome foil to such a case study in dunderheaded xenophobia. While flirting with an English-language career, Utada hasn’t made it the centerpiece of her artistic ambitions. Still in her twenties, she is essentially a bizarro-world Britney Spears: a picture of the prototypical American pop star had she (a) not suffered a tragic meltdown and (b) learned the value of creative autonomy. Utada is proof that child stars pushed into popstardom at an early age need not come apart at the seams as they stumble into their twenties. Like most young popstrels, Utada built her name on mediocrity, shilling J.Lo-esque pastiches at first, like “Addicted to You” (1999).

But unlike her American counterparts who stall and ultimately crumble before they can evolve, Utada managed a brilliant evolution, heralded by singles like “Traveling” (2001) and “Sakura Drops” (2002). Although it would still be another three years before she’d finally grow into her musical maturity, as someone who could handle more layered pop.

As Utada gravitated towards mid-tempo pieces with more substance, this ultimately left a vacuum for a proper J-Pop dance diva. It was a niche that Koda Kumi and Ayumi Hamasaki couldn’t fill, because the former was uninspired and the latter—while holding the “Queen of J-Pop” title for certainly some time—struggled to keep up with trends. Enter Namie Amuro.

Amuro essentially peddles Pocky pop—it’s cavity-inducing stuff that places a premium on style over substance. It’s also an aesthetic that shamelessly engages in product placement, like in this Patricia Field-assisted Vidal Sassoon-hawking video for “New Look” (2008):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Although perhaps it’s here that she had even purported pop forerunners like Lady Gaga beat.

But what’s exciting with Amuro’s pop is the gimmick that comes with each release. “New Look” served as one-third of a triple A-side single (the entire effort financially fronted by Vidal Sassoon) dubbed 60s70s80s. With “New Look” sampling The Supremes’ “Baby Love” (from the 1960s, obviously), “Rock Steady” sampled Aretha Franklin’s song of the same name, while “What A Feeling” rounded out the the set by appropriating Irene Cara. Then there is also Amuro singing songs like the double A-side “Dr.” / “Wild” (again, Vidal Sassoon-sponsored), and managing a number of musical styles within a traditional pop structure.

What Amuro and Utada both do well is entertain the mainstream. We could ethnocentrically liken the Amuro–Utada dynamic to a heady Madonna–Kylie Minogue style of pop tension, though unlike that pop pair, neither Amuro nor Utada seem withered enough to ever devolve into something as dreadful as a leather-clad Madonna stumbling awkwardly around sad rap beats. Perhaps the best thing about this duo is that their oligopoly on J-Pop creates a slightly lower class of even more interesting pop—but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Rohin Guha is hard at work on his first novel, which features steamy scenes of tea-sipping and a back-handed slap or two. If you Google his name, you’ll find that he has, at one point or another, aroused the curiosity of the following communities: Adam Lambert fans, white supremacists, feminists, Taylor Swift fans, and Japanophiles. You’ll also find that he’s written for quite a few places.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I think, though, that LCD Soundsystem are hitting on an interesting and timeless songwriting phenomenon: “Drunk Girls” adds to the already formidable retinue of songs about girls who do stuff. Therefore, in order to appropriately commemorate this, I shall provide for you a list: Ten Songs About Girls As A Group Entity (with some honorable mentions). (These are all youtube links.)

• Blur, “Girls & Boys”. Obviously, I had to put this song on the list. Here is where you can listen to it. Don’t worry, it’s cool again. Also, this song is its own honorable mention.
• The Queers, “Punk Rock Girls”. Celebrating the (Chuck) tailored image of the iconically rough-round-the-edges girl that you want to take out but you can’t ‘cause she would probably drink you under the table. The Queers bring it home here. (Honorable mention: “Punk Rock Girl,” Dead Milkmen.)
• Beastie Boys, “Girls”. This song falls into the category of Sexist Jam About Partying And Girls. It is brilliant, shouty, and horribly incorrect, and celebrates the girls who might or might not pick up after gross fratboys. It is an 80s gem and we could not have a Songs About Girls list without it. Period. (Honorable mention: “California Girls,” David Lee Roth.)
• David Bowie, “China Girl.” This one epitomizes the Song About Girls From Places: even though this girl is singular, she’s really a list of cultural cliches. Still, we believe Bowie when he says “shhhhh.” (Honorable mention: “American Girl,” Tom Petty.)
• Queen, “Fat Bottom Girls.” Songs like this one fall into the category of Celebrating Girls With Imperfections, i.e. possibly the awesomest category. My roommate pointed out that this song also could be the beginning of its own list – sweeping generalizations about girls written by gay men. Possible future list coming?
• Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” This category is the companion piece to Beastie Boys’ “Girls” — the Celebratory Jam about Girls Partying. Cyndi Lauper is the personification of this category, still, to this day — as you can read from this hilariously irreverent interview. (Honorable mention: “Jumpin Jumpin,” Destiny’s Child.)
• Bikini Kill, “Rebel Girl.” Although this song is a militantly drummed celebration of one girl crushing on one neighborhood queen type, it’s really about every girl crushing on every awesome badass girl ever, and so it qualifies as the (Girl Envious of) Awesome Megacrush Girls category. (Honorable mention: “Cherry Bomb,” the Runaways.)
• The Smiths, “Some Girls are Bigger than Others.” This song demonstrates Morrissey’s ability to make meaningless comparisons, and marks his easy fiefdom over the kingdom of Semigoth Blasé Observations About Girls. Often these songs come danceable; they don’t really reach any conclusion by the end and leave the listener feeling somewhat like s/he has just finished reading a repressive Victorian novel. I guess not in the bad way. (Honorable mention: “West End Girls,” Pet Shop Boys.)
• Duran Duran, “Girls on Film.” Another song about genre girls (see #9 and #6), this song makes itself noteworthy because it Observes Girls From Afar, rather than giving a tribute to the fan girls or a slightly condescending description of exotics. (Honorable mention: “American Girls,” Weezer.)
• Major Lazer, “Keep It Goin Louder”. This one is the most common in the world of songs about girls: Girls As Accessory. The note that the girls are present “six chicks deep” totally contradicts the semi-intimacy of “girl I wanna party with you” because it doesn’t really matter – they’re all fly and we all hella want to party with them. (Honorable mention: “Girls Girls Girls,” Jay-Z.)

01. Cryptacize — “My Thomania”
from Mythomania (Asthmatic Kitty, 2009)

They’ve got Nedelle and what’s-his-face from Deerhoof. And tracks like “Blue Tears” and “” are just too much fun to leave for the last decade. “My Thomania,” which can (but probably shouldn’t) be treated as the title track for the album, contributes to a veritable potluck of –manias going on in 09, “Lisztomania” being a principal one, but also the lesser-known and rarely-acknowledged “Tulipomania” that I found at a used book store this past weekend being also important. Just listen for the chorus. [Buy]

02. The Postmarks — “My Lucky Charm”
from Memoirs at the End of the World (Unfiltered Records, 2009)

Remember how I said I didn’t like Acid House Kings? Well, I think I cracked a bit on that position after my friend Eric D. put Memoirs on a few weeks ago. Like the Kings, the Postmarks craft pop like it’s something you sneeze out occasionally. Oh look, another perfect-pop booger. It’s like that. If this song doesn’t make your tears pink then something’s not working right. [Buy]

03. Cotton Jones — “Gone the Bells”
from Paranoid Cocoon (Suicide Squeeze, 2009)

It’s the guy from Page France being all mopey, but it works. Even the most desolate tracks like “Gone the Bells” have a shimmer and bounce about them, that the entire album comes off bright-headed from a slow-burned haze. Apparently, the full band title is/was “The Cotton Jones Basket Ride,” which I’m starting to think describes a travelin’ sensation buried somewhere on this record. [Buy]

04. Nurses — “Lita”
from Apple’s Acre (Dead Oceans, 2009)

Simplicity is strategy on Apple’s Acre. The entire record is built on vocal harmonies and light percussion. In many ways, it feels like Two Dancers turned inside-out: the same morbid curiosities occupy Nurses, and the insistent pull of rhythm and melody is at once haunting and mesmerizing. “Lita” is my favorite track, and it’ll be yours too soon enough. [Buy]

05. Hayden — “Let’s Break Up”
from The Place Where We Lived (Hardwood Records, 2009)

There’s no bad Hayden album, and there’s no bad Hayden song. I think Hayden fans have come to expect this from him year after year, which is why The Place Where We Live is somewhat disappointing. So I guess I’ve included “Let’s Break Up” on that principle alone: it’s yet another charming Hayden narrative about coincidence, failure, and self-deprecation. Even though you could call all that a big whiney complaint, thing is, I wouldn’t want it any other way. [Buy]

06. The Love Language — “Sparxxx”
from Self-Titled (Merge, 2009)

Not to be confused with that band I mix’d about back in Feb., The Love Language is a frontispiece for Stuart McLamb’s four-track recordings. Here McLamb’s booming, theatrical affectation butts heads with micromanaged orchestration and that washed-out (frequently clipping) tendency of the high peaks on record. Overall this is a fun listen, and if you’re interested check out “Lalita,” “Nocturne” and “Nightdogs” as well. [Buy]

07. Hanne Hukkelberg — “Bandy Riddles”
from Blood from a Stone (Nettwerk, 2009)

I don’t get this song, but I like it. I think she’s Norwegian or something, and her other albums are supposed to be insta-hit material, so check those out after you listen to “Bandy Riddles.” Also, this album takes the album cake for coolest album cover on the mix, with runner-up being them dogs in Dog Day, featured in the stuff that follows this stuff. [Buy]

08. Dog Day — “Rome”
from Concentration (Outside Music, 2009)

“Dr. Dog Dies in Hot Car” – headline, or another terrible band name involving dogs? Hah! Alright anyway I like Dog Day, in part because they seem cool as fuck all, but also because they sound like they seem. Concentration got little to no press last year, even though it’s jammed to the gills with great tracks like the stoned “Judgment Day” and periled tale “Neighbor” (sounding a bit like Beauty Pill here in that exchange of vocal duties and eerie emphasis on house parties with demons). Another band with that uncanny ability to sound like every other band that sounds like New Order and still find something to do different. As they say over at AMG, highly recommended. [Buy]

09. The Wooden Birds — “Seven Seventeen”
from Magnolia (Barsuk, 2009)

Make no mistake, this is the latest American Analog Set record. On “Seven Seventeen,” Andrew’s hushed voice is still smooth as glass, and the palm-muted, strummed percussion sets the pace to heartbeat. Just cue Leslie on backing vocals and bring in some thick tremolo. Beautiful song, beautiful album; expect nothing less from these folk. [Buy]

10. Jonathan Johansson — “Säg Vad Ni Vill”
from En Hand I Himlen (Hybris Records, 2009)

Jonathan Johansson, for lack of a better introduction, is from another world. His music is thoroughly engaging, often spirited and triumphant, and lyrically incomprehensible to most of his admiring audience. He’s definitely not an alien, but his music manages to sound otherworldly while rooting that unfamiliarity of language in a familiar cultural nostalgia; Jonathan’s point-by-point reduction of 1980s electro-pop titans into his own earnest compositions resonates with the sounds of the era while somehow transcending the period altogether. I love this record from start to finish; it feels like I’ve known every melody on it for quite some time, and I plan to enjoy them for years to come. [Buy]

Get a good mix here: [Multiupload]

I’m done for today’s post, but I’ll be back sometime next week. I’d like to return to 2008 in April with another mix. See you in that time and place.

Richard McGraw — “Hurting Heart”

1. The beginning verse — sung with an endearingly breaking voice — acknowledges the wrongness of the narrator’s love situation (you’re with someone else now), and makes a self-conscious reference to the song itself (“so I wrote you this song”).
2. 45 seconds in, McGraw introduces the man-versus-himself theme (common in country, bluegrass, and all other types of classic songwriting) of wishing to overcome personal bias in order to become a better man.  In this case, better-mandom involves bearing the love interest’s ring at her wedding; enter the devastating emotional crux of this song.
3. He follows this revelation with the wordless relief of an infinitely sing-along-able “La la la” refrain.  Note this refrain; it will proudly reappear in Point 6.
4. McGraw then introduces a tinge of wry humor that both acknowledges the desperate predicament and dismisses the new partner as inferior and even gimmicky (“I could teach you how not to let go / But why you wanna learn that girl I don’t know / Your bohemian friend has got you tied up now / And I don’t think that you’ll ever come down”).
5. Then, enter the chorus twice, to set up for the final crescendo: 
6. The second layer of singalong chorus: “I know it’s all wrong, I know it’s all wrong” layered WITH “La la la” — a genius sticky songwriting move ensuring you’ll be singing this song for days. 
7. A clean outro reminiscent of the beginning of the song, but also invoking the tidy way that the narrator decides to disengage with the situation.

Bingo, Richard McGraw.  You’ve hit the nail of heartache square on the head without hammering that shit to death.  You understand subtlety; this much I know from your MySpace, which proclaims you’ve never used the words “California” or “LA” in a song.  Brilliant movez all around.

Now, if any of you Greatpants readers reside in New York the way that I do, you should know: McGraw will be performing on Friday March 5th at the American Folk Art Museum, as part of the Free Fridays, along with readers from the Underwater New York project.