Death Magnetic

Band: Metallica
Album: Death Magnetic
Best song: Bah.
Worst song: Bah.

What is creativity?

On some level, we all think we're creative. No one wants to be the boring banker in those Washington Mutual ads; the old white guy in the bland suit.

We all think we're the most interesting people in the world. We all think we could be the star of the best sitcom ever, if only someone would write it about our collective lives. We all think we could be on the radio or that we should have our own blog (Hello!) or whatever.

I'm not sure that's creativity, but it's certainly a piece of American exceptionalism.

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I used to go to a therapist in high school and I have no doubt that it helped me get through high school (mostly) intact. My therapist was also a musician and (I think) has written music for plays and commercials.

Because "therapy" to me in high school -- as I remember it and I hope my parents aren't reading this because they probably wasted their money -- largely consisted of me talking more about music than my psyche, one of the things my therapist and I used to talk a lot about was the idea that an artist has a "well of creativity." In essence, the theory says that any artist has a certain amount of good work in him/her and once that good work is used up, it's gone.

Of course, this is nonsense, but Metallica is the poster child band for this theory. The band was awesome for four (some say five) albums. Then? Terrible.

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What makes Death Magnetic so bad? There's a lot to hate on the record, but I'll start first with my utter disdain for James Hetfield's vocals. Hetfield's voice has never been the highlight of Metallica, but his vocal style fit the band's first four records well. When he wasn't barking, he was sneering and either style proved to fill in the nihilistic and existential holes that was the band's early work.

On Death Magnetic, Hetfield fancies himself an actual singer. This is death-defyingly stupid and his own vocal tic -- over annunciated the final syllable on everything -- makes me want to stick a pen through my eardrum. A line stops being "the day that never comes," but rather "the day that never comesssssssssssssss, ah" with the "ah" sounding like he'd just drank a cold Gatorade after playing hoop.

Building off that, the lyrics on the album are nothing short of idiotic. Metallica's early lyrics, at least, touched on some interesting themes and topics; ...And Justice For All had "One," working from Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun and Ride the Lightning had "For Whom the Bell Tolls."

Death Magnetic has nothing like this. At best, the album has "The Judas Kiss," but working any decent themes is not there. "Cyanide" is teenage angst and "All Nightmare Long" is just schlocky.

Finally, the song structures are awful. While Master of Puppets has "Battery" and the title track, Death Magnetic simply adds stuff like "The Day That Never Comes," a structural ripoff of "One" and a musical ripoff of "Nothing Else Matters."

Indeed, "The Day That Never Comes" is a decidedly pleasant song for the first four minutes, but delves into "Hey Jude" territory in that its outro is an instrumental wreck of a cheesy thrash metal number. It's the type of thing that ended up on the cutting room floor of a Judas Priest recording session. In 1990.

Metallica was a great band. Too bad they can't keep producing like they did in 1985.

Winners Never Quit

Band: Pedro the Lion
Album: Winners Never Quit
Best song: "Bad Things to Such Good People" is great.
Worst song: "To Protect the Family Name" is too long.

One of the things the Internet has spawned (along with a curious amount of ytmnd sites) is the more specific niches within music genres. "Indie rock" now has little to no meaning -- though, I'd be curious to see if it ever did -- spanning acts as similar as Pavement and Mogwai, label mates on Matador.

With that said, Pedro the Lion occupies a genre largely vacant before the emo scene exploded sometime in the early 2000s. In my reading (and, admittedly, I know nothing about this stuff), before David Bazan began recording under the PTL name, Christian music was the domain of African-American gospel singers, dc talk and the strikingly beautiful (even still, at 38) Amy Grant. The only outlet for the young, sensitive Christian was to venture to church on the hopes that a Megachurch has a band perform that day, and even then, the young sensitive Christian would have to deal with the chubby ladies with overdone fingernails and bad Nancy Reagan hair. Also, maybe that youth pastor who was a little too friendly.

Enter Pedro the Lion.

PTL's first full-length record, 1998's It's Hard to Find a Friend, is something of a breakthrough in that it captures a wonderful combination of confessional indie rock with a conversational delivery rivaled only by Elliott Smith. The album ender, "Promise," is a sweet recitation of faith despite overwhelming pangs of doubt and fear.

After another amazing EP (The Only Reason I Feel Secure, which included Bazan's version of "Be Thou My Vision"), Bazan recorded and released Winners Never Quit in 2000. A concept album, the record follows a fable of a man looking to be good in the face of a corrupt career, a difficult relationship and a frustrating family. The record is nothing if not dark, with the protagonist failing at every turn, cheating those around him, killing and eventually begging for his soul.

Indeed, the the album's artwork is nothing short of stark, with black and white line drawings of a briefcase being handed over and a man with a gun pointed at his temple.

The album, though, is striking and amazing. Pitchfork hated it, and, on some level, it's understandable. Quite simply, the album is beautiful, but incredibly heavy-handed lyrically.

Unlike later PTL efforts, Winners Never Quit emphasizes Bazan's best qualities: His whisper-sweet voice, his easy Modest-Mouse-on-Quaaludes guitar lines, his earnest delivery. The opener, a scene-setter detailing the protagonist's moral compass -- he steals his brother's lunch and hopes Jesus will forgive him for it -- is stark and creepy. The more amped-up "Simple Economics" is full of similarly strange platitudes, but satiric of the classic political canards.

The album's highlights show a dichotomy difficult to master on a record like Winners Never Quit. The two-song couplet "A Mind of Her Own" and "Never Leave a Job Half Done" tell a story of a deranged, power-hungry narrator (and accomplice) arguing, killing and eventually hiding the body of his victim. Told in striking deadpan, "A Mind of Her Own" inverts the Pixies' quietLOUDquiet, only to press the pedal to the floor as the song flows into its epic climax. As Bazan intones "You put down that telephone, you're not calling anyone" over and over, the song moves into a more rhythmic, serious "Never Leave a Job Half Done." The second song in the duo, the win-at-all-cost world of politics is shown as disgusting and dirty. Cynical as ever, the "quitters never win" axiom takes on a disturbing meaning in the song.

Of course, lo-fi is what PTL does best and Winners Never Quit's other grand moment is a confessional beauty. Speaking about his father's disappointment in him, the narrator takes a tragic look at his own faith and -- in his eyes -- Christ's reaction. Backed by a uptempo guitar line, Bazan's lyrics resonate with an urgency left for overwrought network dramas and Paul Thomas Anderson films.

"Bad Things to Such Good People" is, no question, one of Bazan's best lo fi offerings and his best ambiguous religious tomes.


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The criticisms of Winners Never Quit are, undoubtedly, valid. The record is overly dramatic. It's certainly darker than a person of supposedly strong faith should put forth (for the record, Bazan has since, basically, renounced his faith). I find his anti-political-system nonsense to be just that. It's easy to complain about politics by simply yelling "Everyone is a crook." That solves nothing.

But, still. The record takes the energy of a 15-year-old, Che-shirt-wearing teenager and actually channels it into something other than a Rage Against the Machine record and shows a pop sensibility often overlooked in lo fi indie rock.

More Adventurous

Band: Rilo Kiley
Album: More Adventurous
Best song: "Portions for Foxes" is wonderful. "It's a Hit" is nice, but strained.
Worst song: "Ripchord." Not great.

I sorta (though not harshly enough) lambasted my favorite entertainment Web site for including Rilo Kiley's Under the Blacklight on its best of 2007 piece. Under the Blacklight didn't connect with me on any level, which is weird, because I adore Jenny Lewis' work.

Which brings me to this album. More Adventurous is not a brilliant piece of art and I don't know that it's wildly better than Under the Blacklight. I do know one thing. "Portions for Foxes" is the best song on which Lewis has played or sang. Hands down.

The Postal Service's "Nothing Better" -- on which Lewis guests -- comes close, as it's a beautifully aching portrait of a post-breakup couple's difference in leverage. From Lewis' solo album, "Rise Up With Fists" and "You Are What You Love" can makes cases, as each has a pretty melody and one great lyrical bit ("I've won hundreds at the track, but I'm not betting on the afterlife" and "And I'm in love with illusions, so saw me in half/I'm in love with tricks/So pull another rabbit out of your hat.").

But, "Portions for Foxes" describes -- from what I remember, being that I'm apparently radioactive to women -- the kind of relationship we've all been in. Running through the timeline of a screwed-up relationship, Lewis begins the song easily with the type of proclamation left for bad Alanis Morrisette and great Elliott Smith songs: "There's blood in my mouth 'cause I've been biting my tongue all week."

The protagonist in the song hasn't lost her affinity for the antagonist in the song. She's lonely and can't forget the guy, singing the most forceful portion of the song:

When the loneliness leads to bad dreams
and the bad dreams lead me to callin' you
and I call you and say "C'MERE!"

All the while, the song's chorus is everpresent, coming between various stanzas. Lewis warns of her own intentions "And it's bad news/Baby I'm bad news/I'm just bad news, bad news, bad news" early until she changes her tune late into the song.

Over a small harmonic that turns into a soft stomping, the final verse takes an early line and turns it on the antagonist:

There's a pretty young thing in front of you
and she's real pretty and she's real into you
and then she's sleepin' inside of you
and the talkin' leads to touchin'
then touchin' leads to sex
and then there is no mystery left.

This leads Lewis to change the lyrics to "You're bad news," and works around that. Back on the sorta jealous/sorta lonely/sorta understanding track, Lewis' voice is strong throughout. The band's greatest strength, Lewis' sweet womanvoice is fantastic.

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The rest of album isn't bad, per se. Indeed, there are a several good songs. Robert Christgau really enjoyed "It's a Hit," but I think Pitchfork was right on in calling it's lack of good political sublty. Comparing Bush to a monkey is both overdone and misses the point. "Absence of God" is right up my alley and "Love and War (11/11/46)" is wonderful. "I Never" portends Lewis' foray into solo work by adopting a county tone, though the song gets "Hey Jude"ish by the end. Jimmy Tamborello -- with whom Lewis worked on the Postal Service record -- produces "Accidntel Death," providing an odd, but fun outlet for a different sound. "It Just Is" is not the best eulogoy song I've ever heard, but in the wake of some things in my life recently, I like it more than I probably should.

More Adventurous falls into the twee far too often, but the results are pretty good. Certainly, it has the best Rilo Kiley song and the best Jenny Lewis performance.

Illinois

Band: Sufjan Stevens
Album: Illinois
Best song: "Casimir Pulaski Day" or "Chicago.
Worst song: "The Seer's Tower" is just OK.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyy."
- Arthur Fonzarelli

The nature of modern "cool" is such that not caring is as important as anything. Within alternative music, this movement gained traction sometime in the 1980s, when punk rock stopped being important and "indie" rock became the norm. Gone were the days of political rantings from the Minutemen. Replacing them was Stephen Malkmus and his band of merry ne'er-do-wells known as Pavement. Sincerity was lost, in many ways.

"Cool," though, eventually turned into "quirk." The late-1990s saw what was once a mocking tone turn into a reverant one. The 1980s were no longer a decade to be mocked, but to be revered with an odd sincerity long-held for the 1960s and 1970s. Disco became OK with straight people.

Irony, twee and quirk became -- and remain -- the norm. Wes Anderson, a brilliant filmmaker (though some would suggest he's only brilliant in his own mind), celebrates quirk to a remarkable degree. It became cool to enjoy childlike things -- Belle and Sebastian's music comes to mind. It became cool to find the little things in life. "Cool" is meaningless, but a pockmarked, nerdy sincerity became cool again.

One could argue that Weezer created this. One could argue the proliferation of popular culture created this. I'd argue that the personal computer and rise of the Internet created this.

For one, the long tail of Internet commerce and information makes it so that everyone can be quirky. We've all become our own Wes Andersons, our own Napoleon Dynamites. If I like to wear pageboy hats and pocket watches, I can find them online and recreate my own version of 1930s newspaper boy style. Maybe I collect porcelain figures. Whatever my quirk is, I can find and feed it.

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"There’s a fine line between stupid and clever"
- David St. Hubbins

Sufjan Stevens' popularity fits into this concept snugly. A reli-, er, sprirtual songwriter from Holland, Michigan, Stevens is a Midwestern Beck by way of more intelligent singer/songwriters. Stevens' normally whisper-soft voice is gorgeous and his grasp of tons of instruments belies his indie heritage. While the old model of singer/songwriter was one based around a guitar and mic, Stevens' has harmonies, glockenspiels and horns.

His so-called "50 State Project" hasn't really materialized, but the fruits so far of that labor are brilliant. "Michigan" is the more personal album and has some of the prettier, more low-key songs ("Holland" and "Romulus") Stevens has written. Still, "Illinois" is a more robust record, with more dynamics and more room for Stevens to show his skills.

It does stand to reason the "Michigan" is more personal and somber as an album, being the Stevens is from Michigan and that Michigan's recent decline is, well, depressing. Illinois, as a state, has a more robust and interesting history (I say that partially because I grew up in Illinois) and Stevens' evolution as a songwriter reflects that.

The album begins in a similar, but markedly different way than "Michigan" does. "Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois" has Stevens accompanied by a simple piano (and some other vocalists), but he's upbeat and sweet, whereas "Flint" is somber and sad. The album takes off from the opening track, falling into a long-titled instrumental ("The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience but You're Going to Have to Leave Now, or, 'I Have Fought the Big Knives and Will Continue to Fight Them Until They Are off Our Lands!'"). Indeed, long titles for instrumental tracks are Stevens' way of highlighting historical events that he, apparently, wasn't able to write a song about.

One of the album's largely-arranged opuses (opi?), "Come On! Feel the Illinoise!" is over six and a half minutes of organ, horns and choirs. Dropping references like a crazy person, the song eventually had Stevens describing a nighttime visit from Illinois' second-greatest writer:

I cried myself to sleep last night
And the ghost of Carl, he approached my window
I was hypnotized, I was asked
To improvise
On the attitude, the regret
Of a thousand centuries of death

A group of singers serenades Stevens as he augments the lyric (And I cried myself to sleep last night/For the Earth, and materials, they may sound just right to me") and the song eventually fades out.

The album's other opus, "Chicago" reflects the town -- and America's -- love affair with transit, highways and movement. Stevens' need to move is almost teenage in its hyperbole, but gorgeous in its execution ("If I was crying/ In the van with my friend/ It was for freedom/ From myself and from the land,") until he turns it on himself, repeating "I've made a lot of mistakes." It's a wonderful piece of Stevens' emotion; softly ironic and winknigly full of cheese, yet tender and self-effacing.

Stevens doesn't just do bombast well, though. "John Wayne Gacy" is the only song I tend to skip on the disc, largely because it's so unsettling. The song's sweetness belies Gacy's life, though Stevens comes around to the forgiveness angle of his own religiosity.

The highlight of Stevens' softness is the wonderful "Casimir Pulaski Day." Armed with James 5:14, the best holiday ever and a sweet storyline about a new neighbor, Stevens crafts his best acoustic song this side of "Romulus."

He can operate on an upbeat, low-key scale, as well. "Decatur," while not somber, is a fantastic melody and has Stevens rhyming the town name with emancipator and alligator. "The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is out to Get Us!" is sweet-sounding, despite its reference to the Trail of Tears. "Jacksonsville" is cool and chocked full of nearly as many references as "Decatur."

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But, of course, this is all played against the backdrop of Stevens' winks and nods. Are the scores of hipsters, critics and fans ("Illinois" was the best-reviewed album of 2005) really into all the bells and organs? Or are they fans of his irony? Or are they some combination of both?

Is the only way to reach this generation -- or at least the people worth reaching within this generation -- through irony, twee and quirk? Do you have to detach oneself by wearing fairy wings or dressing up like a cheerleader (both things Stevens has done in concert) in order to connect with people like me?

And, of course, at what point is it stupid? What point is it clever? Does it really matter?

I don't know, but I think maybe it does.

Mirrored

Band: Battles
Album: Mirrored
Best song: "Atlas." No question.
Worst song: "Bad Trails" is a good song, but probably the weakest on the record.

Formed in 2003/2004, Battles had released two EPs before Mirrored. I was asked to describe the band to a friend recently and couldn't do it. I tried to use terms that deccribe the former bands of some of the members -- math rock, experimental, etc. -- but it didn't coalesce.

The best way, though, to describe Battles -- especially after seeing the band live this past weekend -- is with this sentence: Welcome to the 21st century.

Mirrored is nothing if not modern. The band fuses the digital and analog remarkably well, vocoding Tyondai Braxton's vocals all over the album and distorting every possible instrument, save for John Stanier's punshing drums.

The driving force behind the band is, indeed, Stanier. The album cover puts on no airs about it; his bright yellow Tama kit is in the center of the art. Live, it's similarly set up, with the high-cymballed drum set at the front of the stage and in the middle of it all. Stanier is the one constant in the band, a respite from the drum machined indie rock of the Postal Service, Big Black and mid-career Flaming Lips.

This essential humanity is what makes Mirrored so great, but the technology and creativity make the album a marvel. Like the space program, the Internet and video games, Mirrored is the human potential aided by technology. It's wonderful to think of a band as something organic and analog; bands like Band of Horses or the Hold Steady do something tried and true very well. But, at the end of the day, those bands are boring; they go guitar/guitar/bass/drums/vocals. They're treading over the same course.

Mirrored is anything but boring. Battles, as Braxton himself says, are "a modern experimental band... We're a product of our time."

And the band's live show reflects this. Ian Williams and Braxton both stand at the side of Stanier behind analog keyboards. Williams' holds a scant few delay and effects pedals, while Braxton's is crowded with samples, digital delays, distortions and pitch shifters. Both have guitars, though they move the guitars around to their backs when not needed. Braxton's mic rests on its side on his keyboard when not needed. Dave Konopka stands barely behind the drums, easily shifting between the bass and guitar while using an arsenal of effects pedals.

Like many great records and bands, I can't fully describe it. Instead, here the band is, playing "Atlas."



Wow.

Taking the Long Way

Band: The Dixie Chicks
Album: Taking the Long Way
Best song: "Not Ready to Make Nice" and "Long Way Around" are both great.
Worst song: "Baby Hold On" isn't great.

I've mentioned this before on my old site, but I'm not one for twang. My musical tastes were totally devoid of country until I got to college and even then, it was limited to Uncle Tupelo, Ryan Adams' first album and a Johnny Cash greatest hits package.

There are a myriad of reasons to this, most notably country never entering my life as a youth. My parents weaned me on the Beatles, Stones and the Who. There is a country music station in the Chicago area, but I never even knew about it until my sister later got into the genre. Even then, the American flag logo on their bumper stickers -- this was a time when the flag wasn't on everything -- turned me off.

Nevertheless, after being involved in my college station, I became more involved in country, alt-country and the like. I was introduced to KCOU favorites Uncle Tupelo and its offshoots Wilco and Son Volt. Cash started to release his American Recordings series. Hank Willims was standard at our station. Later, in doing my old site, I got into Loretta Lynne, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard.

What is known as popular country music is given absolutely no credit in most music circles. Like the religious vote in the 2000 election, popular country music is largely ignored by music critics, even in lieu of other popular music. The weight of the consumer base is discounted and, frankly, taken for granted.

I fall into the camp that never pays any attention to the country music crowd (the same crowd who also inhabit the religious voter group) even to this day. I just don't even listen to that stuff, though clearly it's no worse than the vast expanse of boring rock music shown on VH1 (Nickelback, Puddle of Mudd, Pete Yorn, etc.).

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Because of my aversion to country music, I always wrote the Dixie Chicks off. Even with the band's dustup with the president back in 2003, I only knew them as a country band who sorta didn't like the president. I knew some country fans were annoyed with them, but I didn't really follow the controversy closely.

This was until I saw Shut Up and Sing about two months ago. Wow. I did not know about the shitstorm that came about after lead singer Natalie Maines said. It wasn't just Toby Keith criticizing the band. Country music fans, apparently, freaked the hell out. Not only did they burn the band's albums, but they protested the band's concerts, eventually leading to their management canceling a bunch of the band's tour. The vast majority of country music stations banned the band's music.

This, of course, is nuts. Maines' London comments ("Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.") don't sound so crazy now, six years into the Iraq war, but even in 2003, free speech is free speech. Maines didn't say anything particularly bad. She's against the war and she doesn't like violence. That's nothing particularly shocking.

Which just brings around another point: I live in an echo chamber. I don't know anyone who would be offended by any of what she said.

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The documentary was the reason my interest in the Dixie Chicks piqued my interest. It shows the recording of the band's 2006 album, "Taking the Long Way." Specifically, the song "The Long Way Around" sounded great to me.

And it is a good song. It's full of harmonies, layered guitars, a banjo and a rousing melody. The song is as good as any pop song. It's pleasant and catchy. The song references the Byrds (the line "I wasn't born to follow" is the name of a Byrds song), the politically fallout and the band's unity. The beginning of the record is similarly pleasant; It falls between hook-laden and somber ballads. "Easy Silence" and "Bitter End" are of the latter, whle "Not Ready to Make Nice" is the most blatant song about the political fallout.

Rick Rubin produced the record and I'm generally a fan of Rubin's. Though, I'd suggest that "Taking the Long Way" is not really a classic Rubin record in that it's lushly produced.

The album's not great and the end gets a little repetitive and forgettable. I imagine this has something to do with my lack of knowledge of my genre, but it nevertheless is not a strong ending to the album.

Oddly enough, I still listen to the album, about six months after buying it. It's pleasant enough and those melodies are just ridiculously good. It was a worthwhile purchase and a worthwhile listen still.

Welcome

In order to further pollute the Internet with my nonsense, I'm taking up residence here. My name is Ross Jordan Gianfortune and I like to write album reviews that no one reads. So far, my tally on the Web is somewhere around 500 and I hope to add to that total with this site/blog/project/whatever.

Albums That I Own is an extension of the One Man, 500 Albums project in a way. In fact, it's an extension of my "unlisted" series that took place on that site. The unlisted albums are favorites of mine that have no real place on the Rolling Stone list or were overlooked by those who put together the list.

Past unlisted albums (which may be cross-posted here on this site) include:

• Death Cab for Cutie's We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes


• Iron & Wine's The Shepherd's Dog


• Isis' Panopticon


• Elliott Smith's Either/Or


• Genesis' Invisible Touch

Albums That I Own will let me stretch outside the RS list a bit. The unlisted albums gave me that avenue and I'd like to expand on it. These albums may not appeal to many of the One Man, 500 Albums readers and for that, I'm sorry.

But, I do want to bring out some of my favorite, odd and misplaced (within my collection, I mean) albums. This site gives me the opportunity to explain my interest, for example, in a Dixie Chicks record. No, I'm not joking.

I'm current a graduate student, I work full-time and I run a baseball blog (albeit posting infrequently), so Albums That I Own will be posted once a week. Any suggestions for albums should be addressed to me. My e-mail address is over there, to the right.