Not right now, this minute, but in general. If nothing else, I can look at this again in ten years and wonder what the hell I was thinking. And then play another Dave Matthews, Jr. song on my CranialPod player, and enjoy the music in a non-rocking, low impact sort of way. That’s my nightmare, anyway.
I’ll get this one out of the way first, because it’s the most embarrassing. Not because she’s not great. No, it’s because this is something that could pretty easily be considered alt-country. Case sings with The New Pornographers, and at first I was a bit put off by her voice because it had too much twang in it for my tastes. But it’s compelling, even haunting, and it grew on me pretty damn quickly. So, yes, now I own two of her albums. Two alt-country albums. I blame my mom: She listened to Dolly Parton when I was a kid, and it’s obviously scarred me. Except that Neko Case is a great singer, alt-country or not.
Another member of The New Pornographers, a pop band that enjoy more than I had expected. I thought that Newman on his own would be a bit too mellow for me, but he’s not. Or else I’m just sliding into that Adult Contemporary listener bracket. I’m betting that’s not the case, though, as the New P’s are the darlings music critics. Which is usually, of course, a warning to stay the hell away, but I suppose that even music critics can occasionally get things right. They’re still pretentious about it, though.
Enda’s split up now, but at least they released a full album. Enda’s a post-college Bay Area female-fronted power pop/rock band. I’ve tried to think of a comparison, but the best I can say is that they’re like a melding of Sleeper, Split-era Lush, Wish-era Cure on the better tracks, with the musical tightness of the Von Bondies, and, I dunno, a dash of The Pretenders, or something. All they have to show for their greatness is an EP, an LP, and this album. Or maybe EP and LP mean something other than I’m thinking. So, ok: One 6-song, one 3-song, and now this 10-song album. Regardless, I missed my chance to see them play live, and I do regret that. Of course, I didn’t so much miss the chance as not bother to overcome inertia and actually go and see them. But “miss” implies that, hey, maybe it wasn’t entirely my fault. But, alas, it was. And if I had only been more supportive, I’m sure that they wouldn’t have split up. For want of one more ticket sale…
Two of the band members come from Ivy. I quite like Ivy. Paco’s like Ivy, but a little bit different. There you go.
Ok, maybe that isn’t enough of an explanation. It’s good, intelligent, solid Pop with a French female lead singer. Not Power Pop, not Bubblegum Pop, maybe a bit Shoegazerish. So you’re either thinking that it sounds interesting, or like total crap, and there’s not much more that I can do to convince you either way with mere words. Someone could, I’m sure; it’s just that I can’t. I’m pretty bad at describing music, especially when it comes to subtle distinctions of which I’m not entirely familiar.
This brings up another issue: My definition of “pop”. Or maybe “Pop”, capitalized. I tend to think of almost everything that I listen to as pop of some form or another, giving Pop a very wide range. This is at least in part because I’m not quite sure where the boundaries of Rock lie, and partially because I’m comfortable with a fluid definition that encompasses the bulk of my musical taste. My definition of Rock falls into what is most likely actually the sub-genre Heavy Metal. So while I consider Tom Petty to be mostly Pop, he probably falls more into the Rock category. (Or Classic Rock, at this point.) And Matthew Sweet would be similar, although I really think that he’s more Pop than Rock. But closer to Rock, so on the Power Pop side. Like Enda, with one site listing their album under Modern Rock, Brooding, and Grunge. I’m not sure how Grunge fits in, but, again, it’s probably due to a definitional difficulty on my part. But when I think Grunge, I think Nirvana and early Pearl Jam: Lots of mumbling and thrashing. Enda doesn’t mumble or thrash, so I don’t see the connection.
Take Ivy, or Paco: Definitely Pop. Intelligent, lyric, female-sung Pop. They fall right into the center of Pop, whatever that is. The Sundays and early Lush are classified as Shoegazer, a sort of airy, brooding, corner of Pop. Split-era Lush is Shoegazer mixing with Power Pop, and late-era Lush is a bit of a misfire where they went way over to Power Pop and tried to be Elastica. So, Power Pop has more strident vocals, and a thick layer of electric guitars and drums. But, wait: It was My Bloody Valentine, another Shoegazer band, who pioneered the Wall of Guitars sound. Which Lush also made use of. And which doesn’t fit that concept of brooding, airy Pop. So: Brooding, airy Pop with Wall of Guitars.
Or take Curve. I’d classify Curve as Noise Pop, or probably actually Noise/Power Pop, because I’d say that a band like Medicine (ex-band, really) is better described as Noise Pop. But then I suppose that Curve would be more Noise/Power/Electronica Pop. Ivy is Pop, while Sleeper is Pop/Power Pop, because Sleeper is a bit more strident, and can be a bit more forward with the drums and guitars. Not that Ivy is a bunch of hippie folk singers with sitars and tambourines; no, they have their own drums and electric guitars. They’re really not too far apart, in fact.
You can see why I have trouble categorizing these things.
Now, of course I could do a better job researching the classification system, such as it is, that’s used by critics and other music wanker types. But then I’d sound like a pretentious twit, and I’d much rather sound like a vaguely confused layman. So, while pretentious musical twits are free to mock me for my lack of musical classification clothes, I’m still…well, not a pretentious twit. And not very good with metaphors, either.
So, right there, I admit that I pretty much don’t know what I’m talking about. And that statement is just qualifying my ignorance a bit so that I don’t feel like a complete idiot. In any case, all of us have deep, dark pits of bad taste. A professional critic, I believe, uses obscure terminology, references, and classifications to disguise this. That’s how I can explain the popularity among critics of Weezer, for one thing. I also don’t care for the Magnetic Fields or the Pixies, which, were I a professional music critic, would earn me a festive burning at the stake.
Seriously, though, this is the good stuff. The bad stuff is mine alone to enjoy, and hide from the light of day in my CD shelves. Which is in plain view, but who’s going to sit and look through them all? I’m not sure why, but I always feel guilty about looking through other people’s CD collections. Even if the CDs are right out there in the living room, I feel like I’m snooping. I feel much less guilt about looking at their books. In either case, I’m not talking about pawing through the things, pulling them out and inspecting them; no, I just mean reading the titles on the spines. I probably feel this way because CD and book choices are such personal things. That, and I don’t want to feel embarrassed for someone once I discover that they own the Essential Kenny Loggins album. That would be awkward, because I’d have to confront that fact that my friends listened to really terrible music, and didn’t even try to hide the fact.
Of course, I have not one but two anime soundtrack collections sitting here at my desk. Now, the Cowboy Bebop collection is entirely respectable…