AROUND THE TRENDS
Ten things in music I liked about 2013
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| THE HOT SEAT: Lady Gaga delivered spectacle in 2013 |
Another
year, another amorphous chorus of mixed messages about the so-called “state” of
music, as if were actually possible to capture something so elusive in anything
resembling its natural state. Back in March, David Lowery turned up on NPR’s
“On the Media” to discuss some of the issues he addresses as part of “The
Trichordist,” a website dedicated to “Artists for An Ethical and Sustainable
Internet.” The erstwhile Virginia-based producer, longtime frontman of the
bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, and current a lecturer at the
University of Georgia, suggested that the old business paradigm, dominated by monolithic
major labels, really wasn’t all that bad, which is interesting coming from a
guy who had his share of dust ups with the powers- that-be back in the day.
More recently, David Byrne, whose Luaka Bop label was once a
part of Warner Bros., published “How Music Works,” a collection of essays in
which he waxes somewhat nostalgic for the days when a corporate entity like
Sire Records (which was also part of the Warner Group) would invest its
resources in a left-of-center CBGB’s band like his own Talking Heads. In other
words, now that these once-insurgent artists have gotten a look at the future
of music, the past doesn’t look half bad.
On the other hand, 2013 was also the
year that Amanda Palmer celebrated her crowdfunding coup by delivering a TED
Talk on the many virtues of tweeting, blogging, and otherwise interfacing
directly with fans on the Internet. In 2012, she’d set a new record by raising
over a million dollars in individual contributions on Kickstarter to record her
second album, “Theatre Is Evil.” So, she’s understandably less concerned about
the state of music than some of her peers.
Of course, when conversation turns to the state of music,
what’s usually at issue is the state of the music industry, which has always
been governed by rather arbitrary rules — copyright law, for example —
that benefit some at the expense of others. There’s no doubt that technology —
particularly in the digital realm — has been a game changer for the
entertainment industry over the past decade, not to mention the last year.
Whether or not it’s been a force for good or for evil remains up for debate.
But, while the medium can be the message, more often than not technology, even
in the face of cultural skirmishes, is essentially neutral: it’s really more a
matter of how we choose to make use of evolving modes of consumption and
communication that makes the biggest difference. By that measure, 2013 belongs
to the comic Norwegian brother act Ylvis, whose surreal “The Fox (What Does the
Fox Say?)” went mega-viral on YouTube and turned out to be this year’s “Gangnum
Style.” I guess that means we should be on the lookout for a big ad featuring
Vergard and Bård
Ylvisåker shilling pistachios when Superbowl XVLIII takes to the air on
February 2.
In the meantime, the
proverbial beat goes on as artists continue to make music that weaves itself
into the fabric of daily life in a manner that can be at once surprising and
familiar; comforting and disruptive; ridiculous and sublime. It’s all good,
even if not really all good. And, since there were far too many albums than I
could justify paring down to a simple top ten, I’ve opted this year for a list
of ten categories that feel like they capture something essential about the
state of music in 2013.
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| POP ART OR ARTPOP?: Arcade Fire can do both. |
1) ARTPOPPERY: Arcade Fire “Reflektor” + Atoms for Peace
“AMOK” —Lady Gaga,
in her infinite ambition, may have twisted the Warholian idea of “Pop Art” into
a multi-media marketing campaign that fuses the virtues of art with the baser
nature of accessibility, but she’s not the first to play at that game (see
David Bowie, below). And, while it may be more apt to place Arcade Fire’s
expansive, retro-futuristic double concept album “Reflektor,” as well as
Radiohead head Thom Yorke’s new Atoms for Peace missive “AMOK” in the category
of what older folks once called prog- or art-rock, artpop seems a fair enough
designation. Both bands flexed their considerable creative muscle and
challenged loyal fans to accept a modicum of experimentation, while offering
just enough in the way of infectious grooves and melodies to make the trip
worth the effort.
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| REBEL BELLE: Kacey Musgraves |
2) AMERICANA WITH ATTITUDE: Kacey
Musgraves “Same Trailer, Different Park” + Natalie Maines “Mother” — Nashville’s Music Row has long been
one of the most conservative corners of the mainstream music industry, which
has admittedly bred quite a bit of vapid, predictable, middle-of-the-road
product over the years. But it’s also fostered plenty of rebels and outlaws
because, well, you gotta have rules before you can break them. Kacey Musgraves,
a 25-year-old Texas-bred singer-songwriter who self-released three albums and
appeared on the USA Network’s “Nashville Star” competition before signing to
Mercury Records, may have rewritten the script for what’s acceptable on Music
Row with “Same Trailer, Different Park,” a homespun yet crisply produced album
of rather-trad tunes with more than a touch of twangy bluegrass that, among
other transgressions, exclaims, “Make lots of noise/Kiss lots of boys/Or kiss
lots of girls if that’s something you’re into,” and offers this vision of
small-town life: “Mama’s hooked on Mary Kay/Brother’s hooked on Mary Jane/And Daddy’s
hooked on Mary two doors down.” And Dixie Chick Natalie Maines moved away from
straight country toward something more along the lines of Sheryl Crow’s
rootsier side on “Mother,” an album of covers that delivers a devastating
version of its Pink Floyd title cut that was originally recorded to raise money
for the falsely imprisoned West Memphis Three.
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| RELATIVE COOL: The formidable sisters of Haim |
3) GRRRL GROUPINGS: Haim “Days Are
Gone” + Savages “Silence Yourself” — Trending retro in ways that were fashionably unfashionable
in 2013, the California sister act Haim and the London-based grrrl group
Savages drew on very different aspects of the ’80s on two of the year’s more
promising debuts. With formidable musical chops, Haim fashioned their sly hooks
around the funked-up rock of Prince’s Revolution and the kind smooth r&b
grooves that Quincy Jones used to catapult Michael Jackson into the
stratosphere, all without a trace of tongue-in-cheek irony. The aptly named
Savages zeroed in on the post-punk nihilism of John Lydon’s Public Image
Limited, the raw scrape of Joy Division, and the primal wail of Siouxsie and
the Banshee, with a surplus of attitude and stark androgynous look to complete
the package.
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| POP ART: David Bowie appropriates himself on The Next Day |
4) HAPPY RETURNS: David Bowie “The
Next Day” + Elvis Costello and the Roots “Wise Up Ghost” — One of the original purveyors of
“artpop” and a major influence on Lady Gaga’s latest vocal affectations, David
Bowie was apparently in a self-reflective state of mind when he set out to
record his first solo album in a decade, and his 24th overall. With
cover art copped from his own art-rock classic, 1977’s “Heroes,” and a single
(“Where Are We Now?”) that sifts through images from his years in Berlin, “The
Next Day” goes a long way toward recapturing past glories without necessarily
repeating them. Bowie’s almost always interesting, but it’s been quite some
time since he’s sounded this immersed in a musical project. And, what frankly
seemed like something of a novelty collaboration between Elvis Costello and the
Roots turned out to be a surprisingly solid collection of songs that deploy the
hip-hop science of loops and sampling in a way that’s oddly reminiscent of
Costello’s ambitiously orchestrated 1982 masterpiece “Imperial Bedroom.”
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| OLD SCHOOL RULES: Pearl Jam kicked out the analog jams |
5) GUARDIANS OF GRUNGE: Dave Grohl’s
“Sound City” + Pearl Jam “Lightning Bolt” — An homage to the famed and now
defunct studio where Nirvana recorded “Nevermind,” “Sound City” was both a
loving documentary directed by Foo Fighter frontman/former Nirvana drummer Dave
Grohl and a soundtrack featuring the Sound City Players, a remarkably diverse
group of artists with various connections to the Northridge, CA studio. You get
everyone from Stevie Nicks and Rick Springfield, to Queens of the Stone Age’s
Josh Homme and Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, to Sir Paul McCartney backed by
the three surviving members of Nirvana, all on an album of new material that
serves as a visceral reminder that, on some level, they all share a certain
common creative ground. As for Pearl Jam’s “Lightning Bolt” — their tenth
studio album since 1991’s chartbusting “Ten” — it’s simply a straightforwardly
stripped-down reminder that there’s still plenty of room for an unabashedly
analog band in our brave new digital world.
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| MOODY BLUES: The National embrace the darkness |
6) INDIE ROCKS: The National “Trouble
Will Find Me” + Superchunk “I Hate Music” — Nobody does nonchalantly dark, world-wearily romantic,
or elegantly debauched quite as well as the Cincinnati-by-way-of-Brooklyn band
the National. “Trouble Will Find Me,” an apt description of the persona Matt
Berninger projects as the deep-voiced singer of the National, isn’t so much a
departure for the band as it is a further distillation of the moody blues they
revel in. There’s also some wistful romanticism on “I Hate Music,” the
searingly melodic tenth album from North Carolina indie stalwarts Superchunk.
You can’t blame singer/guitarist Mac McCaughan for screaming “I hate music” on
the album’s title cut — as the founder of the longstanding indie label Merge
Records, with bandmate and bassist Laura Balance, he’s probably been subjected
to more than his fair share of noise. But, “I Hate Music” is, in its own
peculiar way, a love letter to a DIY ethos that Superchunk helped create in the
early ’90s.
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| KANYE'S YEEZUS: No title required |
7) DYSTOPIAN HIP-HOP: Kanye West “Yeezus”
+ Pusha T “My Name Is My Name” — Rappers aren’t just measured by their flow, their beats, or
the number of units they’re able to move. It’s also about empire building,
creating a brand bigger than one’s self, and moving the form forward in some
notable way. Kanye (do we even need the West anymore?) has done all of the
above. His “Yeezus” is one of the strangest hip-hop blockbusters in recent
memory, with its maximal minimalist soundscapes, its fractured beats, and its
often impenetrably dark sensibility. But that wasn’t all Kanye had cooking in
2013: having helped boost former Clipse member Pusha T’s status as a solo
rapper through a guest spot on 2010’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” West
stepped in as executive producer for T’s debut, “My Name Is My Name,” which
along with “Yeezus” ranks as one of the more compelling and intriguing
commercial hip-hop albums of the year.
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| THE REAL DEAL: 17-year-old Lorde |
8) THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS: Lorde
“Pure Heroine” + Earl Sweatshirt “Doris” — As difficult as it may or may not be for new
artists to find firm footing these days (as opposed to the good old days of
major-label hegemony), there’s still plenty of evidence to suggest that just
being really really crazy talented, inspired, and/or unique does have its
advantages. Lorde is a wickedly precocious 17-year-old singer-songwriter from
New Zealand, born Ella Marie Lani Yelich-O’Connor (thus the stage name), who
has a remarkable gift for finding rough-hewn beauty in the mundane realities of
daily life, and a strikingly confident voice that’s rarely accompanied by more
than a sleek beat and a few backing racks on “Pure Heroine.” There are lots of
singers sweating it out in an effort to capture the ’tweenage experience — I
won’t mention names — but Lorde does it effortlessly, and with quite a bit more
depth. An even odder oddball, 18-year-old Earl Sweatshirt emerged as a part of
an LA indie hip-hop collective known as Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All,
released a mixtape filled with horrorcore fantasies in 2010, and then
disappeared for a year, during which “Free Earl” t-shirts starting showing up
in LA. His debut is a schizoid affair that, while reminiscent of the fantasy
scenarios and just plain out-there soundscapes of the early Wu-Tang Clan, stands
on its own as the next strangest thing to “Yeezus.”
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| CROTCH SHOT: Miley Cyrus skews sexy |
9) POP SPECTACLE: Miley Cyrus “Bangerz”
+ Lady Gaga “Artpop”
— Not going to waste too much time here on the actual music, since both Miley
and Gaga are more about making a scene or a splash than crafting a tune. And,
Miley may have one-upped Gaga in 2013, with her white-girl twerks and that
hilarious VMA stunt making nasty with a big Styrofoam finger (not to mention
Robin Thicke). But Haus of Gaga has almost surely been hard at work, dreaming up
something even bigger than the ArtRave extravaganza she staged to celebrate the
arrival of “Artpop.” So there should be plenty more spectacle to feed on from
both Miley and Gaga as we move on in to 2014.
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