tuneage : everyone deserves good music

Big Boi (ft. Gucci Mane) - “Shine Blockas”

It’s a simple formula, really. Step 1: take an old soul track, find a segment of the song where the singer enthusiastically pronounces a vowel. “Aaaaaaa”s and “Oooooo”s are safe choices - here, Big Boi and Co. went with an “Ohhhh”/ “Ahhhhh” combo. Step 2: Make sure that the sample has piano or melodic percussion - a vibraphone, used here, works fine. Step 3: Add trumpets/ synth pads to fill up the track. Step 4: 808 Kick + Stutter Snare. This step is non-negotiable. Step 5: If the spirit so moves you, rap a little bit.

The formula is far from fail-proof. Turn on your local radio station ending in -Z for a near-continuous stream of exemplary failures. But Big Boi, however, is Big Boi. Unlike his purple-wigged “Hey Ya”-ing ex(?) team-mate, his output is consistently solid, full-sounding, developed, and excellent. When he strips the sample for his second verse and leans back on the organ, Big Boi sounds like a man on top of his game. It lacks the abstract ambition of Stankonia, and the hackneyed piece of misogyny in the beginning is a turn-off, sure, but once the glorious, just-won-the-Peace-Prize groove sets in, it’s all “Shine” and no “Blocka.”

Sneaker Pimps - “Velvet Divorce”

I wasn’t really of an age to appreciate trip-hop when it was really coming around so I’ve had to find things little by little and mostly by accident. Most people will remember “6 Underground” by the Sneaker Pimps, but it was only in 2006 that someone mentioned a lazy, ballad like song hidden on the 9 year old A Life Less Ordinary soundtrack.

Kelli Dayton’s vocals flows slowly over a drum beat accentuated by strings and a slow plucked guitar. It’s now become my favorite song from the mid-90’s trip-hop era and makes me incredibly sad that they kicked Dayton out thereafter.

Greg Jong - “Got a Nerve”

It sucks having un-talented friends. I cringe at the thought of sitting through a buddy’s open mic performance at some depressing dive bar and thinking up genuine-sounding compliments to give him about his overly-earnest singing voice and tinny little acoustic guitar while I sip Miller Lite from a bottle because they’re on special. That’s exactly why I put off listening to Greg Jong’s music when I first met him: I genuinely liked him as a friend, but I didn’t want to have to pretend to like his music.

Eventually I pointed my browser to his MySpace page and cued up “Got A Nerve.” What poured out of my computer’s speakers was a dirty stomper of a rock song, something that sounded like a throwback, but also brand new, like ELO and Led Zepplin formed an unlikely tag team in order to jump Franz Ferdinand into their gang. The heavy drums, the wailing guitar, it made me want drink whiskey and dance. I loved it.

This guest post was written by Mike. Thanks, Mike! If you want to submit your own guest post, head on over to our submission page and get writing!

They Might Be Giants - “We Want A Rock”

Earlier this year, They Might Be Giant’s commercial breakthrough Flood was certified platinum, just shy of the album’s 20 year anniversary this coming January. To mark the occasion, the band has recently began doing performances of the album, and I accordingly decided it was time to revisit the album. The big hits—“Birdhouse In Your Soul”, “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”, “Particle Man”—remain charming and satisfying, as do “Whistling In The Dark”, “Twisting” (dB’s namedrop!), and “Someone Keeps Moving My Chair”. The album provides a great snapshot of the offbeat pop that would eventually evolve into something called “alternative” music.

That is all good, but it’s “We Want A Rock” that really floors me. The wonderful melody and accordion performance transform the inscrutable lyrics—“everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads”—into something with a resonating sentiment. It only took a couple plays for me to identify with the song’s people who “want a rock to wind a piece of string around”. Although the lyrics seem silly and nonsensical, the meaning of the song, according to John Linnell, is quite simple:

This sounds really abstract, but in order to begin wrapping a piece of string around itself, you need something to start with. Like a rock. I guess you can make a ball of string starting from nothing if you just make a tiny loop at the end of the string. But it seems theoretically impossible. It’s a metaphor for getting started.

Okay, I don’t think I would have thought of that metaphor after 20 years, but that’s not going to stop me from joining a rock-and-string sing-along.

The Fleetwoods - “Mr. Blue”

I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I am in the shower songs just pop into my head.  Sometimes I know where they come from but most of the time I don’t.

The Fleetwoods formed in the late 1950’s after Gary Troxel and Gretchen Christopher started singing together while waiting for mom to pick them up from school.  They soon added Barbara Ellis to help fill out their sound.  Originally called Two Girls and a Guy, they changed their name to reflect their local telephone exchange.  They had a string of hits throughout the late 50’s and early 60’s but ultimately disbanded when Troxel was drafted into the army and the british invasion made their brand of melodic, harmony driven, pop less desirable

Thom Yorke - “Hearing Damage”

Full disclosure:  I don’t like Radiohead very much.  When some other web-publication named Kid A the number 1 record of the past decade, my emotional reaction was best described as “resigned outrage.”  Perhaps I developed this attitude because most of my musical maturation occurred after their Lightyears-Ahead-Of-Their-Time electronic experimentation had been well absorbed into the indie-rock landscape, or perhaps it came about because I’m sick of people telling me how brilliant they are.  Regardless, I have a tough time sitting through an entire Radiohead LP.

Also, vampire familiarity has bred vampire contempt.

Together, these factors must ensure that “Hearing Damage,” the Thom Yorke mood-piece for the forthcoming New Moon soundtrack, is a sonic splinter to my heart.  Right?  Not this time.  This track expertly exploits the minimalism/ maximalism contrast that defines his solo work. There are exactly two chords in the entire song.  The synths are so dirty, you can hear their individual bits.  The lyrics, written down, wouldn’t fill the front page of a Twilight notepad.  But Yorke takes these simple ingredients and layers one on top of another, building them into something more.  Drums artfully glitch and skitter.  Synth pads sweep and multiply.  Reverb freezes and reverses.  In these manipulations, Yorke constructs a towering monument to isolation, a perfect soundtrack for Bella’s months in Jobian exile.  Not that I’m in to that.

Shafiq Husayn ft. Fatima - “Lil’ Girl”

One could spend quite a few paragraphs detailing the artists that Shafiq Husayn has produced and written for during his career, but I’ll just do a quick run-down for ya: Ice-T (on O.G. Original Gangster… yeah), Jurassic 5, John Legend, Erykah Badu etc. His main role in the past decade has been as a songwriter and member of Sa-Ra Creative Partners (G.O.O.D. Music), creating boundary-pushing hip-hop and soul.

Shocking, then, as the Tuneage-endorsed En’ A-Free-Ka is his official debut album. With so much influence and reach - whether writing for Erykah Badu’s excellent 2007 return New Amerykah: Part One or behind the boards for so many others; he clearly could have a number of solo albums under his belt right now. But you have to assume that’s just the way he likes it.

En’ A-Free-Ka exemplifies the burgeoning and magnetic Los Angeles music scene right now: forward-thinking, style-melding, unabashedly original. “Lil’ Girl” finds Husayn linked with up-and-coming U.K. songstress Fatima. It’s perhaps the most straightforward song on the album but give it a deep listen, and you’ll hear skittish samples in the same vein as Flying Lotus and dynamic, slightly off-beat percussion. After a bit of vocal interplay between him and Fatima, she comes on top of the subtle brass crescendos with “Eventually you shall embrace the last day/Time is running, better choose the fast way.”

Codaphonic - “Knock, Knock”

Lately I’ve been doing something I hadn’t expected to do ever again: I’ve been buying CDs. Most of what I’ve been buying, though, has been from small, local labels who are putting out focused, solid releases. Codaphonic, a Nashville band, recently released their Edison’s Rival EP with Nashville mini-label, ykrecords. The EP is 5 songs of excellent power-pop that at times feels like Superdrag but with more horns, and is well worth the $5 (heck, the packaging alone is worth that). Of course, if you can’t spare the $5, the EP is also available as a free download, something ykrecords does with all their releases.

Japandroids - “Wet Hair”

Upon the release of his seminal I Get Wet, hard-partying enthusiast Andrew W.K. told the once-reputable Rolling Stone Magazine that an artist achieves true volume power when the music sounds loud, even when the volume dial is low. In response, the Japandroids present us with “Wet Hair.”  When I think about this song, the image of guitar amplifiers and drum heads on a conveyor belt springs to mind.  I can see it now:  The new gear arrives, the Japandroids get started, and less than three and a half minutes later, the amp has been reduced to a smoldering, foul-smelling metal-and-formerly-hard-plastic smudge on the floor.  The drum heads are scattered around the room, smoking and unrecognizable.  The Vancouver two-piece, clad in black and covered in sweat are still there, however.  And victorious.

And why shouldn’t they be?  In the time that it takes post-rock bands to get to the point, the Japandroids have already destroyed it. And with it, they’ve destroyed the cooler-than-thou pretense of most modern rock. They’ve taken the cold distance of Interpol and the audience-to-rock-god distance of the White Stripes, and reduced it to zero. With it, they say: “Come into our living room.  You can jump on the furniture. Don’t mind the conveyor belts. It’s going to get loud.”  Then, they proceed to shout you down about girls with wet hair, “Bikini Island” (!?), and French kisses. It sounds ludicrous until you realize that you’re right there, shouting it with them.

So give “Wet Hair” the W.K. test. Turn your speakers as low as they go and see if the band doesn’t sound like they’re trying to rip your eardrums out. I dare you.