A Quick Thought on John Mayer's Dumb Ass

If you haven't heard yet, Mr. "Your Body is a Wonderland" Mayer recently drank a little too much scotch and got "raw" in a recent Playboy interview.  He said some pretty inane shit like "my dick is kind of a white supremacist," claimed he had something called a "hood pass," referred to Jessica Simpson's body as both a drug and then later called her "sexual napalm" which makes me wonder whether or not Mayer knows that napalm isn't a drug.  Anyway, I could go on but you've probably heard enough and if you haven't just google it, "John Mayer is a huge douche" is still one of the hottest search terms.
Um, so yeah.  John Mayer is maybe a racist, almost definitely a misogynist, and for sure is a fucking moron.  But that doesn't really surprise me.  The man has a Stevie Ray Vaughan tattoo and makes sincere adult contemporary songs about just wanting to get stoned.  This guy obviously lives in a postmodern nightmare where things signify nothing and fessing up to your insecurities while cavalierly admitting your own self absorption is what passes for authentic (thanks Kanye!).  But for me, what's most interesting is a small moment when he talked about Jennifer Aniston disagreeing with him about his Twitter use.  Mayer wrote her off as being stuck in the past, not willing to realize that the rules of the fame game have changed.  And for once in my life, I actually felt bad for Aniston.  After enduring an all too messy and public divorce she has this douchebag telling her she doesn't share her personal life enough with the public.  I can hear him now, "Sorry babe, you gotta get with the program.  You got fight for their hearts and minds you know, gotta keep people interested.  Hey, how bout I tell them about how I like fucking airheads and getting stoned, and you can pout about your divorce.  They'll eat that shit up."  Hell, I might even be more sympathetic if that was the case, but I honestly think there isn't really a divide between Mayer's public and private life.
Well, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.  I know, douchebags are going to think he's gutsy for being so "real" and I'm sure there are enough female fans out there who secretly believe they could change him.  But at least we have some hard and fast evidence that this guy really is a total ass.

Effusive Praise for Beach House

"I'm going to warn everyone right now, I'm not going to shut up about this band"
    If there is one reason that music is always near the top of my list of priorities, it's because of the specific intangible feeling I get when I first fall in love with an album.  I say album here because as much as falling for a song is worthwhile and even at times transcendent, there is nothing on this earth like falling hard for a set of songs and listening to them ad nauseam just to extract (strangle) every bit of excitement out of it.  It's comparable to every rotten cliche about falling in love I know, and though it falls short of the excitement of a new relationship, falling in love with an album is rarely a regrettable decision. 
    Let it be said that I have unequivocally fallen like, deeply in love with Teen Dream.  From the first morning I listened to it on a blustery train ride to work to just the other night when Victoria Legrand sang me to a deep and satisfying sleep, it's been hard to tear myself away from these songs.  This isn't like falling for the cute girl in the sweater sitting alone at the cafe, this is like meeting someone you feel like you've always known and feeling a little scared about how comfortable you feel around them.  This is talking about the meaning of life at 4am while trying to fight back sleep so you can watch the sun come up.  This is looking back at the loves in your life and still not having all of the answers, still not being able to draw simple conclusions from them.  Why am I telling you this?  Because I have a hunch that if you're not into falling in love, you're probably not gonna be too into this album.  And that's kind of a damned shame.
    Let me make this clear before I continue to blush, Teen Dream is coherent, it's chalk full of surprising melodies as well as deft and tasteful instrumentation.  It builds off the strengths of their previous work while striking out into new territory.  The critics agree, this is a good album.  It isn't a reinvention of the form, it isn't going to contain too many sounds you've never heard, and I really don't think anyone's going to laud the complexity or virtuosity of the band (with exception to Legrand's golden set of pipes).  CMG even went so far as to call the instrumentation "staggeringly uninventive" in an otherwise positive review.  And there's nothing much resembling an extra-textual/conceptual/meta gesture anywhere on the album, so let's agree that it's sincere, that what you're hearing can be judged prima facie.  Now, I think this is interesting.  A band who's work is not just more interesting than the halo of discussion surrounding it, but a band that is almost devoid of the kind of baggage that initiates the rite of instant backlash.  I can't imagine being embarrassed about my love for this record in say three weeks when they have a meltdown in Spain.  The band has proven it's worth quietly for years now.  Sure, there's always the chance for hipster hatred, though Baltimorons don't seem to suffer the same ire as their Brooklyn counterparts.  And there will be those who dismiss anything this pretty as trite, but they're not really worth arguing with.  So what we have here is a rare record that stands to be judged without the noise of hip politics or the tiresome cockfights of who's more avant-garde.  Hopefully. 
    So for me, the only question left for to ask is this: are you or aren't you in love with this album?  If not, whatever, we'll talk later.  I'm not going to waste time trying to convince you.  This isn't like my love for Women or The Dirty Projectors where I feel like I'm defending my favorite sports team, always discussing the finer details of what makes them unarguably great.  This time I just feel bad if you can't get with this.
    And for now, why not leave it there?  You can be sure this band is going to pop up on this site in the future and be forewarned not to mention this album around me if you don't have some serious free time on your hands.  But please, give this a serious listen.  I don't think you'll regret it.

Spoon get's iffy, Nigel get's pissed.

I wanted to avoid saying it, but this new Spoon album kinda sucks.  And by kinda, I mean that at best, this record is half empty.  We could focus on the half that's full, but the highlights on this record are not that surprising and often only serve to remind us the band still has a pulse.  Fortunately, my feelings on the album have been articulated elsewhere by a better writer.  Here's a gem from that review:

Alan wants to call this “the agony of Britt” and I see entering the field of discussion how many points we should give the record for being a break-up album, as if the world doesn’t have enough of those. For one, it’s difficult to avoid letting rumors of Britt’s mackscapades taint one’s perception of the theme here (CMG’s got friends you never called back, Britt [or just creeped out]) but move away from slander and Transference becomes even less interesting and/or affecting. Here the break-up aftermath leaves Britt full of uncertainty in the most obvious and uncompelling way possible: track titles/themes that are questions and songs that consist of series of negating or circular statements. “Written in Reverse” is half Cobainisms, for crying out loud.

The rest of the review focuses more clearly on the technical/musical shortcomings, but the above passage hit a special nerve.  I admit, I'm more aware of the gossip surrounding Britt's personal life than normal fandom should allow.  I'm not going to defend this, but I will point out I'm not the only Spoon fan who's heard some disappointing shit about Mr. Daniels and his ways with young female fans.  And let's be fair, he's written pretty openly about his personal life since getting dropped by Elektra.  Hardcore Spoon fans have stuck with this band for over a decade, from critic's darlings to indie stars to  just plain rockstars, kept on board by a faith in their talents.  And so, unfair as it may be, when I hear those stories (and there are plenty) about Britt's sleazy dbag antics, I become increasingly unforgiving of their misteps, especially when those misteps involve chinzy romance and well worn real emotional trash ("Goodnight Laura").  It makes me wonder about all those dudebros and jail-baiting indie-teen girls that make up a Spoon show these days, and whether or not I still want to be carrying a torch for these guys.

If Spoon fans have one go-to defense for their less than perfect frontman, it's that Britt is A) incredibly talented and B) has always been kind of a rock star in his own mind.  Let there be no doubt that Britt is still very talented.  Proof of this fact can be found on "Who Makes Your Money."  As far as lyrics go, they're obtuse bordering on totally hollow but actually used to great effect, which is to say it's vintage Spoon.  It's what I wish more of the album was, obtuse, vague, and above all, little self deprecating.  Instead, we get empty promises, "hang ups and pain," vocal strangulations and posturing.  The cold hard truth is that this album is full of underdeveloped and/or overcooked efforts dressed up as "experimental Spoon" songs that mostly just remind me of how much better Spoon used to be.  And to top it off, we have some of Britt'smost egregious lyrics since the band's debut.  And what are all these songs about?  Britt's love problems.

On that note, I do think the album is brilliantly titled.  It's a perfect forewarning for the unwanted and half stated emotions that litter the album.  Conceptually, it does work and if you're into examining albums as art objects more than enjoying them, this may be your favorite Spoon album by far.  If wikipedia is right, and transference is the psychological phenomena of projecting emotions from past relationships unto someone else (commonly the psychotherapist), then Britt is more self aware than I give him credit.  The ghost of Spoon's past lingers heavily on this record, and no, not often in a good way.  There are too many reasons Spoon shouldn't renege it's past.  They already sound so much like themselves in everything they do as it is and they've already released strong material that's taken stock of their previous successes.  But the biggest reason Britt shouldn't rehash his old songs or his old loves is that he's already released to many goddamned breakup albums as it is, and at this point he's run out of anything worthwhile to say.  In fact, I wonder if Britt's hasn't regressed emotionally since Love Ways and Girls Can Tell. 

Am I being fair?  As a critic, probably not.  But as a fan, I gotta be concerned as to where this guy's at these days.  The man showed so much promise for so many years that I get kinda sick thinking about Britt settling for rockstar cliches or love-is-a-battlefield sentiment.  I still expect great things from this guy, but I think he needs to push himself further both musically and emotionally in order to articulate anything past his own malaise.  Granted, in the past his malaise has served his career well.  But songs like "Small Stakes," "Anything You Want," or "The Way We Get By" were resonant because they expressed the longing and self doubt of your everyman, the Underdog.  These days the dude's making love in backseats of cars with a stream of available groupies and I'm still supposed to care?

There are other some nit-picky complaints as well, like where the hell is Jim Eno on this?  I know, he's behind the mixing board and yeah, his strengths as a producer still shine.  But Jim has fallen asleep on two of his sacred duties: coming up with good drum parts and keeping Britt in check.  Major douchebag Eric Harvey is still in the band (no, I've met him, he's a douche), the production is often lo-fi when it should be crystal clear and vice-versa, and the soundscape is way too cluttered.  I should pat these guys on the back for stretching themselves and not just phoning an album in (actually, some parts do literally sound like they were recorded via cell phone, so maybe the boys are being really self aware here) but I expect more next time.  My advice, ditch your keyboard player, go some place where people don't think you're the shit and if you find the time, grow the fuck up man.

ADDENDUM:

I would feel bad if I never admitted there are some pretty strong points on this album.  I got to thinking whether or not the band actually had a decent EP/Maxi Single marred by the filler surrounding it.  Now, as much as I'm willing to be hard on Spoon (because I really love so much of their work that's not Transference), I hesitate to cavalierly chop up someone else's artistic statement.  But if you want to be perfectly honest, the Great New Spoon EP That Never Was is turning out to be much more rewarding.  So here's the tracklist I settled on:
1  Is Love Forever
2  The Mystery Zone
3  Got Nuffin
4  Who Makes Your Money
Still not a bulletproof release, but with some minor touches I think it would sit well with Soft Effects and Love Ways.  So there, I'm still a Spoon enthusiast.

Some random thoughts to unceremoniously kick off another year of Hypocrite Listener

I haven't posted anything in a while, and not for lack of trying.  In the past month, I've started out on several Big Idea writing projects for the site which never really took hold.  Of those failed efforts there was:
    
A misguided attempt to defend Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes as harmless hippie nostalgia.  That one fell apart pretty quickly.  I still enjoy three of their songs immensely.  "40 Days," "Carries On" and "Home" are serviceable, enjoyable, and in some moments even impressive.  However, I'm not sure I want to put myself in the icky position of defending them with anything resembling criticality.  And what's more, I don't think the band needs any critical support.  It's a Get On The Bus kind of thing, either you want to hang with the dirty hippies or your disgusted by it.  Me, I don't mind their cotton candy spirituality, these songs are fun to sing along to.

A massive top 20 albums of the aughts list which was growing into a sprawling directionless mess of my own mixture of personal history and half baked cultural criticism.  Even though reading it was becoming more and more painful, it took me way too long to finally just abandon ship and come back to reality.  I almost deleted my blogger account twice, that's how fed up with my own writing I'd become.  Chalk it up to a chemically altered cabin fever and just generally having too much time on my hands, most of which is spent behind a keyboard.  However, I did put Girls Can Tell at number two and felt better about myself for some reason.

A review of the new Spoon album, Transference.  This might actually happen, I'm still listening to the album.   The guys still can't seem to make a truly mediocre album, and even though some of these songs are the band's most underdeveloped, at least their studio trickery keeps it interesting.  It's also good to see Britt trying to push himself further, even if the results are mixed.  "Who Makes Your Money" is the required A+ track that seals the band's credibility and thwart's any accusations of laurel resting or half-assing.  I'll wait to see how well it stands up over the year.

I've also been wondering how to feel about this Surfer Blood album.  I like it, it's solid and serviceable.  It has held up to a couple of listens and is pretty close to the music my band makes, or I could see being lumped in with them if we were ever lucky to be in that position.  But I'm not sure how I feel them in the context of Japanadroids or Cymbal's Eat Guitars.  I'm not sure how good I feel about the return of the straight up indie-rock record.

And there's the noble project of trying to develop a more coherent way of approaching music.  This comes from my embarrassingly late-blooming intellectual curiosity in music.  As much as I've tended to like critically acclaimed and/or "challenging" music, I've actually never wanted too put much thought into it.  So I've got a lot of unconnected dots of interest and conjecture when it comes to how I feel about music.  I like Daft Pop's project of articulating subjective thoughts on music, I also like No Trivia's more analytic "I'm gonna break this down for you" style of writing, and even the Wire's wry seriousness.  And as much as I could just keep doing the whole personal anecdote thing, I'm pretty bored with my own personal cosmology.  Need to find something difficult to do and do it right.

Also wondering why so (it seems to me, in my personal context) many people are really pretty bored with new music right now.  I chalk it up to getting older. But how fucking depressing is that?  At 23 I'm already getting to old to give a fuck about new bands?  Is it me, or is the music industry so lazy that it can only focus it's attentions on the fickle tastes of the desperately hip, the ravenous star worship of the young or the staid tastes and nostalgia of the old and boring?  Was it just always like this?  Are the 20's inherently a darker and more pessimistic time, or is this a product of living in an era of diminishing returns and low hopes.  It's ridiculous saying this after 09 gave me not one but three fantastic favorite new albums and plenty of big events to get excited about.  It could be another symptom of the New Year slump, something  I seemed to skip last year because of Merriweather and the inauguration.  Also, I'd like to take a moment to say Fuck You to all those selfish, hypocritical Massachusetts voters who thought it was more important to elect a Senator who drives a truck, watches sports, and "get's them" than to elect someone who would vote to make Ted Kennedy's dream a reality.  Yes, the bill sucks, the Dems wasted time, Martha Coakley is a terrible candidate, I know.  But don't you see what you've given the GOP?  If state healthcare insurance is good enough for you, why isn't it good enough for the rest of us?  I digress...

Overly ambitious content is on it's way.  Thanks for reading.

Two late year oddities

A) A bizarre and growing obsession with Australian Rules Football


B) This Song
04 Carries On-Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros by nigelharsch

A Hypocrite Winter Mix

A quick mix for the after the holidays winter sucks blues...
Hypocrite Winter Playlist by nigelharsch


Kurt Vile-The Hunchback 
Kanye West-Love Lockdown
Dismemberment Plan-Spider in the Snow
Belle and Sebastian-Seeing Other People 
Flying Lotus-Robo Tussin 
Atlas Sound-Shelia 
Spoon- I Summon You 
The Walkmen-Red Moon 
The Chills-Pink Frost 
Tortoise-Charteroak Foundation 
Wire-Outdoor Miner 
Destroyer-Goddess of Drought 
Animal Collective-Winters Love

A Quick Top Ten of 2009

    Was 2009 an off year for music? Well, I have to admit that I struggled a little bit to actually fill all ten slots without dipping into less than stellar material. You could say there was a stagnation, or a dry spell for much of the year. But, you could just as easily point to what are, for me, the big three: Merriweather Post Pavilion, Veckatimest, and Bitte Orca. Say what you will about the rest of this year's output, these albums are massive leaps forward. Merriweather may not be the single best album AC has put out, but it solidifies them as masters. Veckatimest is long and often spare, but lush and heartbreaking. And Bitte Orca is a nonstop revelation of joy.
    There's also a lot of records I haven't given an honest chance. I would love to write brilliant take downs of say, XX or Fever Ray, but I felt more ambivalence than anything. Even my least favorite band this year, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart weren't even much to hate. And there are just as many albums I thought were good or even great, but haven't yet fell in love with, like The Woods' Songs of Shame, Doom's Born Like This, Atlas Sound's Logos, No Age's Losing Feeling, Neon Indians Psychic Chasm, and of course number eleven on my list, Embryonic. And like any good year, I spent some time getting into older shit, like Dilla's Donuts, FlyLo's Los Angeles, T-Rex's The Slider, Extra Golden, Station to Station.  But for the hell of it, here we go, my top 10 favorites of 2009:


Diamond District-In The Ruff
No one I've actually met knows anything about this album, which is quite sad. With all the questions of Hip Hop's life or death this year, there were certainly some major milestones including Raekwon's return, Doom's return, Dilla's eternal presence over both hip hop and avant music, online mixtapes looking to eclipse albums in importance, Kanye Going robo-soul, Jay trying to kill robo-soul on one song while cashing in on it in others on the same album. But my favorite hip hop album I've heard this year seems blithely removed from the fray. Sure, there's Dilla's influence, Oddisee mixing shimmering hazed beauty with 90's boom-bap, and it is kinda like a mixtape, really more just a standard album released for free. Otherwise, this albums is in a world of it's own. It's a deft examination of the unshocking and unglamorous world we spend most of our time in. There's Bush era paranoia and distress mixed with Obama era optimism and anxiety, elegant but unshowy MC'ing over some fantastic beats, and a deep love for the genre. It may just be my rockist tendencies, but I couldn't help but fall hard for this one.

Wavves-Wavvves
You have to go back before this summer, before Nathan William's 'meltdown,' before the bloodshed to understand why this sounded so exciting when it came out. Better than the lofi-for-lofi-sake artists and their summery nostalgia, this album actually nails the bitter nihilism of idle youth. It sounds like something taking form, which is to say, not perfect. It's frequently antisocial and solipsistic, doesn't offer much in the way of good vibes. As bizarre as his trajectory has been this year, Nathan Williams has remained the real snot nosed nothing-to-lose punk this year. And despite all the setbacks, he's now in better position than ever touring with a tight backing band than can actually do his work the fierce live performance it deserves. I still have high hopes for this guy.

The Clientele-Bonfires on the Heath
I know I'm getting old and boring, but these gents are masters.

Tortoise-Beacons of Ancestorship
You know what can be a bummer? Having an album you love by one of your favorite hometown artists get a total pass of a review. You know what's the best revenge? Having said album sell all of its copies in one week. The dumbass who said this album is hermetically sealed is mistaking the bands demeanor for it's musical output. Aside from the one obligatory Doug McCombs helmed Ennio Morricone tribute, the album is the band's most focused and unrelenting release, and one that is quite aware of what's going on right now. Let's talk about those synth sounds, how unlike the icy and alienating synth wash presets everyone else's keyboards are stuck on this year, these are slice your brain open, pound you into submission, loud as fuck. And the beats. Herndon and McEntire push pull and stretch them, internalizing the chopped up sampler style into live playing and then, you know, fucking with them some more. So yeah, what I'm saying is, unless your not really into music, you probably don't want to miss this one.

Destroyer-Bay of Pigs EP
I wasn't sure I liked this when I first heard it. I wondered if Dan had really gone off the deep end this time, and whether or not I was really down with that. But it won me over in the end, and it may be one of my favorite things he's ever done. There's something free and easy in his delivery here, like he's actually having a good time out there at the pier or at the park. And goddamn if 10 minutes of Ambient Disco didn't just make me want even more out of him.

Kurt Vile-Childish Prodigy
Really, this pick stands in for several records the man has released in the last several months. From Constant Hitmaker's bedroom pop, to The Hunchback EP and it's swampy bombast, to this stellar muscular classic. I could easily pick apart his mix of am rock and Neil Young worship if the man wasn't so clever, so charming, and so dedicated to what he does. Seeing him live was a highlight of my year.

The Clams-Mindbanging
I'm not just being nice to my friends.  This isn't even technically a 2009 release, I don't care.  The Clams dominate.

Grizzly Bear-Veckatimest
Beautiful.

Animal Collective-Merriweather Post Pavillion
Beautiful and you can dance to it. I actually haven't listened to this as much as I thought I would, because it feels so much like a special event. When it came out last winter, I felt essential, like I needed this album to exist to get through to May, and I may have just overplayed it. I may be returning to it for sanity sake pretty soon here. We can quibble where this album ranks in their discography, but choosing one of their albums over another other would be pretty pointless. But this year, there's only one other album that I've let slip under my skin as much as this one.

The Dirty Projectors-Bitte Orca
Oh my fucking god. It's over. When that guitar comes down on "Another Chamber" and shit hits the fan and every sound goes into spasmodic fits, it's one of those pure essential musical moments for me. This is where I check out from objective debate, or even from subjective analysis. The feeling this album gives me is something I wish I could telepathically transmit to everyone I know. I don't care if there's basically a Nico cover song on it, I don't care if the last track is a buzzkill ending. More albums should be made at this level of creativity and musicianship, more albums should work as hard and risk failing and turn out sounding as bat shit insane as this one. Fuck the haters, I believe in this band.

All in all, not the worst year for music. Despite having a kind of eneven year, I still feel like we're living in the middle of a solid period for music making. That may not feel as exciting as being at the beginning of a new era, but it's not as depressing as feeling your at the logical end of something. And as far as the aughties, it may not have been the best decade, but it was nothing of not interesting.

Merry Christmas everyone.