Gaga Gives a 'Go'

Since yesterday, Lady Gaga has given her blessing for "Perform This Way" to be included on Weird Al Yankovic's upcoming album. Reports differ on who started the fracas, but in any case the matter is settled.

I'm glad she approves, as the song is a funny one that reminds me of Al's "Smells Like Nirvana" in the way that it makes fun of the stylistic tics of the artist in question.

Gah!Gah!

Andrew Sullivan doesn't much care for Lady Gaga's new single and its Catholic League-baiting, nor Gaga herself:

This latest "diva" is a costume in search of musical innovation. And what's dismaying about this latest stunt is not its bravery (ha!) or its wit (please) but its dumb derivative barrel-scraping predictability. Madonna was sometimes prey to this, but a song and video like "Like A Prayer" actually did assert a form of spirituality that challenged a church grown stale. It had its moments. Gaga is a pale, plagiarizing echo of this. There's a particularly irritating appropriation of gay culture for general consumption, perhaps guiltily over-compensated by Gaga's crashing every gay rights event known to man. Perhaps this happens with every civil rights movement. In the end, the outsiders raid the insiders and give it back to them at 0.99 cents on iTunes. And I sure wouldn't stop anyone on this well-trodden path.

The appropriation of the gay rights movement doesn't much bug me; it's a generational thing, I suspect. Growing up in the shadow of of the AIDS epidemic instead of in the midst of it will do that. But the mistake here is in trying to take Gaga at all seriously. She's a disposable pop star making disposable--and so, so danceable--pop music, and she makes no apologies for it. Her gay rights activism is, like Glenn Beck and right wing paranoia, a happy marriage of conviction and commerce.

Gaga's calculated absurdity and queer audience cultivation have until now kept her ever-present in the public consciousness. But the two approaches are fundamentally at odds: the former is cool and cynical marketing, the latter impassioned and earnest. So when she birthed (hatched?) to the world "Born This Way," a gay pride anthem steeped in hip-shaking synths and Madonna homage (if not outright theft), one had to ask, "Is she serious?" It's the Shepard Fairey contradiction.

"Judas" has the opposite problem. Best interpreted as another bad romance song--it's cast from the same mold, right down to the chorus 'WhoooOOOOooooOOOOaaaa' and Gaga name-dropping in the babbley opening--the manufactured controversy of its provocative lyrics and Easter video release date smacks of trying too hard to get attention (her detractors would probably say it's been so all along). This happened to Marilyn Manson a decade ago and, more recently, to Sarah Palin. Eventually they pushed the boundaries farther than they could reach.



This is hardly the end of Gaga's career, and perhaps these latest missteps are just a hiccup. But I find it telling that one so aware of how the music industry operates would to refuse to allow Weird Al Yankovic to use his spot-on parody "Perform This Way" as the lead single off his next album. Such an honor is reserved for those who have "made it," which no one doubts Lady Gaga has. But where does go from there? One has to wonder how a figure whose public existence is premised on deconstructing the glittering ephemera of pop music, will grapple with her own eventual destruction.

Bad Influences

One of many new experiences I've had from the culture shock of working in a DC kitchen has been regular exposure to rap music by way of a communal iPod player. I've never much cared for the stuff myself, but hearing it day in and day out, I can't help but come to appreciate some of it.

I'd heard plenty about 50 Cent, for instance, and had in fact heard several of his songs here and there, without knowing it was him.

I mean, "In Da Club" was frocking inescapable, both in the sense that the song was everywhere, and that it stays in your head like it's supposed to:



Similarly, I've heard Pitbull's "I Know I Know You Want Me" at bars and clubs, but now that I know what it actually is, I actually kinda really dig it in a guilty pleasure way:



I like this stuff in spite of myself, but bad influences are a two way street. A couple days ago I asked to switch to a Pandora station of something I wanted to listen to. This included some heavy metal:



I thought that would be the end of it, but no! Today one of the other cooks sought out a heavy metal station entirely on his own:



And suddenly I was air guitaring, transported back to my high school bedroom and 18 years old again.

There's not much else to say, except perhaps that I hope I'm a little less snobby about music than I used to be.

Carter Burwell Mix

My brain has been scrambled throughout this long day, so how about some music selections to change things up? I've just downloaded (for $5.99!) Carter Burwell's score for True Grit, and I feel like putting up some my favorite pieces to come out of his many contributions to the Coen Brothers' films.





The themes for Miller's Crossing and Fargo are endlessly listenable, and yet such odd pieces: quite stirring--lyrical?--and moving, they sound like they'd go well in the trailer for an uplifting Oscar-bait film, when the actual movies they belong to are decidedly off-beat and quite dark and nasty. There's undercurrents of that darkness in both pieces, which creates a juxtaposition that makes them so interesting.



"Wie Glauben" is one of the few originals contributed to the soundtrack for The Big Lebowski. It serves as the music for the German Nihilists when they've torched The Dude's car, and it is "by" them as well, belonging as they do to a Kraftwerk-styled electronica group, Autobahn and blasting the piece from their boombox in the parking lot. I know it's kind of a parody of such music, but I find it strangely compelling all the same.



The opening theme for Burn After Reading is even goofier, for, like the film it serves, it's making a lot of noise for what really is nothing at all. Music that is in itself funny--not a funny song with funny lyrics, but where the music itself elicits laughter--is hard to find, and maybe without the movie to provide context the humor of this is lost. But in any case, its over-the-top 'action-y' quality makes me smile.



The score for True Grit is based off a number of 19th century Protestant hymnals, and for this reason the Academy disqualified it from being nominated for an Oscar. Their loss. It's lovely work, and the religious inspiration meshes well with the film's redemption of Rooster Cogburn. "Little Blackie" is short and simple, a good example from a terrific score.

A Bedtime Lullaby

The Tempest post from earlier prompted me to go to YouTube to track down some of Goldenthal's other stuff. His score from The Butcher Boy, one of his best for its dementedness and how it complement the movie, is strangely absent. There is, however, the lovely Sinead O' Connor version of the song, "The Butcher Boy":



It's been stuck in my head all day.

The Tempest Score Preview

Elliot Goldenthal's Facebook page is streaming samples from his Tempest score. The "indie rock" influence makes for an interesting listen, for sure. Goldenthal's oddball orchestration mixed with some loopy electric guitar, with some occasional straight-up chugga-chugga boom-boom riffing.

I think "Hell is Empty" is my favorite right now, in the way it takes some of Goldenthal's familiar arpeggio stylings--start listening around 3:30 here to get a sense of what I'm talking about--and taps them on a guitar and.... Ah, just go and listen.

You're Dutiful

James Blunt explains how he prevented World War III:

Blunt was ordered to seize an airfield - but the Russians had got there first.

In an interview with BBC Radio 5Live, to be broadcast later on Sunday, he said: "I was given the direct command to overpower the 200 or so Russians who were there...."

....Asked if following the order would have risked starting World War 3, Blunt, who was a 25-year-old cavalry officer at the time, replied: "Absolutely. And that's why we were querying our instruction from an American general".

"Fortunately, up on the radio came General Mike Jackson, whose exact words at the time were, 'I'm not going to have my soldiers be responsible for starting World War 3', and told us why don't we sugar off down the road, you know, encircle the airfield instead.

One suspects Blunt saved the world so his bland soft rock could conquer it instead.



h/t Jesse

Prince is a National Treasure.

Jay Leno, not so much.



Just sayin'.

Elliot Goldenthal's Othello Opera

I really need to see this in full:



His score for Julie Taymor's adaptation of The Tempest comes out sometime in December.

Geek Alert

I never realized how awesome the electronica-ish soundtrack for X-Men 2: Clone Wars for the Sega Genesis was until I stumbled across some of these.

Pretty Great Machine

I’ve yet to see David Fincher’s The Social Network, though I hope to by the time the new week is out (the wages of living in an isolated mountain town, a situation that will soon be remedied). Instead I’ve been digesting the film’s soundtrack, a collaboration between Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Ross I know next to nothing about, but I’ve enjoyed Nine Inch Nails for several years. The Social Network soundtrack is an especial treat then, as I think it’s the best thing Reznor’s done in a long time.

Being entirely instrumental, its most obvious kin in Reznor’s discography is the Nine Inch Nails double album Ghosts, which Ross had a hand in. There are said to be a couple reworked tracks from Ghosts ("A Familiar Taste" and "Magnetic", for instance) though the only one I've noticed is the low synth melody that drives "In Motion," which starts off sounding like the deep piano dirge of 32 Ghosts IV and immediately twists it into something much bouncier. Though direct lifts and reworkings from Ghosts are less than occasional, the album as a whole shares its dark ambiance, but tosses in some synth-poppy elements and is much more focused. Freed of Reznor's too often juvenile lyrics, the music is given room and attention to shine that hasn't been heard since The Fragile, over ten years ago.

There really aren't any bad tracks among the 19 included. Some standouts include the tension-building "Intriguing Possibilities" and the aforementioned "In Motion," whose jaunty low synth is danced around by what at times almost sounds like a coins sound effect from a Mario game. The primary melody of "Pieces Form the Whole," my favorite track, brings to mind Kraftwerk's "Computer Love" and, ludicrously, the Zeal Theme from Chrono Trigger (listen to how the melodies in these all resolve themselves). The reworking of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" is a delight, and "Magnetic" builds up to include some great driving, jangling guitars. The last three tracks are quite different in tone, going from the self-explanatory "Complication With Optimistic Outcome" to the brooding "The Gentle Hum of Anxiety" to a sort of resigned sadness in "Soft Trees Break the Fall." I'm most looking forward to hearing these three in the context of the movie, but the music as a whole is so strong, it'll be interesting to see how it complements David Fincher's visuals and Aaron Sorkin's story.

The past few days I've been putting the soundtrack for The Social Network on in the background only to have my attention caught by a musical hook or some interesting texture in the songs. It's just that good, and the Amazon download price of $5 (I got it for $3 in the initial 48-hour release window) borders on larceny. But that's how Trent Reznor wants it, and for that he should be friended.

On Radio

Not a terribly important thought, but I have to listen to Sirius Satellite Radio all day at work, and over the months I've come to hate the host of 60s on 6, Cousin Brucie. He's a loud, egotistical--he has a jingle to advertise and announce the start of his show. Who does that?--motormouth who says a lot without actually saying anything. Worse yet, his show doesn't seem to deviate in any significant way from the station's typical programming.

Now Bob Dylan--there's a host. With a 'cool, daddio' beatnik drawl that can enliven even the most mundane of observations ("If I make music in my garaaage, does that make me a garaaage band?"). His show on The Spectrum is always fun to listen to when I do manage to catch it, and his song selection, mostly old folk and country, is a great respite from the otherwise dreadfully boring modern soft rock The Spectrum specializes in.

He's got better taste than the Spectrum "tastemakers."

Download These Songs?

(This is a long post. About Weird Al Yankovic. Because I can do whatever I want on my blog.)

Weird Al Yankovic has been more sensitive than most popular musicians to the changes in the media landscape over the past decade. Like all of them, he has had to figure out how to deal with online piracy. The industry, though concerned about the rise of Napster, was still doing well in 2000, and so Running With Scissors was a “conventional” album, without any extra features. By 2003 Napster was dead but a multitude of file-sharing programs sprung up in its place, and so Weird Al’s Poodle Hat included some, remixes, photos, and home videos to encourage people to buy the CD. 2006’s Straight Outta Lynnwood continued this trend by including on the other side of the disc a DVD with a 5.1 mix of the album, karaoke tracks, and high-quality videos for five of the songs, animated by some major names like Robot Chicken’s Seth Green and Ren & Stimpy creator John K. (It also had for its last song a delicious “We are the World”-style track called “Don’t Download This Song.”) The album went gold, so he must have been doing something right.

But along with rapid technological changes—in some ways, because of them—Weird Al has also had to contend with the atomization of the pop culture landscape. Few groups command the attention that Madonna and Michael Jackson did at the beginning of Al’s career, which makes for an almost complete dearth of targets for parody that a general audience would recognize; the fact is, there hardly exists a general audience anymore. And with the rise of YouTube and internet memes, pop culture is moving faster than before, increasing the challenge Al has always had, parodying the songs of yesteryear and trying to keep it timely.

Success has been more mixed on this front. Poodle Hat included a Backstreet Boys “I Want it That Way” parody about Ebay that was years too late, and Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,” redone as “Couch Potato,” was amusing, but it covered familiar ground (there’s a whole Weird Al compilation album about TV-based songs). Straight Outta Lynnwood was a much stronger album, even though the most recognizable song parodied (“American Idiot,” which became “Canadian Idiot,” natch) was by a 15 year-old pop-punk group. It helped that all of the songs, even the artist-stylistic parodies not based on any single song, had very particular targets to focus the lyrics’ silliness.

Since then Al has decided to release his music exclusively online, often on a track-by-track basis, the better to capture the zeitgeist of the week. Internet Leaks, which I only just found out a few days ago even though the songs have all been out for a year or more, is an online EP of five songs put out over the past couple years, put together in anticipation of a full album that is supposed to be released this year (last year?). I hope Al is saving the best tracks for the album, because the material here is all over the place.

As a song about being poor in the midst of the present economy, “Whatever You Like,” conceptually, has potential, and there are some funny likes (“Yo my wallet’s fat/Full of ones/It’s all about the Washingtons”). But the structure of the original song, also called “Whatever You Like” by T.I. (who?), straightjackets it with too many repeated phrases where there could be rhymes, and the name-dropping of things like HBO and Kinko’s is distracting.

“Craigslist” covers a lot of the same territory as Ebay, strange items to buy and sell online, and so is lyrically disappointing. But the song is a stylistic parody of the Doors, and a pretty good one too. Al does a surprisingly good Jim Morrison and the band does a pretty spot-on replication of the group’s signature keyboard-guitar mixture—Ray Manzarek guest keyboards!— and this ends up being enough to make it entertaining.

“Skipper Dan,” about a failed actor, is the best song of the five. The name-dropping here is almost exclusively movie- and theatre-based, which makes for some unexpected and funny rhymes: “The critics, they used to say/I was the new Olivier.” The bounciness of the music—a riff on Weezer, according to Wikipedia, final authority on everything—also makes for a nice contrast to the lyrics’ dourness. Bonus points for mentioning Speed the Plow.

The remaining two songs are throwaways. “CNR,” a White Stripes take-off, is about a man’s impressive accomplishments, sort of like Chuck Norris but merely randomly silly instead of reality-bendingly ridiculous. “Ringtone” doesn’t have much anywhere to go lyrically–no one likes Al’s ringtone—and as an attempt at mimicking Queen musically, it lacks the group’s lush song construction and Freddy Mercury’s camp theatricality.

Weird Al is at his best when he picks topics that either everyone is familiar with (Star Wars Episode 1 mashed up with “American Pie” for “The Saga Begins” is probably the best example), or that are at least specific enough that the ridiculousness and scattershot references come naturally (think nerd culture mixed with gangsta rap tropes in “White and Nerdy”). Too often here he just reaches for the goofy, such as CNR’s “He trained a rattlesnake to do his laundry,” that isn’t grounded in anything. This is, as mentioned, harder than ever to do, but in a world of Lady Gaga and Twilight—imagine, “Stokerface”!—it’s certainly not impossible. I’m still looking forward to the album.