Wednesday, April 17
The "Hot for May" Sound
Every summer needs its summer albums – sun-drenched discs that just beg to be played incessantly and become a soundtrack for your backyard barbecues, beach-bound traffic jams, and late-August-night outdoor pontification sessions. It’s been feeling a lot like summer lately, in case you haven’t noticed, and I’ve been listening an awful lot to these two records. Like any reasonable summer album, they are both very accessible, incredibly catchy, more or less danceable, upbeat, and an insane amount of fun. Coming soon to a pool party near you…
Super Furry Animals Rings Around the World (Beggars/XL 2002)
I used to think that the Beastie Boys probably had more fun than anyone else in the world. Now I'm not so sure. The Super Furry Animals are a Welsh quintet known for such antics as riding around in blue tanks, landing a song with over fifty utterances of the word "fuck" in the UK top 25, and releasing the highest-selling Welsh-language album in history; they seem like they probably enjoy themselves pretty well. More importantly than that, as we all know, is the ability to share that fun with the rest of us. And, without a doubt, the Animals have learned how to share. Like the Beastie Boys, the SFAs are excellent bricoleurs. In the way that some music geeks like to sit down with a copy of Paul's Boutique and play name-that-sample, Rings Around the World, the Superfurries' latest opus, would make for a lovely afternoon of reference-spotting and influence-citing. Start with a glance at some of the track titles - "Sidewalk Serfer Girl," "Happiness is a Worn Pun," "All the Shit U Do," for instance, clearly point to a few influences, and the lyrics contain many more (a reference to "the midnight train to Jordan.") The music is similarly referential and eclectic: "Juxtapozed with U" is tropicalia-cheeze, replete with vocoders; "Receptacle for the Respectable," which features Sir Paul McCartney on carrot-crunching duties, is classic pop fare ending in a surprise self-described "pantomime death metal" chant, "No Sympathy" starts as a spare, folky plaint, chugs ahead and layers on the chorus harmonies (which manage to make the line "you deserve to die" sound utterly beautiful), and then switches gears without warning to become a Squarepusher-style bleeps-and-the-blips freakout; the instrumental "[A] Touch Sensitive" is Portishead-ish spy-movie hip-hop with strings and Stooges samples. But this is not to suggest that the album is merely a pastiche of pop-culture allusions and genre exercises. Despite plenty of experimenting with technology - and a couple instances of just plain rocking out (check the title track) - the predominant style of lush, melodic pop, usually with tight vocal harmonies à la the Beach Boys (they invented the male pop vocal group, er, right?) prevent the record from feeling disjointed. As for issues of originality, there is no question that there is an incredible amount of creativity here. Unlike other groups who draw heavily on the music of the 60's and 70's - Spacehog, the London Suede (both of whose lead singers share with the Superfurries' Gruff Rhys an often uncanny similarity to David Bowie), and the Apples in Stereo, to name a few that resonate here - the SFAs could never be written off as simple retro-revivalists; as much for their sheer inventiveness as for their obvious commitment to the present day. This comes through in their politics - the album's title is a reference to cell-phone noise-pollution, and various tracks here take on the death penalty, global warming, and televangelists (not to mention "Presidential Suite," which is scores of times more subtle than the countless Bill'n'Monica anthems circulated on Napster) - as well as their modern production values and their interest in technology. Rings Around the World, which in its delayed US comes with a bonus disc of seven more terrific tunes, is also available in a 5.1 Surround Sound track and videos for the entire album (some of which hopefully echo the adorable videogame album artwork.) For all their conscious artsyness, though, the Super Furry Animals - like all of the bands I've mentioned in this review, excepting probably Portishead - put the premium on fun. And I haven't had this much fun in ages.
rating: 10/10
Cornershop Handcream for a Generation (Wiija/Beggars 2002)
For a while there it looked like Cornershop had arrived on the scene for good. Not only was their indelible pop anthem "Brimful of Asha" (a tribute Bollywood rather than to bosoms, though nobody seemed to know that) in heavy rotation on MTV and, thanks to a pitch-perfect remix by Fatboy Slim, the dance clubs, but the critics seemed hep to it too. Spin (no longer the arbiter of cool it once was, at least in my neck of the woods) ranked 1997’s When I Was Born for the Seventh Time somewhere in the mid-30s on their best of the 90’s list, and it seemed like funky days were back again. I, for one, was somewhat miffed when Disco and the Halfway to Discontent, the incredibly infectious, definitely deserving 2000 release by head ‘shopper Tjinder Singh’s side project Clinton, met with critical apathy. I understood that the beat-heavy direction of that release was probably not calculated to appeal to critics who had applauded When I Was Born’s amalgamation of South Asian sounds, political consciousness, and summery pop. And I fear that the latest release from the crew (back under the Cornershop moniker this time, although I can’t tell exactly how much of this is more Tjinder’s baby – and the plethora of guest appearances and genre-shifting make this feel like less of a "band" effort anyway) won’t be doing them any favors in that department. But, to be honest, who cares. The boys seem to know what they want to do, critical acclaim be damned, and, like some other bands I could mention, they have a ton of fun doing it. Handcream for a Generation trades in the marginally more comprehensible political rallying of When I Was Born for a plethora of nonsense catchphrases about "making the dope dope and the dope dope" and "the overgrown supershit." Those are quotes from two of the records most immediately catchy (and ridiculously titled) numbers: respectively, "Staging the Plaguing of the Raised Platform" (whose refrain features a housy synth-line and a children’s chorus, making for a kind of Daft Punk-meets-Langley Schools effect) and "Lessons Learned from Rocky I to Rocky III" (the first single, with an irresistable guitar riff in the vein of "Brown Sugar.") They also do that thing of repeating their song titles in other songs, as in the techno-stomp "Music Plus 1" and the dub reggae "Motion the 11," which reference one another so much that it’s hard to remember which is which, and also in the red-hot Memphis soul of the album-opening "Heavy Soup," which includes a showtime-at-the-Apollo spoken welcome by Otis Clay (who, astute observers will remember, was himself welcomed to Tokio on the Clinton record a few years back.) The most lyrically coherent track is probably a rather uninspiring reworking of the Clinton ode to social-equality-through-dancing anthem "People Power in the Disco Hour." Basically, these aren’t the most serious lyrics ever committed to record, and the music is nearly as silly as the words. But, you know, that’s okay. For one thing, it’s danceable – the 80’s-pop and techno-cheese of Disco and the Halfway have left their mark, and this disc includes collaborations with DJ Rob Swift of the X-Men for some hip-hop fun as well. And at least they keep things interesting – even the 14-minute sitar-drenched epic "Spectral Mornings," one of the few tracks to feature the South Asian instrumentation and Hindi lyrics that have been a key component of past Cornershop albums, never gets too boring. Handcream for a Generation is not the most consistent album imaginable – the latter half sometimes sinks to mere novelty and retreads of past achievements ("Slip the Drummer One" resurrects the computerized voice of "Disco"’s "Hip Hop Bricks") – nor the most revelatory. But it’s got plenty to make me happy. Why can’t those critics just lighten up?
rating: 8/10
Every summer needs its summer albums – sun-drenched discs that just beg to be played incessantly and become a soundtrack for your backyard barbecues, beach-bound traffic jams, and late-August-night outdoor pontification sessions. It’s been feeling a lot like summer lately, in case you haven’t noticed, and I’ve been listening an awful lot to these two records. Like any reasonable summer album, they are both very accessible, incredibly catchy, more or less danceable, upbeat, and an insane amount of fun. Coming soon to a pool party near you…
Super Furry Animals Rings Around the World (Beggars/XL 2002)
I used to think that the Beastie Boys probably had more fun than anyone else in the world. Now I'm not so sure. The Super Furry Animals are a Welsh quintet known for such antics as riding around in blue tanks, landing a song with over fifty utterances of the word "fuck" in the UK top 25, and releasing the highest-selling Welsh-language album in history; they seem like they probably enjoy themselves pretty well. More importantly than that, as we all know, is the ability to share that fun with the rest of us. And, without a doubt, the Animals have learned how to share. Like the Beastie Boys, the SFAs are excellent bricoleurs. In the way that some music geeks like to sit down with a copy of Paul's Boutique and play name-that-sample, Rings Around the World, the Superfurries' latest opus, would make for a lovely afternoon of reference-spotting and influence-citing. Start with a glance at some of the track titles - "Sidewalk Serfer Girl," "Happiness is a Worn Pun," "All the Shit U Do," for instance, clearly point to a few influences, and the lyrics contain many more (a reference to "the midnight train to Jordan.") The music is similarly referential and eclectic: "Juxtapozed with U" is tropicalia-cheeze, replete with vocoders; "Receptacle for the Respectable," which features Sir Paul McCartney on carrot-crunching duties, is classic pop fare ending in a surprise self-described "pantomime death metal" chant, "No Sympathy" starts as a spare, folky plaint, chugs ahead and layers on the chorus harmonies (which manage to make the line "you deserve to die" sound utterly beautiful), and then switches gears without warning to become a Squarepusher-style bleeps-and-the-blips freakout; the instrumental "[A] Touch Sensitive" is Portishead-ish spy-movie hip-hop with strings and Stooges samples. But this is not to suggest that the album is merely a pastiche of pop-culture allusions and genre exercises. Despite plenty of experimenting with technology - and a couple instances of just plain rocking out (check the title track) - the predominant style of lush, melodic pop, usually with tight vocal harmonies à la the Beach Boys (they invented the male pop vocal group, er, right?) prevent the record from feeling disjointed. As for issues of originality, there is no question that there is an incredible amount of creativity here. Unlike other groups who draw heavily on the music of the 60's and 70's - Spacehog, the London Suede (both of whose lead singers share with the Superfurries' Gruff Rhys an often uncanny similarity to David Bowie), and the Apples in Stereo, to name a few that resonate here - the SFAs could never be written off as simple retro-revivalists; as much for their sheer inventiveness as for their obvious commitment to the present day. This comes through in their politics - the album's title is a reference to cell-phone noise-pollution, and various tracks here take on the death penalty, global warming, and televangelists (not to mention "Presidential Suite," which is scores of times more subtle than the countless Bill'n'Monica anthems circulated on Napster) - as well as their modern production values and their interest in technology. Rings Around the World, which in its delayed US comes with a bonus disc of seven more terrific tunes, is also available in a 5.1 Surround Sound track and videos for the entire album (some of which hopefully echo the adorable videogame album artwork.) For all their conscious artsyness, though, the Super Furry Animals - like all of the bands I've mentioned in this review, excepting probably Portishead - put the premium on fun. And I haven't had this much fun in ages.
rating: 10/10
Cornershop Handcream for a Generation (Wiija/Beggars 2002)
For a while there it looked like Cornershop had arrived on the scene for good. Not only was their indelible pop anthem "Brimful of Asha" (a tribute Bollywood rather than to bosoms, though nobody seemed to know that) in heavy rotation on MTV and, thanks to a pitch-perfect remix by Fatboy Slim, the dance clubs, but the critics seemed hep to it too. Spin (no longer the arbiter of cool it once was, at least in my neck of the woods) ranked 1997’s When I Was Born for the Seventh Time somewhere in the mid-30s on their best of the 90’s list, and it seemed like funky days were back again. I, for one, was somewhat miffed when Disco and the Halfway to Discontent, the incredibly infectious, definitely deserving 2000 release by head ‘shopper Tjinder Singh’s side project Clinton, met with critical apathy. I understood that the beat-heavy direction of that release was probably not calculated to appeal to critics who had applauded When I Was Born’s amalgamation of South Asian sounds, political consciousness, and summery pop. And I fear that the latest release from the crew (back under the Cornershop moniker this time, although I can’t tell exactly how much of this is more Tjinder’s baby – and the plethora of guest appearances and genre-shifting make this feel like less of a "band" effort anyway) won’t be doing them any favors in that department. But, to be honest, who cares. The boys seem to know what they want to do, critical acclaim be damned, and, like some other bands I could mention, they have a ton of fun doing it. Handcream for a Generation trades in the marginally more comprehensible political rallying of When I Was Born for a plethora of nonsense catchphrases about "making the dope dope and the dope dope" and "the overgrown supershit." Those are quotes from two of the records most immediately catchy (and ridiculously titled) numbers: respectively, "Staging the Plaguing of the Raised Platform" (whose refrain features a housy synth-line and a children’s chorus, making for a kind of Daft Punk-meets-Langley Schools effect) and "Lessons Learned from Rocky I to Rocky III" (the first single, with an irresistable guitar riff in the vein of "Brown Sugar.") They also do that thing of repeating their song titles in other songs, as in the techno-stomp "Music Plus 1" and the dub reggae "Motion the 11," which reference one another so much that it’s hard to remember which is which, and also in the red-hot Memphis soul of the album-opening "Heavy Soup," which includes a showtime-at-the-Apollo spoken welcome by Otis Clay (who, astute observers will remember, was himself welcomed to Tokio on the Clinton record a few years back.) The most lyrically coherent track is probably a rather uninspiring reworking of the Clinton ode to social-equality-through-dancing anthem "People Power in the Disco Hour." Basically, these aren’t the most serious lyrics ever committed to record, and the music is nearly as silly as the words. But, you know, that’s okay. For one thing, it’s danceable – the 80’s-pop and techno-cheese of Disco and the Halfway have left their mark, and this disc includes collaborations with DJ Rob Swift of the X-Men for some hip-hop fun as well. And at least they keep things interesting – even the 14-minute sitar-drenched epic "Spectral Mornings," one of the few tracks to feature the South Asian instrumentation and Hindi lyrics that have been a key component of past Cornershop albums, never gets too boring. Handcream for a Generation is not the most consistent album imaginable – the latter half sometimes sinks to mere novelty and retreads of past achievements ("Slip the Drummer One" resurrects the computerized voice of "Disco"’s "Hip Hop Bricks") – nor the most revelatory. But it’s got plenty to make me happy. Why can’t those critics just lighten up?
rating: 8/10
