tunequest

I’m currently listening to Foo Fighters 2005 double-album, In Your Honor, and for some reason, it feels like a chore. Foo Fighters has been a perennial-favorite band around these parts, but, starting with There’s Nothing Left to Lose, each album gets increasingly more disappointing. and that’s ironic, because the band’s popularity and mainstream success seems to be inversely proportional to its slide toward mediocrity.

I don’t know if Dave and company are simply having a shortage of ideas or if it’s a matter of production values. My general feeling is that it’s the latter. The songwriting is generally on the up-and-up though there’s nothing like everlong or oh, george or even stacked actors, but In Your Honor, much like One by One before it, gives off the strong impression of being over-produced. Not so much on the acoustic second disc, but the first “hard rock” disc reeks of it. The mixing just plain smells bad and dave’s vocals are lost in the mud.

The first few Foo Fighters albums benefited from the rough edges provided by Dave Grohl doing all the work himself. Those records have an caution-to-the-wind, do-it-yourself spirit, and were even released on Dave’s own label (Roswell records). but most importantly, they were a little bit quirky and a lot of fun.

Somewhere during the There’s Nothing Left to Lose era, however, it seems that the band somehow earned corporate credibility. It even won a Grammy for Best Rock Album. I’m not the kind of person who cries "sellout!" when someone finds success, but it’s around this time that Foo Fighters’ sound and attitude changed, becoming more polished and increasingly likely to be the "go to" band for "mainstream media" rock events. In 2006, it’s really not that hard to imagine Foo Fighters splitting the bill with Aerosmith to headline a Superbowl halftime show. Oooo, I know that’s cold, but think about it, would you be surprised by that?

If i were a meaner person, I might suggest that the band has intentionally watered-down its sound in order to court commercial success (c’mon, a duet with norah jones??). But I’m not that guy. I’d rather just listen to the music and hope that the band turns it around.

Stopped by Pizzicato Five’s 1994 american debut, Made in USA this morning. it’s a compilation of the better songs that had already been released in japan during the group’s 8 year existence. In fact, combined with the excellent Five by Five ep (released around the same time), this is P5’s first stab at greatness. Pizzicato Five is a group that can take a simple idea and toy with it, remix it, play with it, re-arrange it and reference it in so many divergent ways, but somehow keep it accessible, cohesive and interesting. Plus, the group is so seemingly happy in its approach to chic enthusiastically detached, as i’ve said before, that being cool was never this much fun.

The score to the first Men in Black motion picture features the usual trademark quirkiness one would expect from composer Danny Elfman. This soundtrack is good, with stellar opening and closing title suites as well as good thematic material and interesting action cues. The score also noteworthy in that it’s one of the earliest examples that I can think of that mixes electronic percussion with a full-scale orchestra.

For a brief time in early 2002, the dismemberment plan may have actually cracked its way into the much coveted position of current-favorite-band, and i think i was just reminded why: ‘the ice of boston.’

returned from florida today. a couple highlights: air’s moon safari. that record gets better everytime i listen to it, like a fine wine that improves with age, or how the fox theatre seems to keep getting cooler just by continuing to exist. every song on that album is a masterpiece.

then there was kish kash, the most recent (2003) basement jaxx album (hey isn’t it time for a new one?). when i first got this one, it took me a while to really get into it and i continue to think that it is drastically uneven in its quality, but, ‘good luck,’  ‘right here’s the spot’ and ‘plug it in’ are among the best tracks in the duo’s catalog. ‘plug it in’ manages to succeed in spite of the n*sync connection.

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in tunequest news, i figured out how to use excel’s linear regression tools to calculate more precise trendlines.

as you can see, the results aren’t pretty. this newly-accurate line predicts that i’ll have listened to 12,000 songs by the end of the year, about 2000 short of my goal. and, at the rate i’m going, i’m not weeding enough from my library; i’ll still be 500-1000 short. i guess all i can really do is re-double (quadruple?) my efforts again.

This isn't directly tunequest related, but it does involve an iPod, so it's close enough. You can read the U.S. Constitution using the iPod's Notes feature.

I like history, so that's cool.

i said yesterday that i'm convinced that jim o'rourke is a musical genius. at the time i was simply talking about his compositions. but i spun through his 2001 album insignificance today and i submit that the same applies to his lyrics as well. see this site for a full list (plus discography and other extras. it can be slow loading), but i like these lines in particular:

Listening to you, reminds me of
A motor’s endless drone
And how the deaf are so damn lucky

-Memory Lame

It’s about a 350 mile drive from Atlanta to the florida panhandle (represent!) and it, without fail, rains in alabama every time. That’s not hyperbole; i’ve made the drive there and back 3-4 times a year for the past 4 years and literally, it rains at some point on I-85 or I-65.

as the skies went from downpour to sprinkles along the route to montgomery, my ipod provided a most suitable soundtrack: Saint etienne’s b-side album fairfax high.

At this point, i don’t really remember how i stumbled upon the band, though i think i may have confused them with etienne de crecy from a remix of air’s ’sexy boy.’ irregardless of the source, fairfax high was the first saint etienne album i heard (march 2000) and it impressed me enough that i was hooked.

i’ve always liked b-sides and b-side albums because of the new perspective they provide on a band. some of my favorite songs in many bands’ catalogs are b-sides, and saint etienne is no different. ‘hit the brakes’ and ‘hill street connection’ are both standout tracks from this collection.

First off today, Jim O'rourke's i'm happy, and i'm singing, and a 1, 2, 3 , 4, which consists of precisely three songs of significant length, one for each of the phrases in the album title. O'rourke is a musical genius and I'm convinced that if he had lived 100 years ago he would have been a master composer.

This album is a bit of departure for him. Principally known for his work in the rock mode (and his sometimes membership in Sonic Youth), this record seems to channel nobukazu takemura and is far more experimental in nature. Droning and glitch-filled, but not harsh. Very mellow and relaxing. It's further evidence that everything he touches turns to musical gold.

Rounding out today: some nice beats and trumpet work from dj krush and the sweeping soulfulness of the cinematic orchestra.