PopMatters: The 15 Best Red Hot Chili Peppers Songs

My new PopMatters article in which I try to find 15 Red Hot Chili Peppers songs worth listening to:
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/146158-the-15-best-red-hot-chili-peppers-songs#disqus_thread

PopMatters: tUnE-yArDs Performs with the Roots on 'Late Night with Jimmy Fallon'

If you haven't heard of tUnE-yArDs, they're worth checking out--this clip from Fallon is a good intro ... definitely my favorite band of the moment
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/145715-tune-yards-performs-with-the-roots-on-late-night-with-jimmy-fallon/

Record Review: Cults (Cults, 2011)

On the surface, Manhattan-based indie-pop duo Cults is just another in a series of bands trying to repackage any number of “cute” sounds and trite lyrics from early 1960s girl-pop groups for a new generation. All of the typical signposts are there: Phil Spector-ish, dreamy soundscapes; boy-girl lead vocals; lyrics about going out in the sun and spying on one’s secret crushes; surfboard guitar sounds; a xylophone that doubles the melody on their lead single. Listen deeper, though, and you realize that there’s something creatively creepy about this “feel-good” pop band.

The group’s darker qualities are hinted at in their name. Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin have an odd fascination with dictators, cult leaders, and other dark figures of history. Their debut record is peppered with audio samples from speeches by the likes of Jim Jones. The Isaiah Seret-directed video for the breakthrough song “Go Outside” features images of obliviously blissful Jonestown residents singing and dancing their hearts out intercut seamlessly with footage of the band members performing the song. The film stock looks so similar that it’s impossible to distinguish between the modern and archival footage. It’s as if Oblivion and Follin have joined the People’s Temple.

The question, then, is what exactly are Cults up to with their curious juxtaposition of happy-go-lucky pop sounds and imagery from crazed charismatic cult leaders? Are they being artistically inventive, or simply exploitative?

They’re bringing a fresh, risky approach to an overworked genre. Their songs might not really be about being victims of an oppressive cult, but rather what’s it like to be in a relationship that feels restrictive. Take the opening track, “Abducted.” One could read the key lines either as a metaphor about being “swept off one’s feet” by love, or a description of an actual abduction: “I knew right then that she’d been abducted / I knew right then that I would be breaking her heart / I knew right then that I’d never love her / The reasons I hope the dream hasn’t left her scarred.” It’s this central tension that makes this ambiguous band stand apart from many of their peers. The female speaker of many of the songs uses imagery suggesting entrapment and identity frustration: “I can never heal myself enough for you”; “I’m stuck in the same tradition / I’m so tired of thinking about the things I have been missing” ; “I never saw the point in crying / ‘cause I can’t be the way you want.”

The band’s artistic intentions are perhaps best summed up by the final line of their most famous song: “I think I want to live my life and you’re just in my way.” Is the speaker talking about a lover or a fanatical cult leader? Or both? I am eerily fascinated by these questions.

Playlist: Where Did the Summer Go?

10 Songs that, for one reason or another, signal the end of summer for me.  If you have Spotify, you can click on the following link to hear all the songs:
http://open.spotify.com/user/jacoadam/playlist/0OJuDO4VQ2N9t44FSjtGOL

1.  "Get Away," Yuck (From Yuck)
2.  "Go Outside," Cults (From Cults)
3.  "Thought Ballune," Unknown Mortal Orchestra (From Unknown Mortal Orchestra)
4.  "Ready to Go Steady," The Go! Team (From Rolling Blackouts)
5.  "New Beat," Toro by Moi (From Underneath the Pine)
6.  "Pumped up Kicks," Foster the People (From Torches)
7.  "Weekend," Smith Westerns (From Dye It Blonde)
8.  "Ice Cream," Battles (From Glass Drop)
9.  "Believer," John Maus (From We Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves)
10.  "The Wilhelm Scream," James Blake (From James Blake)

Mini-Record Review: Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Unknown Mortal Orchestra, 2011)

Portland-based Unknown Mortal Orchestra describe their own music as a “vision of junkshop collector pop.”  The Pitchfork review of the group’s debut LP compares them to Cults and Sleigh Bells.  All three groups are minimalists to some extent, although Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s sonic palette is a bit more expansive than the other two.  To be sure, this record has some engaging, pleasant moments of pop sincerity.  I smile a little bit every time the crunchy lead guitar joins in unison with Ruben Nielson’s vocal.  Indeed, the band has several clever musical tricks up its sleeve.  “How Can You Luv Me” and “Thought Ballune” in particular make for nice little summer ditties.  When I’m looking for cute, lyrically superficial, riff-based pop music, though, I prefer Sleigh Bells’ in-your-face, louder-than-thou aesthetic to Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s unassuming lo-fi stylings.  The band is rarely boring, but I’d love to see them emphasize the dirtier, more aggressive elements of their sound.  The group also describes their music as “alien beatnick pop.”  If that’s the case, these aliens are more intent on pleasant intergalactic dialogue than a full-on invasion.

PopMatters: Ghost World Revisited

In my latest PopMatters article, I revisit Terry Zwigoff's 2001 film Ghost World, one of my favorite movies of all time: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/145647-ghost-world-revisited/

Enjoy :)

Mini-Record Review: House of Balloons (The Weeknd, 2011)

So much music, so little time to write.  New solution: Mini-record reviews!

The most effectively atmospheric, creepily sensual R&B record of the year comes from The Weeknd, an act shrouded in a cloak of anonymity, but recently revealed to be the stage name of twenty-one year-old Toronto resident Abel Tesfaye. This debut effort evokes the feeling of a night on the town gone terribly, terribly wrong. Tesfaye’s expressive, wide-ranging voice gives me faith once again in the power of R&B. The thing that gives this album such zest, though, is the fact that Tesfaye’s soulful vocal is juxtaposed with terrifying lyrics about drug overdoses, dangerous sexual practices, and, when the night’s cloud clears, cold, relentless pain. It would be easy to accuse this record, as some have, of glorifying a relentlessly hedonistic lifestyle, if not for the fact that all the talk about the pleasures of the night are tempered by emotionally naked expressions of the agony of the morning after. House of Balloons succeeds similarly as Destroyer’s Kaputt in invoking a trippy dream state. The Weeknd’s world, though, seems more like a nightmare.