Spectrum Culture: Marketa Irglova Review

I'm now writing about music and books for a nifty pop culture webzine called Spectrum Culture.  My first article is a review of Marketa Irglova's new record:

http://spectrumculture.com/2011/10/marketa-irglova-anar.html

Existential Despair Comes Only to the Lonely

It might take longer than you think:

A shopping list, a bottle of unopened cleaner,

Financial pictures painted across outdated hard drives.

Drops of dishwater

Falling into the transcendental sea.

Will you die

Under the tyrannical wings of the ordinary,

With the Billboard Hot 100 trapped in your head?

A way of understanding:

You see through a glass.

Darkly, your soul surrenders to the moment.

But you were not invited.

You were held hostage.

A ragdoll left on the lawn to drown

In your own artificial irrigation,

Only to be picked up by a bright-eyed child

The morning after.

How to account for hope?


By: Jake Adams

PopMatters: The 10 Best Wilco Songs

My new PopMatters article, the Ten Best Wilco Songs of All Time: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/148218-the-10-best-wilco-songs/

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)