1/23/13: Marvin Gaye: What's Going On

A very difficult album to write about.  It's a beautiful record, with a sophisticated and urban and soulful sound  (it's like the concept of "hope" embodied by notes).  You'd be a fool to dismiss it, but I think you'd also be a little naive to call it an interesting political statement.  Marvin is obviously an interesting guy, and you hear in his voice a sort of nuance, a combination of pain and peace and thwarted ambition and intelligence and compassion and anger, that is simply not in the man's lyrics.  Only two songs here, the masterful singles "Inner City Blues" and the title track, have even a hint of the generation-defining poetry that we've always been told the whole album possesses.

The album's other seven tracks form a kind of super-medley.  They all sound very similar-- you know that incredibly rousing intro to "Mercy Mercy Me," with the glockenspiels and the drums and such?  Yeah, that's pretty much at the beginning of every song.  I don't have a problem with this, though.  If there had to be a Motown album where the musicians deserved back-of-the-cover credit, it'd be this one: there is no other record that sounds like it.  It's a coming out party for the experimental and artsy tendencies of Motown's insanely gifted group of players.  Hence, the middle sevens songs all sound jammy and cool and pretty formless, with nary a tune in sight.

A song works on What's Going On when it successfully combines that sound with enough of a tune to allow Marvin to explore his character, i.e. his voice.  "Songs" like "Save the Children," which is basically a (crappy) poem, are sort of flat and corny.  "Right On" seems like a dream at first-- seven minutes of this sound?  WOW-- until you realize that the jam isn't really going to go anywhere, and that Marvin himself doesn't really plan on adding much to it.

ALL THAT BEING SAID, if I have to tell you how great "What's Going On," "Inner City Blues," "Mercy Mercy Me," or even "Flying High in the Friendly Sky" are, then either...

1. You do not possess What's Going On, and you should.

or

2. You do possess What's Going On, and you are an irredeemable idiot.

1/23/13: The White Stripes: De Stijl

I want to emphasize again the difference between the White Stripes and a typical Detroit garage rock band, a difference which “De Stijl” epitomizes.  A typical Detroit garage rock band rages at you all night with thrashing electric guitars.  The White Stripes, on “De Stijl,” employ pianos, harmonicas, electric fiddles, and other soothing sounds.  A TDGRB writes only about sex and drugs.  The White Stripes, on “De Stijl,” write about school, and birds, and domestic bliss.  ATDGRB pretty much has one mood and one style.  The White Stripes, on “De Stijl,” offer more styles than their already varied debut, ranging from slide-guitar jams (“Little Bird”) to country (“Your Southern Can is Mine”) to pop (“Apple Blossom”) to Led-Zeppelin-ish-stomp (“Why Can’t You Be Nicer to Me”) to balladry (“Sister Do Your Know My Name,” “A Boy’s Best Friend”).

De Stijl is a brave record.  It’s soul-baring and listenable and, often, (gasp) gentle.  It shows the breadth of Jack White’s record collection, his willingness to absorb a huge sum of influences from across the musical map.  And though it’s a very, very simple record, maybe moreso than the debut, it shows an increasing amount of ambition.

First song, “Your Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl)": the best melody Jack's constructed yet.  It helps that the man has discovered a new voice for himself, a sincere and unaffected tenor that he uses for much of De Stijl and White Blood Cells (and would forget about once he became a big flashy rock star).  It gives that "this feeling's still GON-NA / Linger onnn" hook a nice, soft punch, and goes great with a crunchy guitar riff.

What else?  The whole record is full of folksy but mostly non-whimsical melodies, sung well, played with varying amounts of distortion.  The cover of "Death Letter" is one of the great White Stripes songs, turning a classic Son House number into a non-sleazy-but-plenty-slidey dance jam.  (This is how you play a guitar... How does Jack get such a thick, booty-shake-inducing sound with just Meg-- read, no bass-- to back him up?)

So I guess what really gets me about De Stijl is how it's a rock album, no question, just one that has very little to do with "cock."  It makes you move and bob your head and occasionally sit and meditate without filling your head with thoughts about what a worthless, slimy, perverted, semi-misogynist piece of shit you and every other man in the world is.  (AC/DC have always been better at making me feel this way than, say, Bikini Kill.)  

1/23/13: The White Stripes: The White Stripes

The White Stripes were not the only band in Detroit doing garage rock at the end of the twentieth century.  So what made them different?  What set them apart from the dirty, smelly, un-tuned pack, and turned them into internationally renowned superstars?  There’s the obvious things.  The color scheme.  The whole “two members” thing (no bass!).  The weird mythology.  But there was music, too.  Jack White was not the best singer or guitar player or songwriter in 1999 (and he is certainly not that now), but he had a musical vision, even then, and a distinct way of seeing that vision through.  The White Stripes’ first record is a strikingly confident and competent debut— you can tell, listening to it now, that Mister Jack wanted to be much more than a mere player in Michigan music rags.  

What impresses me most, I think, is its variety.  There are the obligatory garage rock rave-ups here (“When I Hear My Name,” “Jimmy the Exploder,” “Screwdriver,” “Broken Bricks” et al… and all wonderfully done), but there’s also cutesy folk (“Sugar Never Tasted So Good”), dramatic ballads (“Suzy Lee,” “Wasting My Time”), heavy blues (“I Fought Piranhas”), semi-political punk (“The Big Three Killed My Baby”) and a pretty daring selection of covers (they do “Stop Breakin Down,” which the Stones did on fucking EXILE ON MAIN STREET, and Dylan’s “One More Cup of Coffee,” and the blues standard “St James Infirmary”).  Jack’s moods swing wildly, from childish joy to bitter rage— pretty impressive, given he’s just using a guitar and Meg to convey this stuff.

“Eclecticism,” yes, that’s the word.  That’s what made the Stripes a band apart, even from the get go.  That, and not caring what the hell cool people think.  Has any other Detroit band ever attempted a rocker as plaintive as “Do”?  Or a popper as disarming as “Sugar Never Tasted So Good”?  (For that matter, has any Detroit band ever sang about “Sugar” without it being a euphemism for the female anatomy?)  These two qualities of the Stripes would be expanded and refined over the group’s next two records.  Jack’s mostly a riff-man on this one—the really strong pop melodies would come later— but his guitar playing already exhibits the kind of efficiency that would make Johnny Ramone nod (see what he does with just TWO notes on “Astro” and “Big Three” ?  THE SAME TWO NOTES, I’m pretty sure).

“The White Stripes” is the band’s only “true” garage-rock album; as such, its one of the best in said genre that I’ve ever heard.  Only a few filler tracks (“Slicker Drips,” “Little People”) prevent it from being on par with the group’s next two semi-masterpieces.