M.I.A. - Bird Flu

I'm not a real big MIA fan. If you've heard of her, it was because she was everybody's golden child in 2007, and you may have heard her biggest 'hit', "Paper Planes". It's a good song, even if it does borrow the whole chorus from Wreckx-n-Effect's "Shake Your Rump". She has a lot of great musical ideas and a defiantly different way of thinking about and constructing songs, but I thought she lacked a little in her execution and that she was definitely over-hyped. Still, some of her songs were pretty good; "Paper Planes" for one.

"Bird Flu" is a high energy rap song that follows the blueprint of your typical 'club rap' (think Soulja Boy or Lil Jon). It's a real pounder, with a massive downbeat on the one, and an almost techno-like emphasis on the remaining three beats. The difference is, while the other producers are using classic 808-style drums, MIA is creating songs from whole cloth using chicken sounds, drum cadences, traditional central Asian percussion and kids shouting in what I can only assume is her native Tamil. She weaves these decidedly non-musical threads together into a thumping musical work that could easily hold its own on the dance floor (though it'd be kind of odd).

There are a few other things I really like about the instrumentation (besides the chickens, that is). First, during the chorus there's this descending bass tone. Imagine the sound effect for a falling bomb, but instead of a high-pitched whistle it's a very low electric tone. That's what it sounds like. It's very subtle, but it's very cool. I like that a lot. Second, near the end she samples some sort of chanting, and I really dig both the chant and the way she uses it. I wish it was used more throughout the song. And finally, I really like the way she uses the kids shouting as a breakdown. They are pretty well synced to the beat during the verse and chorus, but at the breakdown, she lets the sample run unfettered and it ends up sounding hyper-syncopated, almost an off-beat triplet against the beat, somewhere in the gray area between offbeat and on-beat. It's nice.

The song is, like most rap songs, pretty much about how much of a bad-ass she is, but from a totally different type of "hood". She doesn't shoot AK-47's, she makes bombs. She's not flying gang colors, but she burnt her ID papers, even though the cops are coming around to check them. She chews chicken feet and watches "Lost" on cable. (Okay, so that's not so bad-ass, but it is funny.) And went she gets pregnant, she's "gonna pop me out some leaders". That's awesome.

You can find "Bird Flu" on MIA's second release, 2007's Kala. I really should give it another listen. Maybe I knee-jerked against the hype.

[You can listen to M.I.A.'s "Bird Flu" by navigating to the post "Song050" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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The B-52's : 52 Girls

I'm not a huge fan of The B-52's, but some of their stuff is pretty good. You've almost certainly heard "Love Shack", which despite it's over-saturation is still a good song, and I'm assuming you've heard "Rock Lobster" at least once. "52 Girls" comes from the same eponymous debut album as "Rock Lobster" and has that same stripped down dance rock feel.

The song itself is relatively simple, with just your basic guitar/drum/bass combo jamming on a very danceable groove that barely changes across the entire song, even from verse to chorus. The two female vocalists, Kate and Cindy (Fred is nowhere to be found, which could be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view), sing the lyrics together in a nice close harmony throughout the song.

What really makes the song so arresting is the vocal phrasing. The lyrics are stretched and condensed over the constant beat, like verbal rubber bands. For instance, in the chorus, 'name' is sung three times in succession, and each time it gains an extra syllable. 'Tina and Louise' are crammed together almost into a single syllable, whereas 'Madge' gets four and 'Reba' stretches over nearly eight bars. It's an odd but very effective technique, resulting in a very prog, almost jazz-like feel.

Then, there's the lyrics themselves. Who are all these people? Why on Earth do I need to 'name them today'? The only clue I can find is they mention Kate and Cindy, so perhaps these are just names of women they know. Also, the names seem to trend from old-fashioned to modern as the song progresses, so maybe the song is a shout out to their relatives. Or maybe it's just a list of names. In any case, there aren't 52 of them, but don't let that stop you from enjoying it.

As previously mentioned, you can find "52 Girls" on the B-52's 1979 self-titled album, which also houses "Rock Lobster", both of which are great songs. The album itself is considered a true classic, though for the most part, I'm ambivalent.

[You can listen to the B-52's "52 Girls" by navigating to the post "Song049" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Scott Walker : Jackie

God love Jacques Brel, because he really needs it. Every song is drenched in that bitter Gallic sense of cynicism and bile, shot through with the gaudy spangle of the Moulin Rouge. But it's so good. In "Jackie", as he fantasizes about the splendor that would accompany his meteoric rise to the top of the charts as a famous rock star, he writes about getting drunk, owning a bordello, smoking opium, queers, virgins and singing to the ladies in heaven with a giant flowing beard; you know, all that rock star stuff. Ironically, he had a couple of hits here in the states with "Ne me quitte pas" and "Seasons in the Sun", though I have no idea if he ever bought the whorehouse.

Scott Walker was a big hit in the UK, first with the Walker Brothers, then as a solo artist. The brothers had a minor hit here in the states with a Bacharach tune, but other than that, they never disturbed the charts. "Jackie" hit #20 in the UK, which I assume means it got a lot of airplay, which considering the lyrical content, I find amazing. Also, it's no mystery as to why it never got played over here. Scott loved Jacques Brel, and sang three of his songs on each of his first three solo LPs.

Anyway, this piece is a pretty typical Walker/Brel workout. The tune kicks in right away with the strings, horns and other orchestral trappings, as well as a martial beat that runs constantly throughout. Scott dives right in with his beautiful deep baritone, singing with the perfect mixture of glory and scorn, fluffed up with just a touch of reverb. The song drives forward relentlessly, with the orchestra pounding away and Scott just singing his heart out.

I love this song. I want to start a band just so I could cover this song. I like it so much, I'd be willing to sing it at a karaoke joint. (Note: Not really.) The orchestration is superb, the lyrics are astounding, and Scott's delivery is just top notch.

You can find this tune on Scott Walker's 1968 release, Scott 2. Oddly enough, it doesn't look like there are any compilations out there.

[You can listen to Scott Walker's "Jackie" by navigating to the post "Song048" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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The Rugbys : You, I

I didn't know much about the Rugbys before I started this post, but it turns out they were a modestly successful rock act in the US, even cracking the top 40 with "You, I". I originally heard the tune from a posting last summer on the ever-amazing Iron Leg blog. Before that, I'd never heard it, which is a shame, because it's a solid song. It just goes to show you that there is a ton of music out there that may have been somewhat popular, but just never makes it into rotation for some reason.

"You, I" is a semi-psychedelic blues rocker, very much in the vein of Jimi Hendrix or Deep Purple. The guitar is hard, the rhythm section is tough and capable, and the singing is pretty basic. They do throw in a nice Cream-like vocal harmony bit right in the middle, during the guitar solo, but the song is simple. It's just meant to be catchy and rock, which it does well.

The lyrics are ... stupid, mainly consisting of rhymes for 'you', although the group didn't even put much effort into that, at one point even rhyming it with 'magic mood'. I mean, seriously: 'goo', 'zoo', 'few', 'pew', 'cashew', 'ague', 'grue'. It's not that hard, boys.

You can find "You, I" on their 1969 release, Hot Cargo, which is available for download from Amazon as an mp3 album. It's also available as an import CD and on a 2-for-1 with a band called Lazarus.

[You can listen to The Rugbys' "You, I" by navigating to the post "Song047" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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April March : Voo Doo Doll

April March is actually Elinor Blake, who divides her time between attempting pop stardom and animation. As an animator, she's worked on Ren & Stimpy, Pee-Wee's Playhouse and even did the title sequence for Madonna's Who's That Girl.

As a pop star, well, her most recent showing was a tune of hers from 1999 that appeared in Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. Soooo, she's still got some work to do.

Her style is primarily influenced by 60's French pop yé-yé singers, like France Gall, Françoise Hardy, Jane Birkin & Claudine Longet, and she's been known to cover a Serge Gainsbourg song or two.

"Voo Doo Doll" is off her first EP, which I've been looking for pretty much since it came out in 1993. One day last year, eBay phoned me up and said, "Pal, we finally found it. Come get it, ASAP!" So I did, and I think this might be the last "long-lost" CD in my pantheon. Oh, wait, no, I still need Queens of the Stone Age's first LP. Anyhow...

"Voo Doo Doll" is about a voodoo doll the singer uses to punish her man, "to hurt you when with her". Somehow he manages to give him earaches, corns, chapped lips and all sorts of miscellaneous maladies. Musically, the song is relatively straightforward, a nice upbeat 4/4 with a small band plus organ and background singers, although it's slightly weirded due to the verses being 12 bars instead of the standard 16. So it's just a little wonky, which helps underscore the vague craziness of the protagonist.

The EP is great. It consists of five songs, all heavily influenced by the aforementioned 60's pop vibe, but also very much by the quirky stylings of Vic Mizzy (think: The Addams Family theme).  The song "Kooky" is almost a dead rip-off. Also, she's wearing ice skates on the cover.  A fantastic listen, but good luck finding it. I can't even find it on Amazon at this point.

[You can listen to April March's "Voo Doo Doll" by navigating to the post "Song046" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Nicolas Collins : Strange Heaven

Nicolas Collins is an electronic music composer who deals primarily with sampled and re-sampled sound and homemade electronics. He experimented for a while with a setup he called "trombone-propelled electronics" where he uses the slide of the trombone as an analog controller for on-the-fly digital sampling. It's pretty cool, really, to a geek like me.

His album Sound without Picture is a selection of spoken word pieces he's collected, each of which has to do with a sense, or the lack thereof: sight, blindness, touch, smell, sound, deafness, taste. These are read over different electronic backdrops that he creates. In one piece he uses a broken CD player playing a string quartet which creates the backdrop for a live trumpeter, all of which creates a backdrop for the reading. On a different track, he has a real string quartet recreate the effect of the broken CD player, along with the trumpet and the reading. Very sweet. So much so that this was almost the track I picked for you.

But instead, I'm going with a different track. For one, the track was, on the surface, very similar to "Mom's" which we debuted a few days ago. (I think the interplay of the broken robotic digital repetition and the live analog is cool enough to warrant a new post, but that will have to be some other day.)

For another, the track I chose uses the aforementioned tricky trombone to manipulate the sound of the spoken parts which is then used as the bed for the actual spoken word. The voice is stretched and warped, digitally processed almost beyond recognition, but there's a ghostly hint of the source that wafts through and really underscores the intangible dreaminess of the pitch black world of the blind and the purposeful daydream of memory, both of which are subjects for the spoken part of the piece.

The composition has plenty of space around the vocals where there is just that ethereal sound and the source material he reads is really touching. On top of which, he has a great speaking voice, solid without being overtly dramatic. It's really a great composition all around.

"Strange Heaven" can be found on Nicolas Collins' 1999 release, Sound Without Picture. It's a fantastic CD. Highly recommended.

And once again, the piece is 13 minutes long, so I downsampled it. I couldn't go to mono though, as stereo is an important part of the piece, so it still ended up being 13mb. Sorry.

[You can listen to Nicolas Collins' "Strange Heaven" by navigating to the post "Song045" and clicking or right-clicking on the title or the link.]

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Blackalicious : Alphabet Aerobics (The Cut Chemist 2½ Minute Workout)

I don't know much about Blackalicious. I first heard this song on one of our Dance Dance Revolution games, believe it or not. There's not much to this song musically. The beats are pretty stripped down, with just drums, a piano stab and some bass, although it does steadily increase in tempo, which is odd for a rap song. But where the song really excels is in its lyrics.

The lyrics are all rhyming couplets, which is pretty standard, I suppose, if you're rapping in 1981. And the content is also pretty standard, just a litany of syllables explaining why Gift of Gab is so much better than all those other wack MC's. But as you're listening to it, you might start to see a pattern. Yes, Tim is spiraling through the alphabet, one letter at a time. Each two-line verse consists primarily of words that begin with the letter of choice. It ends up sounding like a series of tongue-twisters, which I suppose it is, especially since the beat keeps getting faster and faster.

Oh, also, apparently this song was produced by Cut Chemist from Jurassic 5, not Blackalicious' normal DJ, Chief Xcel.

Anyway, it's a fun listen, quite enjoyable. "Alphabet Aerobics" can be found on Blackalicious' 1999 EP A2G.

[#44]

Mandingo : Manhunter

Mandingo is a weird band. First of all, I'm not sure they were actually a band per se, but rather a set of studio musicians who did library music for some of the British production companies, although I read somewhere it was actually the Geoff Love Orchestra. They played music that was composed primarily by folks who wrote for soundtracks and production companies, like Brian Fahey and Mike Vickers.

The music is a cross between the pop orchestras of yore and the funk of the day. It's full of brass, strings and percussion (though I suppose you could say the same of the Love Unlimited Orchestra), but it's anchored by a funk backbeat, some heavy bass and even some rock guitar, which tends to make it sound like the soundtrack to a 70's cop show, which is to say, it sounds awesome. Plus it's really percussion heavy. In one interview, Mike says they had four drummers and seven percussionists in the studio at once.

"Manhunter" is the kick-off song for the album, and rightfully so. It's some seriously heavy funk, anchored by the tight bass-line and the rhythm guitar. The horns carry the tune with full-on intensity and the whole thing is buoyed throughout by the non-stop barrage of percussion. Apparently, Mandingo LPs were the go-to records for hi-fi salesmen back in the day. When you 'drop the needle' on this one, you'll see why.

The records were on EMI and were released primarily in the UK. Also, they used to release in quad as well as stereo and I can only imagine how this would sound remixed for 5.1 surround. You can find "Manhunter" on Mandingo's 1975 release Savage Rite. Their albums have been repackaged as 2-for-1 deals, which is a pretty good deal, except they don't seem to be in print any longer. And I was first introduced to Mandingo on the excellent Sound Gallery compilations, both of which are worth owning, although they too seem to have passed on.

[#43]

Kings of Leon : Knocked Up

Man, I do like Kings of Leon, especially their earlier stuff. I, for one, am glad they're seeing some success on the pop charts. When I caught my wife and younger daughters singing along with "Use Someone", it made me happy.

Kings of Leon is a group of brothers and a cousin, all named Followill, who got together just before 2000 and formed a band. Their sound is primarily driven by southern rock (think Skynyrd) and that Americana-folk that permeates modern indie. They come by it honestly though, in that these guys were literally the sons (and nephew) of an itinerant southern Pentecostal preacher, traveling from town to town throughout the Bible Belt. Their early stuff rocks hard, but they've sweetened up and mellowed out a little over the course of four albums, with their latest opus being far more MOR rock radio ready than previous efforts.

"Knocked Up" is a great tune about two young adults who are dealing with, well, being knocked up. They've decided to leave against the better wishes of their parents and set out for who knows where. And although it's a dead ringer storywise for "Young Turks", it's got that sweet, sad, 'what the hell are we supposed to do with our lives' pathos of "Jack & Diane".

Musically, there are a couple of things this song really has going for it. First, there's the driving road-trip rhythm that just propels through the whole song. It really makes you feel like you're cruising down a desert road in the dark of night, and each time the little bit of guitar chimes in, it feels like a ghostly telephone pole whipping by through the corner of your headlights. Suddenly it gets a little angrier and heavier, gearing down and rocking out, just to rev the engines a little. But it always comes back to the relentless beat.

Then there's the singer's plaintive voice, wrapped around these amazing lyrics, shot through with bull-headed machoism and the naïve optimism of the young and in love. "I don't care what nobody says, we're gonna have a baby." Screw you if you think we can't handle it, because we just did it and we are so out of here. "I don't care what nobody says, no, I'm going to be her lover. Always mad and usually drunk, but I love her like no other." They don't know where they're going, or what they're even supposed to do. They're just... going, because they know that, no matter what, they are in love and true love will prevail.

I'm serious, it makes me weepy just thinking about this mythical couple, the subject of a million after-school specials, special episodes and Lifetime made-for-television movies. But somehow, this band really nails it.

"Knocked Up" is off Kings of Leon's third release, 2007's Because of the Times. But they're all good. Seriously. Grab 'em all.

[#42]

American Gypsy : Golden Ring

This one's hard to classify. There are flutes and a string section, and the whole thing has a close, dark feel to it, but there's also some upbeat funk and scatting going on. I think it falls somewhere between psychedelia and soft rock; between Santana and America. It's tough to say.

Regardless of where you try and pigeonhole it though, it's a great tune. There's not much out there about American Gypsy on the interwebs, so I can't give much background, except to say this is off their third album.

The songs starts off with a bit of psychedelia, some acoustic guitar, light organ, light echo on the vocals, all vaguely trippy. There's something about the way they process the vocals on this track that makes them sound very close-up, almost like the singer is in your head, whispering in your ear. Then, about 90 seconds into it, they funk it up, bringing up the speed, adding wah-wah guitar, more strings and a bebopping scat solo. Then they slow it down and do it all again. It trips and grooves, it's alternately spooky and funky, which doesn't seem like it would work, but they really make it go.

You can find "Golden Ring" on American Gypsy's self-titled 1975 release. But I found it on this most excellent compilation, As We Travel: Folk Funk Flavours & Ambient Soul. It's full of 70s psychedelic funk like this. A superb compilation; highly recommended

[#41]