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Now You're Messin' With A Son Of A Bitch
I is an idiot! Until Wikipedia told me so, I had no idea that Girls Aloud's "Sexy! No No No" sampled the riff from Nazareth's "Hair Of The Dog," despite my having heard both those songs plenty of times. And even then I was having trouble finding the riff, was telling myself, "Well, I guess they must have used some riff other than the main one, or maybe they truncated it or something." But no, it's all there, I finally was able to pick it out from its surroundings (I'd been afraid I'd developed the aural equivalent of red-green color blindness, though this was Sexy Hair Dog Differentiation Deficit); maybe there's something about the Girls' vocals that rejiggers the tonal centers so they're different from Nazareth's. I don't know.
If you've never heard the "Hair Of A Dog" riff, it's sort of like "Day Tripper" performed by a rhinoceros.
So the album search continues. Today being the deadline after which I allow myself no more album acquisitions until after the Idolator/P&J deadline on Friday, this is what I'm left with:
Among the many albums in my possession that I have not heard, or have only heard once or twice in the background, or have only heard the first five tracks from, or have only heard ten months ago on the AOL Listening Station, and which I must listen to now to evaluate fairly, are some by the following artists:
Totimoshi, REO Speedwagon, Mobius Band, Tarwater, Tesla, Chromeo, Jenni Rivera, Einsterzende Neubauten, The Federation, Luke Bryan, Turbonegro, Black Angel, Little Big Town, Hurricane Chris, The Hives, The Naked Brothers Band, Ashley Tisdale, Paul Wall, Trace Adkins, Keke Palmer, Rihanna.
I predict with confidence that many of those will remain unlistened to by me in the following week.
What I have listened to:
LeAnn Rimes Family: LeAnn delivers emotion from all angles and many genres. A deep warm diva voice that can hit peaks even from the middle of her range; problem sometimes is her taste for middling songs that are too fast to be ballads and too slow to be dance; another is that country producers will try to swathe her in too many countryisms. Except sometimes these aren't problems at all, as her voice sets mounds of sound in motion. Five total burners here: "Family" (a deep droner from mountain shades, becomes a brutal stomper when it hits the chorus), "Nothin' Better To Do" (crazy roughneck's daughter ignores Mama's advice, takes her idle hands to the devil's workshop, ends up rocking the jailhouse, as demonstrated in this excellent video), "Doesn't Everybody?" (voice of sad molasses tells us we want love), "Upper Hand" (swamp boogie; humidity doesn't dissuade LeAnn from throwing flames), "When You Love Someone Like That" (midtempo lament stokes sorrow).
Five scorchers are plenty for an album; the rest have her in good voice even when not to my taste. This is a definite on my country list and has a shot at P&J.
Girls Aloud Tangled Up. Two terrific dance singles that ride the track and rock the train. Don't yet know where I am with the rest of this, however. The flaw isn't so much its lack of inventiveness - the Girls could do twelve variations on "I Heard A Rumour" and I'd be happy - but the lack of compelling melodies. Lots of good grooves and nice glides that end up being Not Bad. "Fling" scores points for disrupting the OK flow.
Pastor Troy Tool Muziq: Typical Atlanta hip-hop mixture of doleful instruments, fast beats, hard voice, though with a skitteringness to the rapping that I like. Too much the same thing all through.
Chamillionaire Ultimate Victory: More background darkness, fast beats, good jaunty rapping; with Chamillionaire's singing there's a rumbling gentleness he can insert into anything, though he's dull when he sings too much and raps too little. I only listened once; good metaphors, the sound is OK but, as Troy's is, too samey (the two J.R. Rotem tracks near the start added extra joy and color; wish there'd been more J.R.). I think there's a lot going on with Chamillionaire, but I don't have time to ponder him this week.
And I posted these first thoughts over on rolling teenpop:
Skye Sweetnam Sound Soldier: The two songs by rock guy Tim Armstrong are poppier and catchier than the nine by pop people The Matrix, whose songs are fairly tuneful themselves but Skye keeps interrupting the tunes with chants and feistiness. The feistiness works well on "Music Is My Boyfriend," is a distraction everywhere else. Delete a couple of hairballs ("Boy Hunter" and "Baby Doll Gone Wrong") and this is likable enough, but not even as good as the Avril album I was hating several days ago. I'm not hating this, since Skye is basically lovable - girl's got a lot of promise, but it's still mostly promise. Worth searching out the Armstrong tracks ("Ghosts" and "Let's Get Movin' Into Action," and also Armstrong's even better version of the latter, "Into Action," with Skye on background).
Fall Out Boy Infinity On High: I like "The Take Over," "Arm's Race," and "Mmrs" as much as the next guy. (Checks with the next guy: "How much do you like these?" "As much as you do.") Problem is that the massive-gyrating-gelatin sound that works well on those three is monolithically dense and dull on most of the others. Stump's large swoops and passionate falsetto make the difficult seem difficult. Maybe there's a happy medium between Gary Allan's easiness that I was uneasy with yesterday over on the country thread and this guy's huffing and puffing. (Consults with happy medium, who perceives much joy resonating among the spirits of the departed and who also claims to prefer widows to divorcées (the former being better for business, no doubt).)
If you've never heard the "Hair Of A Dog" riff, it's sort of like "Day Tripper" performed by a rhinoceros.
So the album search continues. Today being the deadline after which I allow myself no more album acquisitions until after the Idolator/P&J deadline on Friday, this is what I'm left with:
Among the many albums in my possession that I have not heard, or have only heard once or twice in the background, or have only heard the first five tracks from, or have only heard ten months ago on the AOL Listening Station, and which I must listen to now to evaluate fairly, are some by the following artists:
Totimoshi, REO Speedwagon, Mobius Band, Tarwater, Tesla, Chromeo, Jenni Rivera, Einsterzende Neubauten, The Federation, Luke Bryan, Turbonegro, Black Angel, Little Big Town, Hurricane Chris, The Hives, The Naked Brothers Band, Ashley Tisdale, Paul Wall, Trace Adkins, Keke Palmer, Rihanna.
I predict with confidence that many of those will remain unlistened to by me in the following week.
What I have listened to:
LeAnn Rimes Family: LeAnn delivers emotion from all angles and many genres. A deep warm diva voice that can hit peaks even from the middle of her range; problem sometimes is her taste for middling songs that are too fast to be ballads and too slow to be dance; another is that country producers will try to swathe her in too many countryisms. Except sometimes these aren't problems at all, as her voice sets mounds of sound in motion. Five total burners here: "Family" (a deep droner from mountain shades, becomes a brutal stomper when it hits the chorus), "Nothin' Better To Do" (crazy roughneck's daughter ignores Mama's advice, takes her idle hands to the devil's workshop, ends up rocking the jailhouse, as demonstrated in this excellent video), "Doesn't Everybody?" (voice of sad molasses tells us we want love), "Upper Hand" (swamp boogie; humidity doesn't dissuade LeAnn from throwing flames), "When You Love Someone Like That" (midtempo lament stokes sorrow).
Five scorchers are plenty for an album; the rest have her in good voice even when not to my taste. This is a definite on my country list and has a shot at P&J.
Girls Aloud Tangled Up. Two terrific dance singles that ride the track and rock the train. Don't yet know where I am with the rest of this, however. The flaw isn't so much its lack of inventiveness - the Girls could do twelve variations on "I Heard A Rumour" and I'd be happy - but the lack of compelling melodies. Lots of good grooves and nice glides that end up being Not Bad. "Fling" scores points for disrupting the OK flow.
Pastor Troy Tool Muziq: Typical Atlanta hip-hop mixture of doleful instruments, fast beats, hard voice, though with a skitteringness to the rapping that I like. Too much the same thing all through.
Chamillionaire Ultimate Victory: More background darkness, fast beats, good jaunty rapping; with Chamillionaire's singing there's a rumbling gentleness he can insert into anything, though he's dull when he sings too much and raps too little. I only listened once; good metaphors, the sound is OK but, as Troy's is, too samey (the two J.R. Rotem tracks near the start added extra joy and color; wish there'd been more J.R.). I think there's a lot going on with Chamillionaire, but I don't have time to ponder him this week.
And I posted these first thoughts over on rolling teenpop:
Skye Sweetnam Sound Soldier: The two songs by rock guy Tim Armstrong are poppier and catchier than the nine by pop people The Matrix, whose songs are fairly tuneful themselves but Skye keeps interrupting the tunes with chants and feistiness. The feistiness works well on "Music Is My Boyfriend," is a distraction everywhere else. Delete a couple of hairballs ("Boy Hunter" and "Baby Doll Gone Wrong") and this is likable enough, but not even as good as the Avril album I was hating several days ago. I'm not hating this, since Skye is basically lovable - girl's got a lot of promise, but it's still mostly promise. Worth searching out the Armstrong tracks ("Ghosts" and "Let's Get Movin' Into Action," and also Armstrong's even better version of the latter, "Into Action," with Skye on background).
Fall Out Boy Infinity On High: I like "The Take Over," "Arm's Race," and "Mmrs" as much as the next guy. (Checks with the next guy: "How much do you like these?" "As much as you do.") Problem is that the massive-gyrating-gelatin sound that works well on those three is monolithically dense and dull on most of the others. Stump's large swoops and passionate falsetto make the difficult seem difficult. Maybe there's a happy medium between Gary Allan's easiness that I was uneasy with yesterday over on the country thread and this guy's huffing and puffing. (Consults with happy medium, who perceives much joy resonating among the spirits of the departed and who also claims to prefer widows to divorcées (the former being better for business, no doubt).)
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Albums: 1. Aly & A.J. Insomniatic (Hollywood); 2. Britney Spears Blackout (Jive); 3. Miranda Lambert Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Columbia); 4. A-Trak Dirty South Dance (Siam/Obey); 5. Kelly Clarkson My December (RCA); 6. The Veronicas Hook Me Up (Warner Bros.); 7. Ashley Monroe Satisfied (Sony Nashville) [unreleased]; 8. LeAnn Rimes Family (Curb); 9. Gogol Bordello Super Taranta! (Side One Dummy); 10. Ashley Tisdale Headstrong (Warner Bros.); 11. Jordan Pruitt No Ordinary Girl (Hollywood); 12. Travis Tritt The Storm (Category 5); 13. Brooks & Dunn Cowboy Town (Arista Nashville); 14. Gretchen Wilson One Of The Boys (Columbia Nashville); 15. Vanessa Carlton Nolita Fairytale (The Inc./Universal); 16. M.I.A. Kala (XL); 17. A.R.E. Weapons Modern Mayhem (Defend Music Inc.); 18. John Anderson Easy Money (Raybaw/Warner Bros.); 19. Blake Shelton Pure BS (Warner Bros.); 20. The Sirens More Is More (MuSick Recordings)
Reissues: 1. Paula Abdul Greatest Hits (Virgin); 2. Neil Young Live At Massey Hall 1971 (Reprise); 3. The Stanley Brothers The Definitive Collection (Time-Life)
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