Not Just the Front Man for Gnarls Barkley

I’ll admit I had never heard of Cee-Lo Green before the song “Crazy” (of Le Aught Blog fame!) came out in late 2005/early 2006.  And it wasn’t really until I went to see Gnarls Barkley live in Boston (dressed as tennis players, a little disappointing) that I really began to appreciate the brilliance of Mr. Green.

Cee-Lo Green – Gettin’ Grown (from Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections; Arista 2002)

There is something ever so catchy about this song.  Despite being about the transition from being young and carefree to becoming a man with responsibilities, the song maintains an incredibly playful nature.  There’s a fun little rhythm underlining everything, and any song that can successfully incorporate whistling is a winner in my book.  Finally, the music video for this song is worth checking out, as it features Cee-Lo dressed as three different Teletubby-like creatures, one of whom is drunk…

(Props to Diana Fridberg for the excellent Photoshoppery)

The Heart Attack – Right Now

I first discovered this song while working on a project call Summer Burn.  The idea was to promote the exchange of music by making mix CDs of summer music and sending it to two random people, and getting CDs from two random people in return.  In my search to find appropriately summery music, I found Right Now.  There is something so light and airy, something that allows you to throw your cares away.  With the trumpet at the forefront and the wind chimes in the back, Cee-Lo lets you know it’s ok to just chill the eff out.

That tricky little genre…

Over the decade, I’ve had a lot of people ask me what music I listen to.  And to be honest, it’s a pretty wide variety of stuff, but if I had to offer a one word response, it’s usually been “indie”.  Easy enough to say, and instantly recognizable to other indie music aficionados.  But to those who aren’t indie fans (or at least, don’t yet know that they are), it’s a very difficult thing to explain.  In fact, I’m pretty sure over the past ten years, I have not once come up with an answer that really satisfies me, one that really conveys the essence of indie music.  And really, when you think about it, that probably hard to do in words for any genre- everyone know what country music sounds like, but you’d probably be hard pressed to describe it.  With that said, what I hope to do with this post is give three examples of indie music that I think are really solid representatives of indie music as a genre.

Tullycraft – Twee, off Beat, Surf, Fun, Magic Marker Records 2002

I first heard Tullycraft when I was working as a DJ for WHRB during college.  This twee sound was new to me- even listening to the alt-rock station in high school, I had never heard anything remotely like this before.  Playful, poppy, full of glee, this song takes me to the beaches of Southern California (maybe it’s the cover) even though the band is from the not-quite-so-sunny climes of Seattle.  And at the same time as they demonstrate this particular sub-genre, they also give you a kind of history/biography of what it means to be a twee listener.  To me, this represents a poppier, simpler side of indie music, the indie pop end of the spectrum, as opposed to…

Superchunk – Phone Sex, off Here’s to Shutting Up, Merge Records 2001

This is another song I discovered during my first year as a DJ, and in contrast to the previous song, is more on the indie rock end of the spectrum, though this song is a lot less rocking than Superchunk’s offerings from the ’90s.  In fact, this song, and really the whole album, has kind of a country feel to it, with what sounds I’m pretty sure is a steel guitar tucked away in the back.  There’s just this very mellow feeling to the song.  There’s a well of emotion buried within this song, but it’s let out slowly and carefully, as though a sudden outburst could ruin everything.  I feel like that kind of restraint is not present in most of the music played on mainstream radio.  There is one other neat fact that really cements their status as a quintessential indie band- they own their own record label, Merge Records!

The Ivy League – London Bridges, off London Bridges, Twentyseven Records 2006

Finally, we have this gem from The Ivy League.  We start off with a repetitive rhythm line and gentle strumming of the guitar with just a hint of distortion and a little wavering pitch, which I think is the perfect accentuation.  But where I think this song really shines is in the guitar solo at 2:39. The guitarist’s fingers dance lightly across the strings, creating a playful, yet ultimately ever-so-slightly mournful melody, and I love the depth that is conveyed in these thirty seconds.

I’m still not convinced I’ve explained WHAT indie music is, but I hope if you’ve ever asked someone what they listen to and had no clue what they meant by indie music that listening to these three songs gave you a better understanding of that tricky, not-so-little genre.

Fancy Finnish Buildings

I remember first hearing (from either Matty or Clark) about Architecture in Helsinki in the Alewife T station, and I had no idea whatsoever that this was a band they were encouraging me to check out.  I was on my way to a free Ted Leo concert up at Dartmouth College (more on Ted in a future post) but was all set to see what these cool new buildings in the capital of Finland were.  I’m not sure at what point in the night I realized that they were a band (and a damn fine one, turns out).  Despite several efforts to see them live, however, I have yet to be successful.

(from the album In Case We Die, Tailem Bend Records: 2005)

This album was the soundtrack to my summer between college and med school, and while there was a reason I listened to the album as a whole, namely, that there are a lot of really good songs on it and it works well as an album, this song was the real standout track for me.  While it doesn’t have the instrumental diversity of a lot of the other tracks on the album (no tubas here), I find the rhythm in this song mesmerizing- not only in the pattern, but the way in which they create it.  Using what are probably very expensive and fancy pieces of machinery to create very basic sounds – the teeth of a comb scraping across an edge, the clicking of a tongue, fingers snapping, hands clapping (ok, they might have done those last two manually), rattles shaking.  Slowly over the course of the song, these elements slowly build until they are all brought together to form this wonderful cacophany as the song nears its completion.  Suddenly the bottom falls out of the rhythm section as only the claps and a choir of Australians is left, and the saxophone finishes things off.

(from the album We All Belong, Universal Records: 2007)

One of the interesting things about Architecture in Helsinki is how much the band changes from album to album.  Their first, Fingers Crossed, was very soft and mellow; In Case We Die was very orchestral in nature; and their most recent offering, Places Like This is much edgier and, I think in some ways, more primitive than their previous efforts.  This is not to say that the songs don’t have depth and grandiosity like the rest of their repertoire- just that somehow, this album seems more stripped down, getting at the true essence of their music.  Of course, now that I say that, I’m going to write about Dr. Dog’s phenomenal cover of the Architecture in Helsinki original, Heart It Races.

While I do appreciate what AiH has tried to do with this album, and while I do really enjoy this particular track, it may be a little too stripped down for my likings.  Dr. Dog’s cover, on the other hand, with its acoustic guitar and claps, the steel guitar and chorus, has a much more comforting feeling to it.  AiH’s version makes you feel like a stranger stumbling into a foreign land; Dr. Dog’s makes you feel like you’re at home.  The best way to really experience this is to listen to them back-to-back.  Despite there not being a huge stylistic difference between the two (it’s not like we’re doing a country version of hip-hop), there is such a stark contrast between these two songs that you would be hard-pressed to identify them as the same were it not for the words.

Although I’ve basically spent all this time recommending the alternate version, I would encourage you to go out and listen to Places Like This from start to finish.  It works really well as an album.  Then go back to In Case We Die and Fingers Crossed and you’ll think you’re listening to a different band each time.

Cooler than a Polar Bear’s Toenails…

As an indie music nerd, I think I (and probably several of the other writers on this blog) have a tendency to dismiss music that is popular.  Sometimes we even forget about our favorite bands who were once indie but are now too popular to deserve our attention.  Outkast was never one of those groups for me (though I didn’t know them until AFTER they were popular).

From the album Stankonia, La Face Records: 2000

I was a senior in high school when this song BLEW UP.  Prior to this song, I had kind of dismissed rap as uninteresting and not really even music, and nothing I had heard to that point could convince me otherwise.  But the first time I heard “Ms. Jackson” at a bowling alley in upstate NY, I could not get the chorus out of my head.  I had never heard anything like it before.  So catchy, yet at the same time, there was this edginess to it that was so intriguing to me.  At this time in my life, I wasn’t quite the music snob I would grow to be, so I didn’t really mind that is was played incessantly- in fact, I loved that, because we were in the days after Napster but before iTunes and I had no money to buy the album.  I’m not sure that I have a ton to say about the song itself, or that I could add anything to what’s already been said about it.  The long and short of it is, “Ms. Jackson” marked my foray into the world of hip-hop (and introduced me to the dynamic duo of Big Boi and Andre 3000).  While the journey wouldn’t really hit its stride for another four or five years, this song was the first of many hip-hop songs I would grow to love.

From the album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, La Face Records: 2003

When “Hey Ya” hit the scene I was a little more of a music snob.  But despite my snobbery, I was no match for the gem that Andre 3000 dropped on us all.  This is another Outkast song that became huge, to the point where my friend JM would go crazy when it came on (the DJ at his wedding was instructed not to take a request for it under any circumstances).  There was even a parody done by a Boston radio station about the Super Bowl-bound New England Patriots.

The truly amazing thing about this song, I think (and the whole album, for that matter, but that’s another topic) is the insane amount of genre-switching on one album that Andre 3000 went through.  Here is a guy who was recognized as one of the best young MCs in Atlanta in the 90′s who explored jazz, classical, funk, and pop, and created a #1 song in a genre in which, for the most part, he had never worked before.  And it’s catchy as hell.  Maybe not the 300th time you listen to it, but the first 299…wow.  Andre even encourages audience participation by clapping along (and of course, shaking it like a Polaroid picture).

While “Ms. Jackson” made it ok for me to like hip-hop, “Hey Ya!” made me realize it was ok to like music that everyone else liked too (though to my music snob credit, I did discover it before it really hit big), as long as the music is good.  Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, for my indie music cred), I find these songs to be few and far between.  Somehow, though, Andre and Big Boi have found a way to make it happen time and time again.  I know for a fact that several of my colleagues here will be talking about Outkast in the next month or two, and I expect that in ten years when we look back at the best songs of the ’10s that there may well be a few from Andre Benjamin and Antwan Patton

Chatham County Line

Chatham County Line – Route 23 (from the album Route 23: Yep Roc Records, 2005)

When I think about most of the music I listen to, it’s plain to see that a large percentage of the songs are about romance.  Love, sex, relationships- these are the predominant themes in music today, as they were fifty years ago.  And, to be fair, most of the songs I’m going to post are going to fit into that trend.  But not tonight.  Tonight I want to focus on the song as storytelling.

If you’re anything like me (and let’s face it, you’re probably not), you love a song that tells a story.  Unfortunately, I feel like this sort of song is becoming a rarity in today’s music.  This is largely due to our habit of multitasking- I’m definitely guilty of this.  Rather than REALLY LISTENING to music on my iPod, I throw on some tunes while I’m reading on the bus ride in to work, or while writing notes later in the day.  Music is background noise, there to block out whatever is going on around me, and maybe to provide a pleasant distraction.  Who has time to listen to lyrics?  Unfortunately, this means the song as story takes a backseat to songs that focus more on a snappy melody or a catchy beat, because to truly appreciate a song such as this one, you have to pay attention.  But if you do, you’ll occasionally be rewarded with a gem like Route 23.

I’m not really sure how I first discovered Chatham County Line, but I do know that I was on a bit of a bluegrass kick.  I had just been to one of the most unique shows ever: seeing Judd Fuller & the Refills (a bluegrass band from Martha’s Vineyard, one of the WASPiest places imaginable) play at a release party for Offshore Ale’s IPA.  I realized I was a sucker for a song that featured a banjo, and the mandolin wasn’t a bad feature either.  I did my best to find some more bluegrass, and Chatham County Line were one of the first I discovered.  They had just released their album Route 23, and while there are a lot of great songs on the album, including two instrumentals that show off the fiddler and banjo player in “Gunfight in Durango” and “Sun Up”, respectively, it was the title track that really grabbed my ear, and has held it for several years now.

The story is simple enough, a young boy whose hard-working but stubborn father refuses to bow to changing times, and the hardship and loss of productivity the family is forced to endure.  While they are not forced out by a large retail giant like Walmart or CVS, I am nonetheless struck by a similarity to the mom-and-pop shops forced to close because they can’t compete with large chains, and I can’t help feeling sorry for the singer and his family.  And yet what really strikes me is how the song is sung (and played) with such joy, as though the singer would rather celebrate his father’s spirit than be brought down by misfortune.  In listening to the tone of the song, just hearing it in the background, you would have no idea that it tells a sad story.

If you do put this song on in the background, you’ll enjoy the banjo pickin’, mandolin strummin’, and fiddle fiddlin’- it’s damn good bluegrass- but if you want to know why I chose this song as one of my favorites of the decade, listen to the story of the little gas station of Route 23.

The Start of Something

from the album Raised by Wolves EP: Cult Hero Records 2005

I spent a large portion of the day trying to decide how to begin this journey.  With my favorite song of the decade?  The one most important to me?  The song with the highest play count on iTunes?  Or should I take things in the other direction, counting down with the least favorite at the beginning?  Ultimately, I chose to go with a song that would have a little meaning to it as my first post.

The first time I heard Voxtrot was in December 2005.  I was just finishing up my first semester of medical school, and it hadn’t gone quite as I’d expected.  I had gone in with excitement about becoming a doctor, and finished with dread that the rest of medical school would be as uninteresting and seemingly irrelevant to what I wanted to do.  All told, it was a pretty depressing semester.

I’m not gonna say something cheesy and untrue about how this song pulled me back from the brink, but I do think the power that music can have over us is sometimes pretty amazing.  The muffled tones, like Ramesh Srivastava is singing through a blanket, comfort and calm you as you listen to this song.  The breakdown around 2:55 soothes you with its seductive strings.  In the end, you are left overwhelmingly with the feeling that everything is going to be ok, that you CAN shut your eyes and go to sleep without worry.

Another power that music has always held over me is the ability to transport me back to the time in my life when a song or album was most important to me.  When I hear this song, I see myself standing on the sidewalk in front of Harrison Avenue Deli in Boston’s South End, waiting for the bus back to Brookline.  It is snowing, and the streetlight flickers and goes out, yet there is no change in visibility as orange light reflects off the snow all around me.  Voxtrot plays on my iPod, and despite the stress of medical school and the clamor of the Boston streets, I am at peace.

I have listened to Voxtrot’s subsequent releases, and as good as they are, none will ever have the appeal to me that this song does.  I want to describe it as soft and warm, but feel a little guilty doing so as that’s actually the title of another of their songs.  But I do feel like it fits this song much better.  So take a listen, and wrap yourself in the audio blanket that is “The Start of Something”.