bad news first - I won't be doing posts on here anymore :( There just aren't enough good songs on the adult alt. top 20 these daze
and now...the good news!! I WILL be doing a NEW blog (I'll let y'all know about on Facebook once I'm finished with it) and it will be updated every Wednesday to let people know about new songs (also of the adult alt. genre - if it can be CALLED a "genre") that I like that I found out about the week of the article's publishing date. I'll post the link later.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Friday, November 20, 2009
something old, something new (sorry couldn't think of a better title...)
Specifically, something old from Jack Johnson and something new from the Dave Matthews Band. Nothing special, really. Just the same as it ever was...Anyway here's my latest reviews (respectively # 20 and # 18)
1. “Who Says” by John Mayer: Ugghh…If John Mayer is so talented at playing the blues, like he proved in his Trio’s almost Chili-Pepper-ish “Who Did You Think I Was?” and his cover of Hendrix’s “Bold As Love”, then why doesn’t he stick to it?! Honestly, this song sounds like what you’d hear on a Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup commercial, so therefore it sounds pretty cliché to me. About the only high point this song has is it’s (somewhat) hilariously delivered opening line, “Who says you can’t get stoned?” Mayer says this line like someone who’s trying to come off serious, yet somehow the image that pops in my mind with this line is someone who’s smirking and trying hard to hide their laughter as they sing it. Maybe it’s because Mayer does seem to have a funny side to him when he’s being just casually talked to or interviewed, despite how blandly mellow he tends to come off in songs like this.
2. “Maybe” by Ingrid Michaelson: The way Ingrid Michaelson looks (and sounds) suggests something of a younger musical sister to Lisa Loeb, and this song is not only no exception to this rule, but probably the one that resembles Lisa Loeb’s music the most. It’s not as good, though. Where Loeb’s music (particularly her first and best-known single, “Stay [I Missed You]”) sounded nostalgic (and fresh, for its time) enough to be tolerable, Michaelson’s “Maybe” sounds like what has now become a tired cliché in the folk-pop world. That, and it also uses (practically) the same chord sequence as the main verses in Gladys Knight and The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” (though perhaps this wouldn’t bug me so much if I actually liked the song). What also bugs me about, well, any Ingrid Michaelson song that has become popular enough to hit the Top 20 on the Triple-A charts is that these people always seem to choose the more generic sounding songs in her catalog, as opposed to, say, the more delicate, poignant, Regina Spektor-ish “Breakable”.
3. “Fugitive” by David Gray: David, seriously, what happened to your music? Ever since you got a big fanbase with your 2000 record “White Ladder”, your music has gotten worse with each album, and unfortunately this is no exception. ‘Nuff said.
4. “Chasing Pirates” by Norah Jones: This is an interesting song, especially considering that this is, after all, Norah Jones, who seems to have the “vocal pop-jazz chanteuse” label stuck on her. She has tried experimenting with other styles before, particularly a blend of soft jazz and bluegrass (this is especially evident in her work with The Little Willies, named for Willie Nelson, and in her song “Sunrise”). This time, however, she seems to want to connect with a more contemporary audience, via soft trip-hop the way Imogen Heap has approached it ever since she joined Frou Frou in the early 2000’s (and the way Sia did around the same time with Zero 7, before she started churning out pseudo-alt-pop ballads a la Tori Amos/Sarah McLachlan, only a lot more watered down, midway through the 2000’s). Though I’ve never been too big a fan of Norah, this song is probably the closest I’ll come to liking her work even slightly, and if there’s any Imogen Heap, Frou Frou, and/or Zero 7 fans who have friends who really like Norah Jones, this song would probably the best way for Imogen fans to connect with Norah fans. Who nose, perhaps it’ll breed a whole new generation of fans of both artists.
5. “Hey Soul Sister” by Train: This song just seems to copy off of Jack Johnson’s style (and maybe a bit Jason Mraz’s) directly. Wow, Train sure have gone a long way down musically. They started off as like a Counting-Crows-meets-Spin-Doctors kinda band on their debut (which is probably best known for “Meet Virginia”). Then “Drops of Jupiter” became their most popular song when their next album was released, and the success of it seemed to go to their heads so much, that every other song they’ve released since has veered away from their initial alternative/folk-rock style and gone more in the direction of more bland folk-pop a la Jason Mraz and John Mayer (with a bit of Maroon 5 and The Fray tossed in there for good, or in this case, bad measure). Honestly, why the heck are these guys still releasing records? They’ve completely wrecked what they once were.
6. “Wheels” by Foo Fighters: Here’s another band people will inevitably accuse of “selling out” because of this song. Really, it seems like the Foos’ most loyal fans already did this by the time they started flaunting their classic rock roots with the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. This one goes a step further at being classified “lite rock”, since its sound is closer to The Eagles than it is to Bruce (in fact someone I know even mistook this one for a country-western song upon first listening to it!) That being said, it’s obviously not as good as “Long Road to Ruin”, but I don’t dislike “Wheels” either. It’s kinda fun, and apparently the alternative and mainstream rock charts are eatin’ this one up too, which is proof that even people who prefer listening to “hard” rock seem to like this one! It’s also not the first time the Foo’s have attempted doing a “soft rock” song, either. In fact they have done such songs ever since their debut (anyone remember the jangly, somewhat Beatlesque “Big Me”, with its hilarious “Mentos” parody in the music video version?) The trend continued with their 1997 acoustic ballad, “Walking After You”, the infectiously catchy “Learn to Fly” and R.E.M.-ish “Next Year” (both from ’99), unplugged versions of “Everlong” and “Times Like These”, the tender acoustic ballad “Miracle”, and, as mentioned, the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. To sum it all up, if Cobain was the John Lennon of Nirvana, then Grohl is definitely the group’s McCartney, what with his knack for churning out catchy, melodic, (and often humorous) pop songs like this one.
7. “Just Say Yes” by Snow Patrol: Hmmm….Snow Patrol are one of those hit-or-miss kinda bands for me. Sometimes they’re amazing, and other times they sound a little bit too close to Coldplay’s later material for me to appreciate them. This one falls somewhere in between for me. It almost reminds me of “Human” by The Killers (you know, the one with the confusing lyrics, “Are we human, or are we dancer?” which, it turns out, is a misquoting, or misinterpretation, of something Hunter S. Thompson once said). The Killers rarely have any “miss” songs, and so far that’s been the only one they’ve had for me. It sounds more like Duran Duran than it does Springsteen, U2, or The Police like their other songs seem to. Getting back to Snow Patrol’s latest, it, too, sounds a bit more Duran Duran-ish than their other songs. While this is a step up from sleepers they’ve had like “Crack the Shutters” and their just-won’t-go-away hit of 2006, “Chasing Cars”, it’s also a step below their “rockers” like “Take Back the City”, “Hands Open”, and “You’re All I Have”, and it also lacks the earnestness some of their more tolerable “slower” songs like “Open Your Eyes”, “Run”, and “Shut Your Eyes” had. That being said, I’m kinda disappointed with this one. “Just Say Yes”? More like, “Just Say Maybe”, to me.
8. “Dreams” by Brandi Carlile: Honestly, I don’t get how come Brandi Carlile has become so popular on the Triple-A circuit within the past 3 or 4 years. To me a lot of her songs just sound the same, and this is no exception. Basically it’s just k.d. lang stuff with higher vocals and a blander sound. I hate when all the really good songs on these charts are just inching to get to the Top 20 but they never do, and meanwhile the blander songs like this just shoot up to the top really quickly. Go figure
9. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer: Weezer have come along way in the course of the 2000’s. They started out being like a pseudo-grunge act with a quartet of hits that became alt-rock radio staples (“Buddy Holly”, “Undone – The Sweater Song”, “Say It Ain’t So”, and “My Name Is Jonas”). All of these songs basically came off as Green Day wanting to be Nirvana (but failing at it in the process). Then, in the early 2000’s, they released another self-titled album (known to fans as “The Green Album”), and they diversified their sound a bit. While “Hash Pipe” remained the average pseudo-grunge Weezer song, the second single off that album, “Island In the Sun”, was almost like a Beatlesque, day-at-the-beach, idyllic pop song, a departure from Weezer’s typical style. They have continued to diversify their style with ‘70s classic rock influences a la Steve Miller and Peter Frampton, only with an added alt-rock flair (“Beverly Hills”), piano-driven rock (“Perfect Situation”), Pixies-ish songs with acoustic guitar verses and electric guitar choruses (“Pork And Beans”), heartfelt (almost) acoustic ballads (“Heart Songs”), and straight up power pop that almost sounds reminiscent of The Knack, Cheap Trick, and The Romantics (“Troublemaker”). Which brings me to their latest song, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”. Of all the Weezer songs mentioned here, it is probably most like “Island In the Sun” for its carefree, Beatlesque pop melody, though “If You’re Wondering…” has a more uptempo, toe-tapping beat than the peaceful rhythms of “Island In the Sun”. I’ll probably get criticized for saying this, especially among people who have been fans of Weezer since 1994/’95, but I think they’re better at doing Beatlesque pop songs like this one than they are at doing the pseudo-grunge stuff they churned out in the ‘90s.
10. Why I Am” by Dave Matthews Band: It’s nice to know that after their first riff-oriented but somewhat weary single off Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King (“Funny the Way It Is”), that the second one, “Why I Am”, is a welcome return to the funky, playful, energetic DMB sound in days of old, like their ’96 song “Too Much”, which is a similar song, but doesn’t feature quite the guitar noodling this one does.
11. “Just Breathe” by Pearl Jam: Unlike “The Fixer”, this song is a relaxing, contemplative song. One YouTube user even compared this song to Cat Stevens, which is an apt comparison to me, since it has gentle guitar picking and introspective lyrics. The title of the song even fits its mood, in that makes you wanna “just breathe” and enjoy the mellowness of the song. It almost seems like the one song Eddie Vedder left off the “Into the Wild” soundtrack that he decided to record with Pearl Jam instead. What can I say, Eddie Vedder never fails to please me.
12. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon: Great song, but it’s stickin’ to the charts like crazy glue! It’s been on since January, fer goshsakes!! On a side note, this song is KOL’s attempt to be U2 (and/or Springsteen). Every song on that album (Only By the Night) that I’ve heard is like that, actually, but I like the songs anyway.
13. “Falling For You” by Colbie Caillat: Yecch! Everything Colbie Caillat has done so far sounds like super-generic folk-pop, with a somewhat neo-soul inflection, and this is no exception. And to think this is the fourth time she’s been on the Triple-A charts. Wow. How some people become successful in the music biz, I’ll just never understand
14. “Meet Me On the Equinox” by Death Cab for Cutie: Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Death Cab for Cutie did a song for the Twilight soundtrack?!? What a bunch of sellouts!” (Of course, Death Cab’s most loyal fans prob’ly think that their “sell-out” point happened right when their album Plans was released in 2005, but I don’t). Anyway, I still don’t think they’ve “sold out” quite yet. “Meet Me On the Equinox”, first of all, uses a unique chord that (as far as I know) hasn’t been used in DCFC’s other songs – it’s like the chord The Beatles used at the very beginning of “A Hard Day’s Night”, only the part with the 7th on the low E string and the 3rd fret being played on the B string is inverted. It does a good job at trying to sound Beatlesque…for a generation of R.E.M. fans, that is. What’s also cool about this song is how it is built around that inversion of the mysterious G-type chord of “A Hard Day’s Night”. One last thing – don’t judge Death Cab just because they did a song for the Twilight soundtrack – Radiohead, Bon Iver, and Mutemath are all on there too (as is Muse, but I dunno if I like them as much as the three bands I previously mentioned). I’ll be darned the day someone calls Bon Iver (one of indie-folk’s many Nick Drake sound-alikes) a “sellout”. On the downside, though, this song probably will inspire a legion of pre-teen/early teen fangirls of Twilight to claim to be Death Cab fans, despite the fact that this will probably be the only song they know by them.
15. “The Fixer” by Pearl Jam: It’s cool how I’m always fooled into thinking this is a song by The Hives or The White Stripes when I hear the opening riff, proving that although Eddie Vedder might have gone all Bob Dylan on us with the “Into the Wild” soundtrack (which isn’t a BAD thing, mind you), him and the boys can still rock out when they want to! Also, it’s a pretty fun, catchy song for a band that has been labeled “grunge”. This has more of a garage rock-y flavor to it!
16. “Something Beautiful” by Needtobreathe: This song does not live up to its title – well not for me, anyway. Should be more like “Something Average”. It tries hard to sound like an earnestly emotional song, but it just fails. Honestly, these guys are like Five For Fighting, but with acoustic guitars instead of pianos (sorry for those who like Five For Fighting, but even “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” got tiring after it became an Adult Contemporary radio staple).
17. “40 Dogs (Like Romeo And Juliet)” by Bob Schneider: Bob Schneider (not to be confused with ROB Schneider...rimshot!) has been making records since 2003 (or thereabouts), and certain songs of his (i.e. “Metal And Steel”, “Captain Kirk”, and “Big Blue Sea”) hag gotten a fair amount of attention from Triple-A stations when they were released, but none of them cracked the Top 20 (in fact, given that these were all “cult hits” of Schneider’s, they probably didn’t even crack the Top 40). “40 Dogs” marks a moment of triumph for Schneider, after almost a decade (or least half of one) of trying to come up with suitable material for the Triple-A market. His material has always sounded (to me, at least) like melodic, somewhat clever, indie rock, so I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly makes this song different enough from what he’s done before to gain as much attention as it has. Well, for one thing, bands like Death Cab for Cutie and Snow Patrol weren’t as popular as they are today when Schneider released his debut, and “40 Dogs” seems to take after the sound of those kinds of bands. And although his songs have always had clever lyrical content, this one seems to take the cake since it’s got a catchy hook and Death Cab/Snow Patrol-ish guitar riffs to boot. The term “40 dogs” in itself is actually a slang term for 40-oz. beers (the line in question where he says this is during the chorus - “We’re like Romeo and Juliet/We’re like 40 dogs, cigarettes/Or the good times that haven’t happened yet, but will”, and after this part, the chorus continues with “I can tell you how it’s going to be/When the whole world falls into the sea/We’ll be living ever after happily”). The song contains quite a few sexual metaphors, from what I can see (the chorus alone has, “Romeo and Juliet” and “The good times that haven’t happened yet, but will”, in addition to the “Turn a closed shade into a ‘woo-hoo’” from the 3rd verse, presumably a metaphor for sexual intercourse), and the “holy trinity” of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll is complete in the song with the titular item (“40 dogs, cigarettes” - the “drug” part). However, it’s not a “nasty, cynical” song, since the second part of the chorus reassures his lover that no matter what happens they’ll always be together. Another “reasurring” part of the song is during the second verse, where one of the lines starts out by asking “Are the boys taking you for granted?”, and ultimately is answered by, “I wouldn’t let ‘em talk to you like that”. “40 Dogs” is a great song and seems like the perfect song to be used for the next major indie flick, esp. if such a flick were to be in the tradition of “Garden State” or “Juno”.
18. “You And Me” by Dave Matthews Band: This song seems like a moment of pure acoustic balladry from Dave and his band. Not as good as their ’96 smash (and probably their best known song) “Crash Into Me” (at least in my opinion it isn’t), but “You And Me” still manages to be sentimental enough to catch my attention, yet not so sentimental that manages to let me down as a listener (like some of his solo efforts, like “Oh”, managed to do). Clearly, DMB have tried exploring as much musical and emotional territory as they can on their latest album – they’ve previously had moments of world-weary melancholia (“Funny the Way It Is”) and uptempo, jazzy guitar workouts (“Why I Am”), and now they’ve come to Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King’s third single, “You And Me”, in which they show off their more caring, hopeful side.
19. “I And Love And You” by The Avett Brothers: This song kinda gets to me. It’s slow and bland, and as if that’s not enough, it drags on for nearly 5 minutes. About the only thing I like about this song is its title, a take on the common phrase “I love you”, with an “and” in between each word (because, as it’s stated in the chorus, “Three words that became hard to say/Were I, and love, and you”, probably referring to how “I love you” just isn’t enough sometimes).
20. “Better Together (live)” by Jack Johnson: Is there any need to review this one? It already came out in 2005. What difference does it make if it’s live? ‘Nuff said.
1. “Who Says” by John Mayer: Ugghh…If John Mayer is so talented at playing the blues, like he proved in his Trio’s almost Chili-Pepper-ish “Who Did You Think I Was?” and his cover of Hendrix’s “Bold As Love”, then why doesn’t he stick to it?! Honestly, this song sounds like what you’d hear on a Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup commercial, so therefore it sounds pretty cliché to me. About the only high point this song has is it’s (somewhat) hilariously delivered opening line, “Who says you can’t get stoned?” Mayer says this line like someone who’s trying to come off serious, yet somehow the image that pops in my mind with this line is someone who’s smirking and trying hard to hide their laughter as they sing it. Maybe it’s because Mayer does seem to have a funny side to him when he’s being just casually talked to or interviewed, despite how blandly mellow he tends to come off in songs like this.
2. “Maybe” by Ingrid Michaelson: The way Ingrid Michaelson looks (and sounds) suggests something of a younger musical sister to Lisa Loeb, and this song is not only no exception to this rule, but probably the one that resembles Lisa Loeb’s music the most. It’s not as good, though. Where Loeb’s music (particularly her first and best-known single, “Stay [I Missed You]”) sounded nostalgic (and fresh, for its time) enough to be tolerable, Michaelson’s “Maybe” sounds like what has now become a tired cliché in the folk-pop world. That, and it also uses (practically) the same chord sequence as the main verses in Gladys Knight and The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” (though perhaps this wouldn’t bug me so much if I actually liked the song). What also bugs me about, well, any Ingrid Michaelson song that has become popular enough to hit the Top 20 on the Triple-A charts is that these people always seem to choose the more generic sounding songs in her catalog, as opposed to, say, the more delicate, poignant, Regina Spektor-ish “Breakable”.
3. “Fugitive” by David Gray: David, seriously, what happened to your music? Ever since you got a big fanbase with your 2000 record “White Ladder”, your music has gotten worse with each album, and unfortunately this is no exception. ‘Nuff said.
4. “Chasing Pirates” by Norah Jones: This is an interesting song, especially considering that this is, after all, Norah Jones, who seems to have the “vocal pop-jazz chanteuse” label stuck on her. She has tried experimenting with other styles before, particularly a blend of soft jazz and bluegrass (this is especially evident in her work with The Little Willies, named for Willie Nelson, and in her song “Sunrise”). This time, however, she seems to want to connect with a more contemporary audience, via soft trip-hop the way Imogen Heap has approached it ever since she joined Frou Frou in the early 2000’s (and the way Sia did around the same time with Zero 7, before she started churning out pseudo-alt-pop ballads a la Tori Amos/Sarah McLachlan, only a lot more watered down, midway through the 2000’s). Though I’ve never been too big a fan of Norah, this song is probably the closest I’ll come to liking her work even slightly, and if there’s any Imogen Heap, Frou Frou, and/or Zero 7 fans who have friends who really like Norah Jones, this song would probably the best way for Imogen fans to connect with Norah fans. Who nose, perhaps it’ll breed a whole new generation of fans of both artists.
5. “Hey Soul Sister” by Train: This song just seems to copy off of Jack Johnson’s style (and maybe a bit Jason Mraz’s) directly. Wow, Train sure have gone a long way down musically. They started off as like a Counting-Crows-meets-Spin-Doctors kinda band on their debut (which is probably best known for “Meet Virginia”). Then “Drops of Jupiter” became their most popular song when their next album was released, and the success of it seemed to go to their heads so much, that every other song they’ve released since has veered away from their initial alternative/folk-rock style and gone more in the direction of more bland folk-pop a la Jason Mraz and John Mayer (with a bit of Maroon 5 and The Fray tossed in there for good, or in this case, bad measure). Honestly, why the heck are these guys still releasing records? They’ve completely wrecked what they once were.
6. “Wheels” by Foo Fighters: Here’s another band people will inevitably accuse of “selling out” because of this song. Really, it seems like the Foos’ most loyal fans already did this by the time they started flaunting their classic rock roots with the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. This one goes a step further at being classified “lite rock”, since its sound is closer to The Eagles than it is to Bruce (in fact someone I know even mistook this one for a country-western song upon first listening to it!) That being said, it’s obviously not as good as “Long Road to Ruin”, but I don’t dislike “Wheels” either. It’s kinda fun, and apparently the alternative and mainstream rock charts are eatin’ this one up too, which is proof that even people who prefer listening to “hard” rock seem to like this one! It’s also not the first time the Foo’s have attempted doing a “soft rock” song, either. In fact they have done such songs ever since their debut (anyone remember the jangly, somewhat Beatlesque “Big Me”, with its hilarious “Mentos” parody in the music video version?) The trend continued with their 1997 acoustic ballad, “Walking After You”, the infectiously catchy “Learn to Fly” and R.E.M.-ish “Next Year” (both from ’99), unplugged versions of “Everlong” and “Times Like These”, the tender acoustic ballad “Miracle”, and, as mentioned, the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. To sum it all up, if Cobain was the John Lennon of Nirvana, then Grohl is definitely the group’s McCartney, what with his knack for churning out catchy, melodic, (and often humorous) pop songs like this one.
7. “Just Say Yes” by Snow Patrol: Hmmm….Snow Patrol are one of those hit-or-miss kinda bands for me. Sometimes they’re amazing, and other times they sound a little bit too close to Coldplay’s later material for me to appreciate them. This one falls somewhere in between for me. It almost reminds me of “Human” by The Killers (you know, the one with the confusing lyrics, “Are we human, or are we dancer?” which, it turns out, is a misquoting, or misinterpretation, of something Hunter S. Thompson once said). The Killers rarely have any “miss” songs, and so far that’s been the only one they’ve had for me. It sounds more like Duran Duran than it does Springsteen, U2, or The Police like their other songs seem to. Getting back to Snow Patrol’s latest, it, too, sounds a bit more Duran Duran-ish than their other songs. While this is a step up from sleepers they’ve had like “Crack the Shutters” and their just-won’t-go-away hit of 2006, “Chasing Cars”, it’s also a step below their “rockers” like “Take Back the City”, “Hands Open”, and “You’re All I Have”, and it also lacks the earnestness some of their more tolerable “slower” songs like “Open Your Eyes”, “Run”, and “Shut Your Eyes” had. That being said, I’m kinda disappointed with this one. “Just Say Yes”? More like, “Just Say Maybe”, to me.
8. “Dreams” by Brandi Carlile: Honestly, I don’t get how come Brandi Carlile has become so popular on the Triple-A circuit within the past 3 or 4 years. To me a lot of her songs just sound the same, and this is no exception. Basically it’s just k.d. lang stuff with higher vocals and a blander sound. I hate when all the really good songs on these charts are just inching to get to the Top 20 but they never do, and meanwhile the blander songs like this just shoot up to the top really quickly. Go figure
9. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer: Weezer have come along way in the course of the 2000’s. They started out being like a pseudo-grunge act with a quartet of hits that became alt-rock radio staples (“Buddy Holly”, “Undone – The Sweater Song”, “Say It Ain’t So”, and “My Name Is Jonas”). All of these songs basically came off as Green Day wanting to be Nirvana (but failing at it in the process). Then, in the early 2000’s, they released another self-titled album (known to fans as “The Green Album”), and they diversified their sound a bit. While “Hash Pipe” remained the average pseudo-grunge Weezer song, the second single off that album, “Island In the Sun”, was almost like a Beatlesque, day-at-the-beach, idyllic pop song, a departure from Weezer’s typical style. They have continued to diversify their style with ‘70s classic rock influences a la Steve Miller and Peter Frampton, only with an added alt-rock flair (“Beverly Hills”), piano-driven rock (“Perfect Situation”), Pixies-ish songs with acoustic guitar verses and electric guitar choruses (“Pork And Beans”), heartfelt (almost) acoustic ballads (“Heart Songs”), and straight up power pop that almost sounds reminiscent of The Knack, Cheap Trick, and The Romantics (“Troublemaker”). Which brings me to their latest song, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”. Of all the Weezer songs mentioned here, it is probably most like “Island In the Sun” for its carefree, Beatlesque pop melody, though “If You’re Wondering…” has a more uptempo, toe-tapping beat than the peaceful rhythms of “Island In the Sun”. I’ll probably get criticized for saying this, especially among people who have been fans of Weezer since 1994/’95, but I think they’re better at doing Beatlesque pop songs like this one than they are at doing the pseudo-grunge stuff they churned out in the ‘90s.
10. Why I Am” by Dave Matthews Band: It’s nice to know that after their first riff-oriented but somewhat weary single off Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King (“Funny the Way It Is”), that the second one, “Why I Am”, is a welcome return to the funky, playful, energetic DMB sound in days of old, like their ’96 song “Too Much”, which is a similar song, but doesn’t feature quite the guitar noodling this one does.
11. “Just Breathe” by Pearl Jam: Unlike “The Fixer”, this song is a relaxing, contemplative song. One YouTube user even compared this song to Cat Stevens, which is an apt comparison to me, since it has gentle guitar picking and introspective lyrics. The title of the song even fits its mood, in that makes you wanna “just breathe” and enjoy the mellowness of the song. It almost seems like the one song Eddie Vedder left off the “Into the Wild” soundtrack that he decided to record with Pearl Jam instead. What can I say, Eddie Vedder never fails to please me.
12. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon: Great song, but it’s stickin’ to the charts like crazy glue! It’s been on since January, fer goshsakes!! On a side note, this song is KOL’s attempt to be U2 (and/or Springsteen). Every song on that album (Only By the Night) that I’ve heard is like that, actually, but I like the songs anyway.
13. “Falling For You” by Colbie Caillat: Yecch! Everything Colbie Caillat has done so far sounds like super-generic folk-pop, with a somewhat neo-soul inflection, and this is no exception. And to think this is the fourth time she’s been on the Triple-A charts. Wow. How some people become successful in the music biz, I’ll just never understand
14. “Meet Me On the Equinox” by Death Cab for Cutie: Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Death Cab for Cutie did a song for the Twilight soundtrack?!? What a bunch of sellouts!” (Of course, Death Cab’s most loyal fans prob’ly think that their “sell-out” point happened right when their album Plans was released in 2005, but I don’t). Anyway, I still don’t think they’ve “sold out” quite yet. “Meet Me On the Equinox”, first of all, uses a unique chord that (as far as I know) hasn’t been used in DCFC’s other songs – it’s like the chord The Beatles used at the very beginning of “A Hard Day’s Night”, only the part with the 7th on the low E string and the 3rd fret being played on the B string is inverted. It does a good job at trying to sound Beatlesque…for a generation of R.E.M. fans, that is. What’s also cool about this song is how it is built around that inversion of the mysterious G-type chord of “A Hard Day’s Night”. One last thing – don’t judge Death Cab just because they did a song for the Twilight soundtrack – Radiohead, Bon Iver, and Mutemath are all on there too (as is Muse, but I dunno if I like them as much as the three bands I previously mentioned). I’ll be darned the day someone calls Bon Iver (one of indie-folk’s many Nick Drake sound-alikes) a “sellout”. On the downside, though, this song probably will inspire a legion of pre-teen/early teen fangirls of Twilight to claim to be Death Cab fans, despite the fact that this will probably be the only song they know by them.
15. “The Fixer” by Pearl Jam: It’s cool how I’m always fooled into thinking this is a song by The Hives or The White Stripes when I hear the opening riff, proving that although Eddie Vedder might have gone all Bob Dylan on us with the “Into the Wild” soundtrack (which isn’t a BAD thing, mind you), him and the boys can still rock out when they want to! Also, it’s a pretty fun, catchy song for a band that has been labeled “grunge”. This has more of a garage rock-y flavor to it!
16. “Something Beautiful” by Needtobreathe: This song does not live up to its title – well not for me, anyway. Should be more like “Something Average”. It tries hard to sound like an earnestly emotional song, but it just fails. Honestly, these guys are like Five For Fighting, but with acoustic guitars instead of pianos (sorry for those who like Five For Fighting, but even “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” got tiring after it became an Adult Contemporary radio staple).
17. “40 Dogs (Like Romeo And Juliet)” by Bob Schneider: Bob Schneider (not to be confused with ROB Schneider...rimshot!) has been making records since 2003 (or thereabouts), and certain songs of his (i.e. “Metal And Steel”, “Captain Kirk”, and “Big Blue Sea”) hag gotten a fair amount of attention from Triple-A stations when they were released, but none of them cracked the Top 20 (in fact, given that these were all “cult hits” of Schneider’s, they probably didn’t even crack the Top 40). “40 Dogs” marks a moment of triumph for Schneider, after almost a decade (or least half of one) of trying to come up with suitable material for the Triple-A market. His material has always sounded (to me, at least) like melodic, somewhat clever, indie rock, so I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly makes this song different enough from what he’s done before to gain as much attention as it has. Well, for one thing, bands like Death Cab for Cutie and Snow Patrol weren’t as popular as they are today when Schneider released his debut, and “40 Dogs” seems to take after the sound of those kinds of bands. And although his songs have always had clever lyrical content, this one seems to take the cake since it’s got a catchy hook and Death Cab/Snow Patrol-ish guitar riffs to boot. The term “40 dogs” in itself is actually a slang term for 40-oz. beers (the line in question where he says this is during the chorus - “We’re like Romeo and Juliet/We’re like 40 dogs, cigarettes/Or the good times that haven’t happened yet, but will”, and after this part, the chorus continues with “I can tell you how it’s going to be/When the whole world falls into the sea/We’ll be living ever after happily”). The song contains quite a few sexual metaphors, from what I can see (the chorus alone has, “Romeo and Juliet” and “The good times that haven’t happened yet, but will”, in addition to the “Turn a closed shade into a ‘woo-hoo’” from the 3rd verse, presumably a metaphor for sexual intercourse), and the “holy trinity” of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll is complete in the song with the titular item (“40 dogs, cigarettes” - the “drug” part). However, it’s not a “nasty, cynical” song, since the second part of the chorus reassures his lover that no matter what happens they’ll always be together. Another “reasurring” part of the song is during the second verse, where one of the lines starts out by asking “Are the boys taking you for granted?”, and ultimately is answered by, “I wouldn’t let ‘em talk to you like that”. “40 Dogs” is a great song and seems like the perfect song to be used for the next major indie flick, esp. if such a flick were to be in the tradition of “Garden State” or “Juno”.
18. “You And Me” by Dave Matthews Band: This song seems like a moment of pure acoustic balladry from Dave and his band. Not as good as their ’96 smash (and probably their best known song) “Crash Into Me” (at least in my opinion it isn’t), but “You And Me” still manages to be sentimental enough to catch my attention, yet not so sentimental that manages to let me down as a listener (like some of his solo efforts, like “Oh”, managed to do). Clearly, DMB have tried exploring as much musical and emotional territory as they can on their latest album – they’ve previously had moments of world-weary melancholia (“Funny the Way It Is”) and uptempo, jazzy guitar workouts (“Why I Am”), and now they’ve come to Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King’s third single, “You And Me”, in which they show off their more caring, hopeful side.
19. “I And Love And You” by The Avett Brothers: This song kinda gets to me. It’s slow and bland, and as if that’s not enough, it drags on for nearly 5 minutes. About the only thing I like about this song is its title, a take on the common phrase “I love you”, with an “and” in between each word (because, as it’s stated in the chorus, “Three words that became hard to say/Were I, and love, and you”, probably referring to how “I love you” just isn’t enough sometimes).
20. “Better Together (live)” by Jack Johnson: Is there any need to review this one? It already came out in 2005. What difference does it make if it’s live? ‘Nuff said.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Eddie Vedder channels his inner Cat Stevens, MORE honorable mentions (including Kings of Leon's latest)
The Triple-A Top 20 seems to have had a lot of "on-again/off-again" entries lately, which is why I'm continuing "honorable mentions" for now (this time around: "I And Love And You" by The Avett Brothers and "Notion" by Kings of Leon). Pearl Jam's latest, "Just Breathe" seems like it has a better chance of skyrocketing up the charts, though, considering that just two or so days ago it was # 26, and today it's # 19!! For this reason, I've decided to update my blog today. Enjoy!
1. “Fugitive” by David Gray: David, seriously, what happened to your music? Ever since you got a big fanbase with your 2000 record “White Ladder”, your music has gotten worse with each album, and unfortunately this is no exception. ‘Nuff said.
2. “Maybe” by Ingrid Michaelson: The way Ingrid Michaelson looks (and sounds) suggests something of a younger musical sister to Lisa Loeb, and this song is not only no exception to this rule, but probably the one that resembles Lisa Loeb’s music the most. It’s not as good, though. Where Loeb’s music (particularly her first and best-known single, “Stay [I Missed You]”) sounded nostalgic (and fresh, for its time) enough to be tolerable, Michaelson’s “Maybe” sounds like what has now become a tired cliché in the folk-pop world. That, and it also uses (practically) the same chord sequence as the main verses in Gladys Knight and The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” (though perhaps this wouldn’t bug me so much if I actually liked the song). What also bugs me about, well, any Ingrid Michaelson song that has become popular enough to hit the Top 20 on the Triple-A charts is that these people always seem to choose the more generic sounding songs in her catalog, as opposed to, say, the more delicate, poignant, Regina Spektor-ish “Breakable”.
3. “Who Says” by John Mayer: Ugghh…If John Mayer is so talented at playing the blues, like he proved in his Trio’s almost Chili-Pepper-ish “Who Did You Think I Was?” and his cover of Hendrix’s “Bold As Love”, then why doesn’t he stick to it?! Honestly, this song sounds like what you’d hear on a Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup commercial, so therefore it sounds pretty cliché to me. About the only high point this song has is it’s (somewhat) hilariously delivered opening line, “Who says you can’t get stoned?” Mayer says this line like someone who’s trying to come off serious, yet somehow the image that pops in my mind with this line is someone who’s smirking and trying hard to hide their laughter as they sing it. Maybe it’s because Mayer does seem to have a funny side to him when he’s being just casually talked to or interviewed, despite how blandly mellow he tends to come off in songs like this.
4. “Hey Soul Sister” by Train: This song just seems to copy off of Jack Johnson’s style (and maybe a bit Jason Mraz’s) directly. Wow, Train sure have gone a long way down musically. They started off as like a Counting-Crows-meets-Spin-Doctors kinda band on their debut (which is probably best known for “Meet Virginia”). Then “Drops of Jupiter” became their most popular song when their next album was released, and the success of it seemed to go to their heads so much, that every other song they’ve released since has veered away from their initial alternative/folk-rock style and gone more in the direction of more bland folk-pop a la Jason Mraz and John Mayer (with a bit of Maroon 5 and The Fray tossed in there for good, or in this case, bad measure). Honestly, why the heck are these guys still releasing records? They’ve completely wrecked what they once were.
5. “Chasing Pirates” by Norah Jones: This is an interesting song, especially considering that this is, after all, Norah Jones, who seems to have the “vocal pop-jazz chanteuse” label stuck on her. She has tried experimenting with other styles before, particularly a blend of soft jazz and bluegrass (this is especially evident in her work with The Little Willies, named for Willie Nelson, and in her song “Sunrise”). This time, however, she seems to want to connect with a more contemporary audience, via soft trip-hop the way Imogen Heap has approached it ever since she joined Frou Frou in the early 2000’s (and the way Sia did around the same time with Zero 7, before she started churning out pseudo-alt-pop ballads a la Tori Amos/Sarah McLachlan, only a lot more watered down, midway through the 2000’s). Though I’ve never been too big a fan of Norah, this song is probably the closest I’ll come to liking her work even slightly, and if there’s any Imogen Heap, Frou Frou, and/or Zero 7 fans who have friends who really like Norah Jones, this song would probably the best way for Imogen fans to connect with Norah fans. Who nose, perhaps it’ll breed a whole new generation of fans of both artists.
6. Why I Am” by Dave Matthews Band: It’s nice to know that after their first riff-oriented but somewhat weary single off Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King (“Funny the Way It Is”), that the second one, “Why I Am”, is a welcome return to the funky, playful, energetic DMB sound in days of old, like their ’96 song “Too Much”, which is a similar song, but doesn’t feature quite the guitar noodling this one does.
7. “Just Say Yes” by Snow Patrol: Hmmm….Snow Patrol are one of those hit-or-miss kinda bands for me. Sometimes they’re amazing, and other times they sound a little bit too close to Coldplay’s later material for me to appreciate them. This one falls somewhere in between for me. It almost reminds me of “Human” by The Killers (you know, the one with the confusing lyrics, “Are we human, or are we dancer?” which, it turns out, is a misquoting, or misinterpretation, of something Hunter S. Thompson once said). The Killers rarely have any “miss” songs, and so far that’s been the only one they’ve had for me. It sounds more like Duran Duran than it does Springsteen, U2, or The Police like their other songs seem to. Getting back to Snow Patrol’s latest, it, too, sounds a bit more Duran Duran-ish than their other songs. While this is a step up from sleepers they’ve had like “Crack the Shutters” and their just-won’t-go-away hit of 2006, “Chasing Cars”, it’s also a step below their “rockers” like “Take Back the City”, “Hands Open”, and “You’re All I Have”, and it also lacks the earnestness some of their more tolerable “slower” songs like “Open Your Eyes”, “Run”, and “Shut Your Eyes” had. That being said, I’m kinda disappointed with this one. “Just Say Yes”? More like, “Just Say Maybe”, to me.
8. “Falling For You” by Colbie Caillat: Yecch! Everything Colbie Caillat has done so far sounds like super-generic folk-pop, with a somewhat neo-soul inflection, and this is no exception. And to think this is the fourth time she’s been on the Triple-A charts. Wow. How some people become successful in the music biz, I’ll just never understand
9. “The Fixer” by Pearl Jam: It’s cool how I’m always fooled into thinking this is a song by The Hives or The White Stripes when I hear the opening riff, proving that although Eddie Vedder might have gone all Bob Dylan on us with the “Into the Wild” soundtrack (which isn’t a BAD thing, mind you), him and the boys can still rock out when they want to! Also, it’s a pretty fun, catchy song for a band that has been labeled “grunge”. This has more of a garage rock-y flavor to it!
10. “Wheels” by Foo Fighters: Here’s another band people will inevitably accuse of “selling out” because of this song. Really, it seems like the Foos’ most loyal fans already did this by the time they started flaunting their classic rock roots with the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. This one goes a step further at being classified “lite rock”, since its sound is closer to The Eagles than it is to Bruce (in fact someone I know even mistook this one for a country-western song upon first listening to it!) That being said, it’s obviously not as good as “Long Road to Ruin”, but I don’t dislike “Wheels” either. It’s kinda fun, and apparently the alternative and mainstream rock charts are eatin’ this one up too, which is proof that even people who prefer listening to “hard” rock seem to like this one! It’s also not the first time the Foo’s have attempted doing a “soft rock” song, either. In fact they have done such songs ever since their debut (anyone remember the jangly, somewhat Beatlesque “Big Me”, with its hilarious “Mentos” parody in the music video version?) The trend continued with their 1997 acoustic ballad, “Walking After You”, the infectiously catchy “Learn to Fly” and R.E.M.-ish “Next Year” (both from ’99), unplugged versions of “Everlong” and “Times Like These”, the tender acoustic ballad “Miracle”, and, as mentioned, the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. To sum it all up, if Cobain was the John Lennon of Nirvana, then Grohl is definitely the group’s McCartney, what with his knack for churning out catchy, melodic, (and often humorous) pop songs like this one.
11. “Dreams” by Brandi Carlile: Honestly, I don’t get how come Brandi Carlile has become so popular on the Triple-A circuit within the past 3 or 4 years. To me a lot of her songs just sound the same, and this is no exception. Basically it’s just k.d. lang stuff with higher vocals and a blander sound. I hate when all the really good songs on these charts are just inching to get to the Top 20 but they never do, and meanwhile the blander songs like this just shoot up to the top really quickly. Go figure.
12. “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight)” by U2: Should be re-titled “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Hear This Song Again Tonight)”. Don’t get me wrong, I love U2, but out of the three songs that have become hits off their latest release (No Line On the Horizon), this is my least favorite. It sounds more ordinary than the other two songs, (the Lenny Kravitz-ish “Get On Your Boots”, and “Magnificent”, which showcases their melodic brand of electric guitar-based rock well).
13. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon: Great song, but it’s stickin’ to the charts like crazy glue! It’s been on since January, fer goshsakes!! On a side note, this song is KOL’s attempt to be U2 (and/or Springsteen). Every song on that album (Only By the Night) that I’ve heard is like that, actually, but I like the songs anyway.
14. “Backwards Down the Number Line” by Phish: Phish have often been compared to The Grateful Dead for their improvisational, “jam-band” approach to music, as well as their extensive touring. This song, which appears to be their most popular so far, despite the fact that Phish have been around (and known) since the early ‘90s, probably sounds more like The Dead than any song I’ve ever heard of theirs (and definitely more so than the Trey Anastasio solo records, which sounded more like Clapton than The Dead – not that that’s a bad thing…) You can hear little bits of The Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” and “Bertha” in this song, and the guitar solo even sounds like it could’ve been done by Jerry Garcia himself (had he still been alive at the time of this song’s recording, that is). The mellow folk-rock/blues combination that was trademark for The Dead, and now for Phish, pretty much makes this song irresistible! The only complaint I have about this song is that the chorus is repeated too many times. But the other factors of this song pretty much compensate for that.
15. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer: Weezer have come along way in the course of the 2000’s. They started out being like a pseudo-grunge act with a quartet of hits that became alt-rock radio staples (“Buddy Holly”, “Undone – The Sweater Song”, “Say It Ain’t So”, and “My Name Is Jonas”). All of these songs basically came off as Green Day wanting to be Nirvana (but failing at it in the process). Then, in the early 2000’s, they released another self-titled album (known to fans as “The Green Album”), and they diversified their sound a bit. While “Hash Pipe” remained the average pseudo-grunge Weezer song, the second single off that album, “Island In the Sun”, was almost like a Beatlesque, day-at-the-beach, idyllic pop song, a departure from Weezer’s typical style. They have continued to diversify their style with ‘70s classic rock influences a la Steve Miller and Peter Frampton, only with an added alt-rock flair (“Beverly Hills”), piano-driven rock (“Perfect Situation”), Pixies-ish songs with acoustic guitar verses and electric guitar choruses (“Pork And Beans”), heartfelt (almost) acoustic ballads (“Heart Songs”), and straight up power pop that almost sounds reminiscent of The Knack, Cheap Trick, and The Romantics (“Troublemaker”). Which brings me to their latest song, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”. Of all the Weezer songs mentioned here, it is probably most like “Island In the Sun” for its carefree, Beatlesque pop melody, though “If You’re Wondering…” has a more uptempo, toe-tapping beat than the peaceful rhythms of “Island In the Sun”. I’ll probably get criticized for saying this, especially among people who have been fans of Weezer since 1994/’95, but I think they’re better at doing Beatlesque pop songs like this one than they are at doing the pseudo-grunge stuff they churned out in the ‘90s.
16. “Something Beautiful” by Needtobreathe: This song does not live up to its title – well not for me, anyway. Should be more like “Something Average”. It tries hard to sound like an earnestly emotional song, but it just fails. Honestly, these guys are like Five For Fighting, but with acoustic guitars instead of pianos (sorry for those who like Five For Fighting, but even “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” got tiring after it became an Adult Contemporary radio staple).
17. “Meet Me On the Equinox” by Death Cab for Cutie: Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Death Cab for Cutie did a song for the Twilight soundtrack?!? What a bunch of sellouts!” (Of course, Death Cab’s most loyal fans prob’ly think that their “sell-out” point happened right when their album Plans was released in 2005, but I don’t). Anyway, I still don’t think they’ve “sold out” quite yet. “Meet Me On the Equinox”, first of all, uses a unique chord that (as far as I know) hasn’t been used in DCFC’s other songs – it’s like the chord The Beatles used at the very beginning of “A Hard Day’s Night”, only the part with the 7th on the low E string and the 3rd fret being played on the B string is inverted. It does a good job at trying to sound Beatlesque…for a generation of R.E.M. fans, that is. What’s also cool about this song is how it is built around that inversion of the mysterious G-type chord of “A Hard Day’s Night”. One last thing – don’t judge Death Cab just because they did a song for the Twilight soundtrack – Radiohead, Bon Iver, and Mutemath are all on there too (as is Muse, but I dunno if I like them as much as the three bands I previously mentioned). I’ll be darned the day someone calls Bon Iver (one of indie-folk’s many Nick Drake sound-alikes) a “sellout”. On the downside, though, this song probably will inspire a legion of pre-teen/early teen fangirls of Twilight to claim to be Death Cab fans, despite the fact that this will probably be the only song they know by them.
18. “40 Dogs (Like Romeo And Juliet)” by Bob Schneider: Bob Schneider (not to be confused with ROB Schneider...rimshot!) has been making records since 2003 (or thereabouts), and certain songs of his (i.e. “Metal And Steel”, “Captain Kirk”, and “Big Blue Sea”) hag gotten a fair amount of attention from Triple-A stations when they were released, but none of them cracked the Top 20 (in fact, given that these were all “cult hits” of Schneider’s, they probably didn’t even crack the Top 40). “40 Dogs” marks a moment of triumph for Schneider, after almost a decade (or least half of one) of trying to come up with suitable material for the Triple-A market. His material has always sounded (to me, at least) like melodic, somewhat clever, indie rock, so I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly makes this song different enough from what he’s done before to gain as much attention as it has. Well, for one thing, bands like Death Cab for Cutie and Snow Patrol weren’t as popular as they are today when Schneider released his debut, and “40 Dogs” seems to take after the sound of those kinds of bands. And although his songs have always had clever lyrical content, this one seems to take the cake since it’s got a catchy hook and Death Cab/Snow Patrol-ish guitar riffs to boot. The term “40 dogs” in itself is actually a slang term for 40-oz. beers (the line in question where he says this is during the chorus - “We’re like Romeo and Juliet/We’re like 40 dogs, cigarettes/Or the good times that haven’t happened yet, but will”, and after this part, the chorus continues with “I can tell you how it’s going to be/When the whole world falls into the sea/We’ll be living ever after happily”). The song contains quite a few sexual metaphors, from what I can see (the chorus alone has, “Romeo and Juliet” and “The good times that haven’t happened yet, but will”, in addition to the “Turn a closed shade into a ‘woo-hoo’” from the 3rd verse, presumably a metaphor for sexual intercourse), and the “holy trinity” of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll is complete in the song with the titular item (“40 dogs, cigarettes” - the “drug” part). However, it’s not a “nasty, cynical” song, since the second part of the chorus reassures his lover that no matter what happens they’ll always be together. Another “reasurring” part of the song is during the second verse, where one of the lines starts out by asking “Are the boys taking you for granted?”, and ultimately is answered by, “I wouldn’t let ‘em talk to you like that”. “40 Dogs” is a great song and seems like the perfect song to be used for the next major indie flick, esp. if such a flick were to be in the tradition of “Garden State” or “Juno”.
19. “Just Breathe” by Pearl Jam: Unlike “The Fixer”, this song is a relaxing, contemplative song. One YouTube user even compared this song to Cat Stevens, which is an apt comparison to me, since it has gentle guitar picking and introspective lyrics. The title of the song even fits its mood, in that makes you wanna “just breathe” and enjoy the mellowness of the song. It almost seems like the one song Eddie Vedder left off the “Into the Wild” soundtrack that he decided to record with Pearl Jam instead. What can I say, Eddie Vedder never fails to please me.
20. “Say Please” by Monsters of Folk: (Members of) Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket, and M. Ward in ONE GROUP!! I was pretty psyched when I first heard about this group, and I had a good reason to be! Apparently they’ve gotten a lot of Traveling Wilburys comparisons, and although My Morning Jacket’s lead singer resents these comparisons, they have a pretty good reason to be made, because this song TOTALLY sounds like something Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and/or George Harrison would have done later in their careers. The name “Monsters of Folk” is pretty fitting for this group considering that although they are all alumni of folk-rock groups, there’s a pretty hard-rockin’ guitar solo in this song. Plus, all three groups (well, the third isn’t really a “group” since M. Ward is just one guy), have experimented with blues-rock at one time or another: My Morning Jacket (the Black Crowes-ish “I’m Amazed”), Bright Eyes (particularly in Conor Oberst’s solo songs, like the Tom Petty-ish country-rocker “Sausalito”, and the almost Allman Brothers-ish “Nikorette”), and M. Ward, too (“Never Had Nobody Like You”, whose guitar riffs are very much influenced by The Beatles’ “Revolution”, and whose drum riff pretty much echoes both Gary Glitter’s “Rock And Roll Part 2” and The Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight”). This song sounds a lot like The Beatles’ “Oh! Darling” to me, and it is probably the way George Harrison would have preferred to have that song arranged - with a more roots-y, Wilburys-ish sound, as opposed to the doo-wop with occasional bursts of 1960’s classic rock mixed in type sound he ended up with. George would probably be proud of this song if he were still alive today!
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
21. “I And Love And You” by The Avett Brothers: This song kinda gets to me. It’s slow and bland, and as if that’s not enough, it drags on for nearly 5 minutes. About the only thing I like about this song is its title, a take on the common phrase “I love you”, with an “and” in between each word (because, as it’s stated in the chorus, “Three words that became hard to say/Were I, and love, and you”, probably referring to how “I love you” just isn’t enough sometimes).
22. “Notion” by Kings of Leon: It’s amazing that the album that this is from has been out since September of last year, yet it’s still going strong!! This song, the third single off KOL’s Only By the Night, has an opening riff that reminds me a great deal of Elvis Costello’s “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes”. “Red Shoes” is an unbeatable classic in my opinion, but KOL come close here. Though “Notion” isn’t exactly what I’d call a “classic” by any means, it’s catchy and memorable, much like every song I’ve heard so far off of Only By the Night. Therefore, I give kudos to KOL for effort on this song.
1. “Fugitive” by David Gray: David, seriously, what happened to your music? Ever since you got a big fanbase with your 2000 record “White Ladder”, your music has gotten worse with each album, and unfortunately this is no exception. ‘Nuff said.
2. “Maybe” by Ingrid Michaelson: The way Ingrid Michaelson looks (and sounds) suggests something of a younger musical sister to Lisa Loeb, and this song is not only no exception to this rule, but probably the one that resembles Lisa Loeb’s music the most. It’s not as good, though. Where Loeb’s music (particularly her first and best-known single, “Stay [I Missed You]”) sounded nostalgic (and fresh, for its time) enough to be tolerable, Michaelson’s “Maybe” sounds like what has now become a tired cliché in the folk-pop world. That, and it also uses (practically) the same chord sequence as the main verses in Gladys Knight and The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” (though perhaps this wouldn’t bug me so much if I actually liked the song). What also bugs me about, well, any Ingrid Michaelson song that has become popular enough to hit the Top 20 on the Triple-A charts is that these people always seem to choose the more generic sounding songs in her catalog, as opposed to, say, the more delicate, poignant, Regina Spektor-ish “Breakable”.
3. “Who Says” by John Mayer: Ugghh…If John Mayer is so talented at playing the blues, like he proved in his Trio’s almost Chili-Pepper-ish “Who Did You Think I Was?” and his cover of Hendrix’s “Bold As Love”, then why doesn’t he stick to it?! Honestly, this song sounds like what you’d hear on a Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup commercial, so therefore it sounds pretty cliché to me. About the only high point this song has is it’s (somewhat) hilariously delivered opening line, “Who says you can’t get stoned?” Mayer says this line like someone who’s trying to come off serious, yet somehow the image that pops in my mind with this line is someone who’s smirking and trying hard to hide their laughter as they sing it. Maybe it’s because Mayer does seem to have a funny side to him when he’s being just casually talked to or interviewed, despite how blandly mellow he tends to come off in songs like this.
4. “Hey Soul Sister” by Train: This song just seems to copy off of Jack Johnson’s style (and maybe a bit Jason Mraz’s) directly. Wow, Train sure have gone a long way down musically. They started off as like a Counting-Crows-meets-Spin-Doctors kinda band on their debut (which is probably best known for “Meet Virginia”). Then “Drops of Jupiter” became their most popular song when their next album was released, and the success of it seemed to go to their heads so much, that every other song they’ve released since has veered away from their initial alternative/folk-rock style and gone more in the direction of more bland folk-pop a la Jason Mraz and John Mayer (with a bit of Maroon 5 and The Fray tossed in there for good, or in this case, bad measure). Honestly, why the heck are these guys still releasing records? They’ve completely wrecked what they once were.
5. “Chasing Pirates” by Norah Jones: This is an interesting song, especially considering that this is, after all, Norah Jones, who seems to have the “vocal pop-jazz chanteuse” label stuck on her. She has tried experimenting with other styles before, particularly a blend of soft jazz and bluegrass (this is especially evident in her work with The Little Willies, named for Willie Nelson, and in her song “Sunrise”). This time, however, she seems to want to connect with a more contemporary audience, via soft trip-hop the way Imogen Heap has approached it ever since she joined Frou Frou in the early 2000’s (and the way Sia did around the same time with Zero 7, before she started churning out pseudo-alt-pop ballads a la Tori Amos/Sarah McLachlan, only a lot more watered down, midway through the 2000’s). Though I’ve never been too big a fan of Norah, this song is probably the closest I’ll come to liking her work even slightly, and if there’s any Imogen Heap, Frou Frou, and/or Zero 7 fans who have friends who really like Norah Jones, this song would probably the best way for Imogen fans to connect with Norah fans. Who nose, perhaps it’ll breed a whole new generation of fans of both artists.
6. Why I Am” by Dave Matthews Band: It’s nice to know that after their first riff-oriented but somewhat weary single off Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King (“Funny the Way It Is”), that the second one, “Why I Am”, is a welcome return to the funky, playful, energetic DMB sound in days of old, like their ’96 song “Too Much”, which is a similar song, but doesn’t feature quite the guitar noodling this one does.
7. “Just Say Yes” by Snow Patrol: Hmmm….Snow Patrol are one of those hit-or-miss kinda bands for me. Sometimes they’re amazing, and other times they sound a little bit too close to Coldplay’s later material for me to appreciate them. This one falls somewhere in between for me. It almost reminds me of “Human” by The Killers (you know, the one with the confusing lyrics, “Are we human, or are we dancer?” which, it turns out, is a misquoting, or misinterpretation, of something Hunter S. Thompson once said). The Killers rarely have any “miss” songs, and so far that’s been the only one they’ve had for me. It sounds more like Duran Duran than it does Springsteen, U2, or The Police like their other songs seem to. Getting back to Snow Patrol’s latest, it, too, sounds a bit more Duran Duran-ish than their other songs. While this is a step up from sleepers they’ve had like “Crack the Shutters” and their just-won’t-go-away hit of 2006, “Chasing Cars”, it’s also a step below their “rockers” like “Take Back the City”, “Hands Open”, and “You’re All I Have”, and it also lacks the earnestness some of their more tolerable “slower” songs like “Open Your Eyes”, “Run”, and “Shut Your Eyes” had. That being said, I’m kinda disappointed with this one. “Just Say Yes”? More like, “Just Say Maybe”, to me.
8. “Falling For You” by Colbie Caillat: Yecch! Everything Colbie Caillat has done so far sounds like super-generic folk-pop, with a somewhat neo-soul inflection, and this is no exception. And to think this is the fourth time she’s been on the Triple-A charts. Wow. How some people become successful in the music biz, I’ll just never understand
9. “The Fixer” by Pearl Jam: It’s cool how I’m always fooled into thinking this is a song by The Hives or The White Stripes when I hear the opening riff, proving that although Eddie Vedder might have gone all Bob Dylan on us with the “Into the Wild” soundtrack (which isn’t a BAD thing, mind you), him and the boys can still rock out when they want to! Also, it’s a pretty fun, catchy song for a band that has been labeled “grunge”. This has more of a garage rock-y flavor to it!
10. “Wheels” by Foo Fighters: Here’s another band people will inevitably accuse of “selling out” because of this song. Really, it seems like the Foos’ most loyal fans already did this by the time they started flaunting their classic rock roots with the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. This one goes a step further at being classified “lite rock”, since its sound is closer to The Eagles than it is to Bruce (in fact someone I know even mistook this one for a country-western song upon first listening to it!) That being said, it’s obviously not as good as “Long Road to Ruin”, but I don’t dislike “Wheels” either. It’s kinda fun, and apparently the alternative and mainstream rock charts are eatin’ this one up too, which is proof that even people who prefer listening to “hard” rock seem to like this one! It’s also not the first time the Foo’s have attempted doing a “soft rock” song, either. In fact they have done such songs ever since their debut (anyone remember the jangly, somewhat Beatlesque “Big Me”, with its hilarious “Mentos” parody in the music video version?) The trend continued with their 1997 acoustic ballad, “Walking After You”, the infectiously catchy “Learn to Fly” and R.E.M.-ish “Next Year” (both from ’99), unplugged versions of “Everlong” and “Times Like These”, the tender acoustic ballad “Miracle”, and, as mentioned, the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. To sum it all up, if Cobain was the John Lennon of Nirvana, then Grohl is definitely the group’s McCartney, what with his knack for churning out catchy, melodic, (and often humorous) pop songs like this one.
11. “Dreams” by Brandi Carlile: Honestly, I don’t get how come Brandi Carlile has become so popular on the Triple-A circuit within the past 3 or 4 years. To me a lot of her songs just sound the same, and this is no exception. Basically it’s just k.d. lang stuff with higher vocals and a blander sound. I hate when all the really good songs on these charts are just inching to get to the Top 20 but they never do, and meanwhile the blander songs like this just shoot up to the top really quickly. Go figure.
12. “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight)” by U2: Should be re-titled “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Hear This Song Again Tonight)”. Don’t get me wrong, I love U2, but out of the three songs that have become hits off their latest release (No Line On the Horizon), this is my least favorite. It sounds more ordinary than the other two songs, (the Lenny Kravitz-ish “Get On Your Boots”, and “Magnificent”, which showcases their melodic brand of electric guitar-based rock well).
13. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon: Great song, but it’s stickin’ to the charts like crazy glue! It’s been on since January, fer goshsakes!! On a side note, this song is KOL’s attempt to be U2 (and/or Springsteen). Every song on that album (Only By the Night) that I’ve heard is like that, actually, but I like the songs anyway.
14. “Backwards Down the Number Line” by Phish: Phish have often been compared to The Grateful Dead for their improvisational, “jam-band” approach to music, as well as their extensive touring. This song, which appears to be their most popular so far, despite the fact that Phish have been around (and known) since the early ‘90s, probably sounds more like The Dead than any song I’ve ever heard of theirs (and definitely more so than the Trey Anastasio solo records, which sounded more like Clapton than The Dead – not that that’s a bad thing…) You can hear little bits of The Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” and “Bertha” in this song, and the guitar solo even sounds like it could’ve been done by Jerry Garcia himself (had he still been alive at the time of this song’s recording, that is). The mellow folk-rock/blues combination that was trademark for The Dead, and now for Phish, pretty much makes this song irresistible! The only complaint I have about this song is that the chorus is repeated too many times. But the other factors of this song pretty much compensate for that.
15. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer: Weezer have come along way in the course of the 2000’s. They started out being like a pseudo-grunge act with a quartet of hits that became alt-rock radio staples (“Buddy Holly”, “Undone – The Sweater Song”, “Say It Ain’t So”, and “My Name Is Jonas”). All of these songs basically came off as Green Day wanting to be Nirvana (but failing at it in the process). Then, in the early 2000’s, they released another self-titled album (known to fans as “The Green Album”), and they diversified their sound a bit. While “Hash Pipe” remained the average pseudo-grunge Weezer song, the second single off that album, “Island In the Sun”, was almost like a Beatlesque, day-at-the-beach, idyllic pop song, a departure from Weezer’s typical style. They have continued to diversify their style with ‘70s classic rock influences a la Steve Miller and Peter Frampton, only with an added alt-rock flair (“Beverly Hills”), piano-driven rock (“Perfect Situation”), Pixies-ish songs with acoustic guitar verses and electric guitar choruses (“Pork And Beans”), heartfelt (almost) acoustic ballads (“Heart Songs”), and straight up power pop that almost sounds reminiscent of The Knack, Cheap Trick, and The Romantics (“Troublemaker”). Which brings me to their latest song, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”. Of all the Weezer songs mentioned here, it is probably most like “Island In the Sun” for its carefree, Beatlesque pop melody, though “If You’re Wondering…” has a more uptempo, toe-tapping beat than the peaceful rhythms of “Island In the Sun”. I’ll probably get criticized for saying this, especially among people who have been fans of Weezer since 1994/’95, but I think they’re better at doing Beatlesque pop songs like this one than they are at doing the pseudo-grunge stuff they churned out in the ‘90s.
16. “Something Beautiful” by Needtobreathe: This song does not live up to its title – well not for me, anyway. Should be more like “Something Average”. It tries hard to sound like an earnestly emotional song, but it just fails. Honestly, these guys are like Five For Fighting, but with acoustic guitars instead of pianos (sorry for those who like Five For Fighting, but even “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” got tiring after it became an Adult Contemporary radio staple).
17. “Meet Me On the Equinox” by Death Cab for Cutie: Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Death Cab for Cutie did a song for the Twilight soundtrack?!? What a bunch of sellouts!” (Of course, Death Cab’s most loyal fans prob’ly think that their “sell-out” point happened right when their album Plans was released in 2005, but I don’t). Anyway, I still don’t think they’ve “sold out” quite yet. “Meet Me On the Equinox”, first of all, uses a unique chord that (as far as I know) hasn’t been used in DCFC’s other songs – it’s like the chord The Beatles used at the very beginning of “A Hard Day’s Night”, only the part with the 7th on the low E string and the 3rd fret being played on the B string is inverted. It does a good job at trying to sound Beatlesque…for a generation of R.E.M. fans, that is. What’s also cool about this song is how it is built around that inversion of the mysterious G-type chord of “A Hard Day’s Night”. One last thing – don’t judge Death Cab just because they did a song for the Twilight soundtrack – Radiohead, Bon Iver, and Mutemath are all on there too (as is Muse, but I dunno if I like them as much as the three bands I previously mentioned). I’ll be darned the day someone calls Bon Iver (one of indie-folk’s many Nick Drake sound-alikes) a “sellout”. On the downside, though, this song probably will inspire a legion of pre-teen/early teen fangirls of Twilight to claim to be Death Cab fans, despite the fact that this will probably be the only song they know by them.
18. “40 Dogs (Like Romeo And Juliet)” by Bob Schneider: Bob Schneider (not to be confused with ROB Schneider...rimshot!) has been making records since 2003 (or thereabouts), and certain songs of his (i.e. “Metal And Steel”, “Captain Kirk”, and “Big Blue Sea”) hag gotten a fair amount of attention from Triple-A stations when they were released, but none of them cracked the Top 20 (in fact, given that these were all “cult hits” of Schneider’s, they probably didn’t even crack the Top 40). “40 Dogs” marks a moment of triumph for Schneider, after almost a decade (or least half of one) of trying to come up with suitable material for the Triple-A market. His material has always sounded (to me, at least) like melodic, somewhat clever, indie rock, so I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly makes this song different enough from what he’s done before to gain as much attention as it has. Well, for one thing, bands like Death Cab for Cutie and Snow Patrol weren’t as popular as they are today when Schneider released his debut, and “40 Dogs” seems to take after the sound of those kinds of bands. And although his songs have always had clever lyrical content, this one seems to take the cake since it’s got a catchy hook and Death Cab/Snow Patrol-ish guitar riffs to boot. The term “40 dogs” in itself is actually a slang term for 40-oz. beers (the line in question where he says this is during the chorus - “We’re like Romeo and Juliet/We’re like 40 dogs, cigarettes/Or the good times that haven’t happened yet, but will”, and after this part, the chorus continues with “I can tell you how it’s going to be/When the whole world falls into the sea/We’ll be living ever after happily”). The song contains quite a few sexual metaphors, from what I can see (the chorus alone has, “Romeo and Juliet” and “The good times that haven’t happened yet, but will”, in addition to the “Turn a closed shade into a ‘woo-hoo’” from the 3rd verse, presumably a metaphor for sexual intercourse), and the “holy trinity” of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll is complete in the song with the titular item (“40 dogs, cigarettes” - the “drug” part). However, it’s not a “nasty, cynical” song, since the second part of the chorus reassures his lover that no matter what happens they’ll always be together. Another “reasurring” part of the song is during the second verse, where one of the lines starts out by asking “Are the boys taking you for granted?”, and ultimately is answered by, “I wouldn’t let ‘em talk to you like that”. “40 Dogs” is a great song and seems like the perfect song to be used for the next major indie flick, esp. if such a flick were to be in the tradition of “Garden State” or “Juno”.
19. “Just Breathe” by Pearl Jam: Unlike “The Fixer”, this song is a relaxing, contemplative song. One YouTube user even compared this song to Cat Stevens, which is an apt comparison to me, since it has gentle guitar picking and introspective lyrics. The title of the song even fits its mood, in that makes you wanna “just breathe” and enjoy the mellowness of the song. It almost seems like the one song Eddie Vedder left off the “Into the Wild” soundtrack that he decided to record with Pearl Jam instead. What can I say, Eddie Vedder never fails to please me.
20. “Say Please” by Monsters of Folk: (Members of) Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket, and M. Ward in ONE GROUP!! I was pretty psyched when I first heard about this group, and I had a good reason to be! Apparently they’ve gotten a lot of Traveling Wilburys comparisons, and although My Morning Jacket’s lead singer resents these comparisons, they have a pretty good reason to be made, because this song TOTALLY sounds like something Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and/or George Harrison would have done later in their careers. The name “Monsters of Folk” is pretty fitting for this group considering that although they are all alumni of folk-rock groups, there’s a pretty hard-rockin’ guitar solo in this song. Plus, all three groups (well, the third isn’t really a “group” since M. Ward is just one guy), have experimented with blues-rock at one time or another: My Morning Jacket (the Black Crowes-ish “I’m Amazed”), Bright Eyes (particularly in Conor Oberst’s solo songs, like the Tom Petty-ish country-rocker “Sausalito”, and the almost Allman Brothers-ish “Nikorette”), and M. Ward, too (“Never Had Nobody Like You”, whose guitar riffs are very much influenced by The Beatles’ “Revolution”, and whose drum riff pretty much echoes both Gary Glitter’s “Rock And Roll Part 2” and The Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight”). This song sounds a lot like The Beatles’ “Oh! Darling” to me, and it is probably the way George Harrison would have preferred to have that song arranged - with a more roots-y, Wilburys-ish sound, as opposed to the doo-wop with occasional bursts of 1960’s classic rock mixed in type sound he ended up with. George would probably be proud of this song if he were still alive today!
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
21. “I And Love And You” by The Avett Brothers: This song kinda gets to me. It’s slow and bland, and as if that’s not enough, it drags on for nearly 5 minutes. About the only thing I like about this song is its title, a take on the common phrase “I love you”, with an “and” in between each word (because, as it’s stated in the chorus, “Three words that became hard to say/Were I, and love, and you”, probably referring to how “I love you” just isn’t enough sometimes).
22. “Notion” by Kings of Leon: It’s amazing that the album that this is from has been out since September of last year, yet it’s still going strong!! This song, the third single off KOL’s Only By the Night, has an opening riff that reminds me a great deal of Elvis Costello’s “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes”. “Red Shoes” is an unbeatable classic in my opinion, but KOL come close here. Though “Notion” isn’t exactly what I’d call a “classic” by any means, it’s catchy and memorable, much like every song I’ve heard so far off of Only By the Night. Therefore, I give kudos to KOL for effort on this song.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Norah Jones channels Imogen Heap (or maybe early Sia), Bob Schneider finally hits the Triple-A Top 20
Well, two new songs have made it on the charts this week. An interesting thing to note here is that the number 20 spot seems to have been an "on-again/off-again" spot for three songs on the Triple-A Top 20 this week: "Say Please" by Monsters of Folk, "40 Dogs (Like Romeo And Juliet)" by Bob Schneider, and "Never Say Never" by The Fray. I reviewed the third of these songs last week, and the Bob Schneider one made it to the # 19 spot today so I'll be reviewing that one too, but since the Monsters of Folk (an indie-folk-rock supergroup featuring Jim James from My Morning Jacket, Zooey Deschanel's occasional backing - and fronting - vocalist M. Ward, and Conor Oberst from Bright Eyes, not to mention another Bright Eyes member whom I forget the name of at the moment) song seems like it really wants a spot on the Top 20 (and, for a day, got one) I'll review that one too as an "honorable mention" of the week (if this on-again/off-again trend continues for other songs, I might have to make "honorable mention" a regular feature...who nose?!)
Now, here's my weekly review, and in case yer wondering where the new Norah song made it, it has made a REMARKABLE leap forward from spot # 38 to spot # 14 in just ONE WEEK!!
1. “Fugitive” by David Gray: David, seriously, what happened to your music? Ever since you got a big fanbase with your 2000 record “White Ladder”, your music has gotten worse with each album, and unfortunately this is no exception. ‘Nuff said.
2. “Maybe” by Ingrid Michaelson: The way Ingrid Michaelson looks (and sounds) suggests something of a younger musical sister to Lisa Loeb, and this song is not only no exception to this rule, but probably the one that resembles Lisa Loeb’s music the most. It’s not as good, though. Where Loeb’s music (particularly her first and best-known single, “Stay [I Missed You]”) sounded nostalgic (and fresh, for its time) enough to be tolerable, Michaelson’s “Maybe” sounds like what has now become a tired cliché in the folk-pop world. That, and it also uses (practically) the same chord sequence as the main verses in Gladys Knight and The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” (though perhaps this wouldn’t bug me so much if I actually liked the song). What also bugs me about, well, any Ingrid Michaelson song that has become popular enough to hit the Top 20 on the Triple-A charts is that these people always seem to choose the more generic sounding songs in her catalog, as opposed to, say, the more delicate, poignant, Regina Spektor-ish “Breakable”.
3. Why I Am” by Dave Matthews Band: It’s nice to know that after their first riff-oriented but somewhat weary single off Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King (“Funny the Way It Is”), that the second one, “Why I Am”, is a welcome return to the funky, playful, energetic DMB sound in days of old, like their ’96 song “Too Much”, which is a similar song, but doesn’t feature quite the guitar noodling this one does.
4. “Hey Soul Sister” by Train: This song just seems to copy off of Jack Johnson’s style (and maybe a bit Jason Mraz’s) directly. Wow, Train sure have gone a long way down musically. They started off as like a Counting-Crows-meets-Spin-Doctors kinda band on their debut (which is probably best known for “Meet Virginia”). Then “Drops of Jupiter” became their most popular song when their next album was released, and the success of it seemed to go to their heads so much, that every other song they’ve released since has veered away from their initial alternative/folk-rock style and gone more in the direction of more bland folk-pop a la Jason Mraz and John Mayer (with a bit of Maroon 5 and The Fray tossed in there for good, or in this case, bad measure). Honestly, why the heck are these guys still releasing records? They’ve completely wrecked what they once were.
5. “Who Says” by John Mayer: Ugghh…If John Mayer is so talented at playing the blues, like he proved in his Trio’s almost Chili-Pepper-ish “Who Did You Think I Was?” and his cover of Hendrix’s “Bold As Love”, then why doesn’t he stick to it?! Honestly, this song sounds like what you’d hear on a Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup commercial, so therefore it sounds pretty cliché to me. About the only high point this song has is it’s (somewhat) hilariously delivered opening line, “Who says you can’t get stoned?” Mayer says this line like someone who’s trying to come off serious, yet somehow the image that pops in my mind with this line is someone who’s smirking and trying hard to hide their laughter as they sing it. Maybe it’s because Mayer does seem to have a funny side to him when he’s being just casually talked to or interviewed, despite how blandly mellow he tends to come off in songs like this.
6. “Falling For You” by Colbie Caillat: Yecch! Everything Colbie Caillat has done so far sounds like super-generic folk-pop, with a somewhat neo-soul inflection, and this is no exception. And to think this is the fourth time she’s been on the Triple-A charts. Wow. How some people become successful in the music biz, I’ll just never understand.
7. “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight)” by U2: Should be re-titled “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Hear This Song Again Tonight)”. Don’t get me wrong, I love U2, but out of the three songs that have become hits off their latest release (No Line On the Horizon), this is my least favorite. It sounds more ordinary than the other two songs, (the Lenny Kravitz-ish “Get On Your Boots”, and “Magnificent”, which showcases their melodic brand of electric guitar-based rock well).
8. “The Fixer” by Pearl Jam: It’s cool how I’m always fooled into thinking this is a song by The Hives or The White Stripes when I hear the opening riff, proving that although Eddie Vedder might have gone all Bob Dylan on us with the “Into the Wild” soundtrack (which isn’t a BAD thing, mind you), him and the boys can still rock out when they want to! Also, it’s a pretty fun, catchy song for a band that has been labeled “grunge”. This has more of a garage rock-y flavor to it!
9. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon: Great song, but it’s stickin’ to the charts like crazy glue! It’s been on since January, fer goshsakes!! On a side note, this song is KOL’s attempt to be U2 (and/or Springsteen). Every song on that album (Only By the Night) that I’ve heard is like that, actually, but I like the songs anyway.
10. “21 Guns” by Green Day: Again, don’t get me wrong. “Good Riddance” (aka “Time of Your Life”) was great, but it probably should have been the only “ballad” Green Day focused on. They seem to be taking a similar path now to what Heart took in the ‘80s. Heart’s ‘70s ballads (like “Dog And Butterfly” and “Dreamboat Annie”) were great because they were honest, heartfelt acoustic songs with no “flashiness” (Journey, anyone?) to prove how great they were, but their ‘80s ballads (like “What About Love” and “These Dreams”) relied on heavier instrumentation (not to mention more electronic keyboards) and therefore felt more cheesy than they did truly emotional. The same principle seems to apply to Green Day’s “ballads” after the ‘90s, like “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, and most recently, this song, “21 Guns”. All 3 songs start out acoustic, but they build up much in the same way songs like REO Speedwagon’s “Take It On the Run” did, with the songs ending up as “power ballads” with the electric guitar fronting and the acoustic backing. And these songs are by the same guys who did sarcastic, Ramones-y rants like “Basket Case” and “Welcome to Paradise”?!? Way to go, Green Day, you’ve continued to blow it with your last two albums.
11. “Dreams” by Brandi Carlile: Honestly, I don’t get how come Brandi Carlile has become so popular on the Triple-A circuit within the past 3 or 4 years. To me a lot of her songs just sound the same, and this is no exception. Basically it’s just k.d. lang stuff with higher vocals and a blander sound. I hate when all the really good songs on these charts are just inching to get to the Top 20 but they never do, and meanwhile the blander songs like this just shoot up to the top really quickly. Go figure.
12. “Backwards Down the Number Line” by Phish: Phish have often been compared to The Grateful Dead for their improvisational, “jam-band” approach to music, as well as their extensive touring. This song, which appears to be their most popular so far, despite the fact that Phish have been around (and known) since the early ‘90s, probably sounds more like The Dead than any song I’ve ever heard of theirs (and definitely more so than the Trey Anastasio solo records, which sounded more like Clapton than The Dead – not that that’s a bad thing…) You can hear little bits of The Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” and “Bertha” in this song, and the guitar solo even sounds like it could’ve been done by Jerry Garcia himself (had he still been alive at the time of this song’s recording, that is). The mellow folk-rock/blues combination that was trademark for The Dead, and now for Phish, pretty much makes this song irresistible! The only complaint I have about this song is that the chorus is repeated too many times. But the other factors of this song pretty much compensate for that.
14. “Just Say Yes” by Snow Patrol: Hmmm….Snow Patrol are one of those hit-or-miss kinda bands for me. Sometimes they’re amazing, and other times they sound a little bit too close to Coldplay’s later material for me to appreciate them. This one falls somewhere in between for me. It almost reminds me of “Human” by The Killers (you know, the one with the confusing lyrics, “Are we human, or are we dancer?” which, it turns out, is a misquoting, or misinterpretation, of something Hunter S. Thompson once said). The Killers rarely have any “miss” songs, and so far that’s been the only one they’ve had for me. It sounds more like Duran Duran than it does Springsteen, U2, or The Police like their other songs seem to. Getting back to Snow Patrol’s latest, it, too, sounds a bit more Duran Duran-ish than their other songs. While this is a step up from sleepers they’ve had like “Crack the Shutters” and their just-won’t-go-away hit of 2006, “Chasing Cars”, it’s also a step below their “rockers” like “Take Back the City”, “Hands Open”, and “You’re All I Have”, and it also lacks the earnestness some of their more tolerable “slower” songs like “Open Your Eyes”, “Run”, and “Shut Your Eyes” had. That being said, I’m kinda disappointed with this one. “Just Say Yes”? More like, “Just Say Maybe”, to me.
14. “Chasing Pirates” by Norah Jones: This is an interesting song, especially considering that this is, after all, Norah Jones, who seems to have the “vocal pop-jazz chanteuse” label stuck on her. She has tried experimenting with other styles before, particularly a blend of soft jazz and bluegrass (this is especially evident in her work with The Little Willies, named for Willie Nelson, and in her song “Sunrise”). This time, however, she seems to want to connect with a more contemporary audience, via soft trip-hop the way Imogen Heap has approached it ever since she joined Frou Frou in the early 2000’s (and the way Sia did around the same time with Zero 7, before she started churning out pseudo-alt-pop ballads a la Tori Amos/Sarah McLachlan, only a lot more watered down, midway through the 2000’s). Though I’ve never been too big a fan of Norah, this song is probably the closest I’ll come to liking her work even slightly, and if there’s any Imogen Heap, Frou Frou, and/or Zero 7 fans who have friends who really like Norah Jones, this song would probably the best way for Imogen fans to connect with Norah fans. Who nose, perhaps it’ll breed a whole new generation of fans of both artists.
15. “Something Beautiful” by Needtobreathe: This song does not live up to its title – well not for me, anyway. Should be more like “Something Average”. It tries hard to sound like an earnestly emotional song, but it just fails. Honestly, these guys are like Five For Fighting, but with acoustic guitars instead of pianos (sorry for those who like Five For Fighting, but even “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” got tiring after it became an Adult Contemporary radio staple).
16. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer: Weezer have come along way in the course of the 2000’s. They started out being like a pseudo-grunge act with a quartet of hits that became alt-rock radio staples (“Buddy Holly”, “Undone – The Sweater Song”, “Say It Ain’t So”, and “My Name Is Jonas”). All of these songs basically came off as Green Day wanting to be Nirvana (but failing at it in the process). Then, in the early 2000’s, they released another self-titled album (known to fans as “The Green Album”), and they diversified their sound a bit. While “Hash Pipe” remained the average pseudo-grunge Weezer song, the second single off that album, “Island In the Sun”, was almost like a Beatlesque, day-at-the-beach, idyllic pop song, a departure from Weezer’s typical style. They have continued to diversify their style with ‘70s classic rock influences a la Steve Miller and Peter Frampton, only with an added alt-rock flair (“Beverly Hills”), piano-driven rock (“Perfect Situation”), Pixies-ish songs with acoustic guitar verses and electric guitar choruses (“Pork And Beans”), heartfelt (almost) acoustic ballads (“Heart Songs”), and straight up power pop that almost sounds reminiscent of The Knack, Cheap Trick, and The Romantics (“Troublemaker”). Which brings me to their latest song, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”. Of all the Weezer songs mentioned here, it is probably most like “Island In the Sun” for its carefree, Beatlesque pop melody, though “If You’re Wondering…” has a more uptempo, toe-tapping beat than the peaceful rhythms of “Island In the Sun”. I’ll probably get criticized for saying this, especially among people who have been fans of Weezer since 1994/’95, but I think they’re better at doing Beatlesque pop songs like this one than they are at doing the pseudo-grunge stuff they churned out in the ‘90s.
17. “Wheels” by Foo Fighters: Here’s another band people will inevitably accuse of “selling out” because of this song. Really, it seems like the Foos’ most loyal fans already did this by the time they started flaunting their classic rock roots with the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. This one goes a step further at being classified “lite rock”, since its sound is closer to The Eagles than it is to Bruce (in fact someone I know even mistook this one for a country-western song upon first listening to it!) That being said, it’s obviously not as good as “Long Road to Ruin”, but I don’t dislike “Wheels” either. It’s kinda fun, and apparently the alternative and mainstream rock charts are eatin’ this one up too, which is proof that even people who prefer listening to “hard” rock seem to like this one! It’s also not the first time the Foo’s have attempted doing a “soft rock” song, either. In fact they have done such songs ever since their debut (anyone remember the jangly, somewhat Beatlesque “Big Me”, with its hilarious “Mentos” parody in the music video version?) The trend continued with their 1997 acoustic ballad, “Walking After You”, the infectiously catchy “Learn to Fly” and R.E.M.-ish “Next Year” (both from ’99), unplugged versions of “Everlong” and “Times Like These”, the tender acoustic ballad “Miracle”, and, as mentioned, the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. To sum it all up, if Cobain was the John Lennon of Nirvana, then Grohl is definitely the group’s McCartney, what with his knack for churning out catchy, melodic, (and often humorous) pop songs like this one.
18. “Meet Me On the Equinox” by Death Cab for Cutie: Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Death Cab for Cutie did a song for the Twilight soundtrack?!? What a bunch of sellouts!” (Of course, Death Cab’s most loyal fans prob’ly think that their “sell-out” point happened right when their album Plans was released in 2005, but I don’t). Anyway, I still don’t think they’ve “sold out” quite yet. “Meet Me On the Equinox”, first of all, uses a unique chord that (as far as I know) hasn’t been used in DCFC’s other songs – it’s like the chord The Beatles used at the very beginning of “A Hard Day’s Night”, only the part with the 7th on the low E string and the 3rd fret being played on the B string is inverted. It does a good job at trying to sound Beatlesque…for a generation of R.E.M. fans, that is. What’s also cool about this song is how it is built around that inversion of the mysterious G-type chord of “A Hard Day’s Night”. One last thing – don’t judge Death Cab just because they did a song for the Twilight soundtrack – Radiohead, Bon Iver, and Mutemath are all on there too (as is Muse, but I dunno if I like them as much as the three bands I previously mentioned). I’ll be darned the day someone calls Bon Iver (one of indie-folk’s many Nick Drake sound-alikes) a “sellout”. On the downside, though, this song probably will inspire a legion of pre-teen/early teen fangirls of Twilight to claim to be Death Cab fans, despite the fact that this will probably be the only song they know by them.
19. “40 Dogs (Like Romeo And Juliet)” by Bob Schneider: Bob Schneider (not to be confused with ROB Schneider...rimshot!) has been making records since 2003 (or thereabouts), and certain songs of his (i.e. “Metal And Steel”, “Captain Kirk”, and “Big Blue Sea”) hag gotten a fair amount of attention from Triple-A stations when they were released, but none of them cracked the Top 20 (in fact, given that these were all “cult hits” of Schneider’s, they probably didn’t even crack the Top 40). “40 Dogs” marks a moment of triumph for Schneider, after almost a decade (or least half of one) of trying to come up with suitable material for the Triple-A market. His material has always sounded (to me, at least) like melodic, somewhat clever, indie rock, so I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly makes this song different enough from what he’s done before to gain as much attention as it has. Well, for one thing, bands like Death Cab for Cutie and Snow Patrol weren’t as popular as they are today when Schneider released his debut, and “40 Dogs” seems to take after the sound of those kinds of bands. And although his songs have always had clever lyrical content, this one seems to take the cake since it’s got a catchy hook and Death Cab/Snow Patrol-ish guitar riffs to boot. The term “40 dogs” in itself is actually a slang term for 40-oz. beers (the line in question where he says this is during the chorus - “We’re like Romeo and Juliet/We’re like 40 dogs, cigarettes/Or the good times that haven’t happened yet, but will”, and after this part, the chorus continues with “I can tell you how it’s going to be/When the whole world falls into the sea/We’ll be living ever after happily”). The song contains quite a few sexual metaphors, from what I can see (the chorus alone has, “Romeo and Juliet” and “The good times that haven’t happened yet, but will”, in addition to the “Turn a closed shade into a ‘woo-hoo’” from the 3rd verse, presumably a metaphor for sexual intercourse), and the “holy trinity” of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll is complete in the song with the titular item (“40 dogs, cigarettes” - the “drug” part). However, it’s not a “nasty, cynical” song, since the second part of the chorus reassures his lover that no matter what happens they’ll always be together. Another “reasurring” part of the song is during the second verse, where one of the lines starts out by asking “Are the boys taking you for granted?”, and ultimately is answered by, “I wouldn’t let ‘em talk to you like that”. “40 Dogs” is a great song and seems like the perfect song to be used for the next major indie flick, esp. if such a flick were to be in the tradition of “Garden State” or “Juno”.
20. “Staring Down” by Collective Soul: Wow. Here’s yet another “Hey! Wha’happened?” band (there seem to be a lot of these on this countdown this time around). Collective Soul’s unique brand of melodic post-grunge seemed really fresh and fun to listen to in the ‘90s. However, ever since then, they seemed to have dropped the whole “post-grunge” getup (after all, it’s not the dominant musical style in modern rock anymore), and instead, have just become more of a melodic pop-rock group (with a few exceptions, most notably the hard-rocking “Counting the Days”, which even briefly got airplay on L.A.’s classic rock station KLOS at the time the song first came out). If only Collective Soul could take a clue from other former ‘90s alt-pop acts like Fastball, who have refashioned themselves as indie-rockers (at least in sound) a la Kaiser Chiefs, Modest Mouse, The Killers, etc.
HONORABLE MENTION (# 22) “Say Please” by Monsters of Folk: (Members of) Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket, and M. Ward in ONE GROUP!! I was pretty psyched when I first heard about this group, and I had a good reason to be! Apparently they’ve gotten a lot of Traveling Wilburys comparisons, and although My Morning Jacket’s lead singer resents these comparisons, they have a pretty good reason to be made, because this song TOTALLY sounds like something Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and/or George Harrison would have done later in their careers. The name “Monsters of Folk” is pretty fitting for this group considering that although they are all alumni of folk-rock groups, there’s a pretty hard-rockin’ guitar solo in this song. Plus, all three groups (well, the third isn’t really a “group” since M. Ward is just one guy), have experimented with blues-rock at one time or another: My Morning Jacket (the Black Crowes-ish “I’m Amazed”), Bright Eyes (particularly in Conor Oberst’s solo songs, like the Tom Petty-ish country-rocker “Sausalito”, and the almost Allman Brothers-ish “Nikorette”), and M. Ward, too (“Never Had Nobody Like You”, whose guitar riffs are very much influenced by The Beatles’ “Revolution”, and whose drum riff pretty much echoes both Gary Glitter’s “Rock And Roll Part 2” and The Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight”). This song sounds a lot like The Beatles’ “Oh! Darling” to me, and it is probably the way George Harrison would have preferred to have that song arranged - with a more roots-y, Wilburys-ish sound, as opposed to the doo-wop with occasional bursts of 1960’s classic rock mixed in type sound he ended up with. George would probably be proud of this song if he were still alive today!
Now, here's my weekly review, and in case yer wondering where the new Norah song made it, it has made a REMARKABLE leap forward from spot # 38 to spot # 14 in just ONE WEEK!!
1. “Fugitive” by David Gray: David, seriously, what happened to your music? Ever since you got a big fanbase with your 2000 record “White Ladder”, your music has gotten worse with each album, and unfortunately this is no exception. ‘Nuff said.
2. “Maybe” by Ingrid Michaelson: The way Ingrid Michaelson looks (and sounds) suggests something of a younger musical sister to Lisa Loeb, and this song is not only no exception to this rule, but probably the one that resembles Lisa Loeb’s music the most. It’s not as good, though. Where Loeb’s music (particularly her first and best-known single, “Stay [I Missed You]”) sounded nostalgic (and fresh, for its time) enough to be tolerable, Michaelson’s “Maybe” sounds like what has now become a tired cliché in the folk-pop world. That, and it also uses (practically) the same chord sequence as the main verses in Gladys Knight and The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” (though perhaps this wouldn’t bug me so much if I actually liked the song). What also bugs me about, well, any Ingrid Michaelson song that has become popular enough to hit the Top 20 on the Triple-A charts is that these people always seem to choose the more generic sounding songs in her catalog, as opposed to, say, the more delicate, poignant, Regina Spektor-ish “Breakable”.
3. Why I Am” by Dave Matthews Band: It’s nice to know that after their first riff-oriented but somewhat weary single off Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King (“Funny the Way It Is”), that the second one, “Why I Am”, is a welcome return to the funky, playful, energetic DMB sound in days of old, like their ’96 song “Too Much”, which is a similar song, but doesn’t feature quite the guitar noodling this one does.
4. “Hey Soul Sister” by Train: This song just seems to copy off of Jack Johnson’s style (and maybe a bit Jason Mraz’s) directly. Wow, Train sure have gone a long way down musically. They started off as like a Counting-Crows-meets-Spin-Doctors kinda band on their debut (which is probably best known for “Meet Virginia”). Then “Drops of Jupiter” became their most popular song when their next album was released, and the success of it seemed to go to their heads so much, that every other song they’ve released since has veered away from their initial alternative/folk-rock style and gone more in the direction of more bland folk-pop a la Jason Mraz and John Mayer (with a bit of Maroon 5 and The Fray tossed in there for good, or in this case, bad measure). Honestly, why the heck are these guys still releasing records? They’ve completely wrecked what they once were.
5. “Who Says” by John Mayer: Ugghh…If John Mayer is so talented at playing the blues, like he proved in his Trio’s almost Chili-Pepper-ish “Who Did You Think I Was?” and his cover of Hendrix’s “Bold As Love”, then why doesn’t he stick to it?! Honestly, this song sounds like what you’d hear on a Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup commercial, so therefore it sounds pretty cliché to me. About the only high point this song has is it’s (somewhat) hilariously delivered opening line, “Who says you can’t get stoned?” Mayer says this line like someone who’s trying to come off serious, yet somehow the image that pops in my mind with this line is someone who’s smirking and trying hard to hide their laughter as they sing it. Maybe it’s because Mayer does seem to have a funny side to him when he’s being just casually talked to or interviewed, despite how blandly mellow he tends to come off in songs like this.
6. “Falling For You” by Colbie Caillat: Yecch! Everything Colbie Caillat has done so far sounds like super-generic folk-pop, with a somewhat neo-soul inflection, and this is no exception. And to think this is the fourth time she’s been on the Triple-A charts. Wow. How some people become successful in the music biz, I’ll just never understand.
7. “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight)” by U2: Should be re-titled “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Hear This Song Again Tonight)”. Don’t get me wrong, I love U2, but out of the three songs that have become hits off their latest release (No Line On the Horizon), this is my least favorite. It sounds more ordinary than the other two songs, (the Lenny Kravitz-ish “Get On Your Boots”, and “Magnificent”, which showcases their melodic brand of electric guitar-based rock well).
8. “The Fixer” by Pearl Jam: It’s cool how I’m always fooled into thinking this is a song by The Hives or The White Stripes when I hear the opening riff, proving that although Eddie Vedder might have gone all Bob Dylan on us with the “Into the Wild” soundtrack (which isn’t a BAD thing, mind you), him and the boys can still rock out when they want to! Also, it’s a pretty fun, catchy song for a band that has been labeled “grunge”. This has more of a garage rock-y flavor to it!
9. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon: Great song, but it’s stickin’ to the charts like crazy glue! It’s been on since January, fer goshsakes!! On a side note, this song is KOL’s attempt to be U2 (and/or Springsteen). Every song on that album (Only By the Night) that I’ve heard is like that, actually, but I like the songs anyway.
10. “21 Guns” by Green Day: Again, don’t get me wrong. “Good Riddance” (aka “Time of Your Life”) was great, but it probably should have been the only “ballad” Green Day focused on. They seem to be taking a similar path now to what Heart took in the ‘80s. Heart’s ‘70s ballads (like “Dog And Butterfly” and “Dreamboat Annie”) were great because they were honest, heartfelt acoustic songs with no “flashiness” (Journey, anyone?) to prove how great they were, but their ‘80s ballads (like “What About Love” and “These Dreams”) relied on heavier instrumentation (not to mention more electronic keyboards) and therefore felt more cheesy than they did truly emotional. The same principle seems to apply to Green Day’s “ballads” after the ‘90s, like “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, and most recently, this song, “21 Guns”. All 3 songs start out acoustic, but they build up much in the same way songs like REO Speedwagon’s “Take It On the Run” did, with the songs ending up as “power ballads” with the electric guitar fronting and the acoustic backing. And these songs are by the same guys who did sarcastic, Ramones-y rants like “Basket Case” and “Welcome to Paradise”?!? Way to go, Green Day, you’ve continued to blow it with your last two albums.
11. “Dreams” by Brandi Carlile: Honestly, I don’t get how come Brandi Carlile has become so popular on the Triple-A circuit within the past 3 or 4 years. To me a lot of her songs just sound the same, and this is no exception. Basically it’s just k.d. lang stuff with higher vocals and a blander sound. I hate when all the really good songs on these charts are just inching to get to the Top 20 but they never do, and meanwhile the blander songs like this just shoot up to the top really quickly. Go figure.
12. “Backwards Down the Number Line” by Phish: Phish have often been compared to The Grateful Dead for their improvisational, “jam-band” approach to music, as well as their extensive touring. This song, which appears to be their most popular so far, despite the fact that Phish have been around (and known) since the early ‘90s, probably sounds more like The Dead than any song I’ve ever heard of theirs (and definitely more so than the Trey Anastasio solo records, which sounded more like Clapton than The Dead – not that that’s a bad thing…) You can hear little bits of The Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” and “Bertha” in this song, and the guitar solo even sounds like it could’ve been done by Jerry Garcia himself (had he still been alive at the time of this song’s recording, that is). The mellow folk-rock/blues combination that was trademark for The Dead, and now for Phish, pretty much makes this song irresistible! The only complaint I have about this song is that the chorus is repeated too many times. But the other factors of this song pretty much compensate for that.
14. “Just Say Yes” by Snow Patrol: Hmmm….Snow Patrol are one of those hit-or-miss kinda bands for me. Sometimes they’re amazing, and other times they sound a little bit too close to Coldplay’s later material for me to appreciate them. This one falls somewhere in between for me. It almost reminds me of “Human” by The Killers (you know, the one with the confusing lyrics, “Are we human, or are we dancer?” which, it turns out, is a misquoting, or misinterpretation, of something Hunter S. Thompson once said). The Killers rarely have any “miss” songs, and so far that’s been the only one they’ve had for me. It sounds more like Duran Duran than it does Springsteen, U2, or The Police like their other songs seem to. Getting back to Snow Patrol’s latest, it, too, sounds a bit more Duran Duran-ish than their other songs. While this is a step up from sleepers they’ve had like “Crack the Shutters” and their just-won’t-go-away hit of 2006, “Chasing Cars”, it’s also a step below their “rockers” like “Take Back the City”, “Hands Open”, and “You’re All I Have”, and it also lacks the earnestness some of their more tolerable “slower” songs like “Open Your Eyes”, “Run”, and “Shut Your Eyes” had. That being said, I’m kinda disappointed with this one. “Just Say Yes”? More like, “Just Say Maybe”, to me.
14. “Chasing Pirates” by Norah Jones: This is an interesting song, especially considering that this is, after all, Norah Jones, who seems to have the “vocal pop-jazz chanteuse” label stuck on her. She has tried experimenting with other styles before, particularly a blend of soft jazz and bluegrass (this is especially evident in her work with The Little Willies, named for Willie Nelson, and in her song “Sunrise”). This time, however, she seems to want to connect with a more contemporary audience, via soft trip-hop the way Imogen Heap has approached it ever since she joined Frou Frou in the early 2000’s (and the way Sia did around the same time with Zero 7, before she started churning out pseudo-alt-pop ballads a la Tori Amos/Sarah McLachlan, only a lot more watered down, midway through the 2000’s). Though I’ve never been too big a fan of Norah, this song is probably the closest I’ll come to liking her work even slightly, and if there’s any Imogen Heap, Frou Frou, and/or Zero 7 fans who have friends who really like Norah Jones, this song would probably the best way for Imogen fans to connect with Norah fans. Who nose, perhaps it’ll breed a whole new generation of fans of both artists.
15. “Something Beautiful” by Needtobreathe: This song does not live up to its title – well not for me, anyway. Should be more like “Something Average”. It tries hard to sound like an earnestly emotional song, but it just fails. Honestly, these guys are like Five For Fighting, but with acoustic guitars instead of pianos (sorry for those who like Five For Fighting, but even “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” got tiring after it became an Adult Contemporary radio staple).
16. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer: Weezer have come along way in the course of the 2000’s. They started out being like a pseudo-grunge act with a quartet of hits that became alt-rock radio staples (“Buddy Holly”, “Undone – The Sweater Song”, “Say It Ain’t So”, and “My Name Is Jonas”). All of these songs basically came off as Green Day wanting to be Nirvana (but failing at it in the process). Then, in the early 2000’s, they released another self-titled album (known to fans as “The Green Album”), and they diversified their sound a bit. While “Hash Pipe” remained the average pseudo-grunge Weezer song, the second single off that album, “Island In the Sun”, was almost like a Beatlesque, day-at-the-beach, idyllic pop song, a departure from Weezer’s typical style. They have continued to diversify their style with ‘70s classic rock influences a la Steve Miller and Peter Frampton, only with an added alt-rock flair (“Beverly Hills”), piano-driven rock (“Perfect Situation”), Pixies-ish songs with acoustic guitar verses and electric guitar choruses (“Pork And Beans”), heartfelt (almost) acoustic ballads (“Heart Songs”), and straight up power pop that almost sounds reminiscent of The Knack, Cheap Trick, and The Romantics (“Troublemaker”). Which brings me to their latest song, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”. Of all the Weezer songs mentioned here, it is probably most like “Island In the Sun” for its carefree, Beatlesque pop melody, though “If You’re Wondering…” has a more uptempo, toe-tapping beat than the peaceful rhythms of “Island In the Sun”. I’ll probably get criticized for saying this, especially among people who have been fans of Weezer since 1994/’95, but I think they’re better at doing Beatlesque pop songs like this one than they are at doing the pseudo-grunge stuff they churned out in the ‘90s.
17. “Wheels” by Foo Fighters: Here’s another band people will inevitably accuse of “selling out” because of this song. Really, it seems like the Foos’ most loyal fans already did this by the time they started flaunting their classic rock roots with the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. This one goes a step further at being classified “lite rock”, since its sound is closer to The Eagles than it is to Bruce (in fact someone I know even mistook this one for a country-western song upon first listening to it!) That being said, it’s obviously not as good as “Long Road to Ruin”, but I don’t dislike “Wheels” either. It’s kinda fun, and apparently the alternative and mainstream rock charts are eatin’ this one up too, which is proof that even people who prefer listening to “hard” rock seem to like this one! It’s also not the first time the Foo’s have attempted doing a “soft rock” song, either. In fact they have done such songs ever since their debut (anyone remember the jangly, somewhat Beatlesque “Big Me”, with its hilarious “Mentos” parody in the music video version?) The trend continued with their 1997 acoustic ballad, “Walking After You”, the infectiously catchy “Learn to Fly” and R.E.M.-ish “Next Year” (both from ’99), unplugged versions of “Everlong” and “Times Like These”, the tender acoustic ballad “Miracle”, and, as mentioned, the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. To sum it all up, if Cobain was the John Lennon of Nirvana, then Grohl is definitely the group’s McCartney, what with his knack for churning out catchy, melodic, (and often humorous) pop songs like this one.
18. “Meet Me On the Equinox” by Death Cab for Cutie: Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Death Cab for Cutie did a song for the Twilight soundtrack?!? What a bunch of sellouts!” (Of course, Death Cab’s most loyal fans prob’ly think that their “sell-out” point happened right when their album Plans was released in 2005, but I don’t). Anyway, I still don’t think they’ve “sold out” quite yet. “Meet Me On the Equinox”, first of all, uses a unique chord that (as far as I know) hasn’t been used in DCFC’s other songs – it’s like the chord The Beatles used at the very beginning of “A Hard Day’s Night”, only the part with the 7th on the low E string and the 3rd fret being played on the B string is inverted. It does a good job at trying to sound Beatlesque…for a generation of R.E.M. fans, that is. What’s also cool about this song is how it is built around that inversion of the mysterious G-type chord of “A Hard Day’s Night”. One last thing – don’t judge Death Cab just because they did a song for the Twilight soundtrack – Radiohead, Bon Iver, and Mutemath are all on there too (as is Muse, but I dunno if I like them as much as the three bands I previously mentioned). I’ll be darned the day someone calls Bon Iver (one of indie-folk’s many Nick Drake sound-alikes) a “sellout”. On the downside, though, this song probably will inspire a legion of pre-teen/early teen fangirls of Twilight to claim to be Death Cab fans, despite the fact that this will probably be the only song they know by them.
19. “40 Dogs (Like Romeo And Juliet)” by Bob Schneider: Bob Schneider (not to be confused with ROB Schneider...rimshot!) has been making records since 2003 (or thereabouts), and certain songs of his (i.e. “Metal And Steel”, “Captain Kirk”, and “Big Blue Sea”) hag gotten a fair amount of attention from Triple-A stations when they were released, but none of them cracked the Top 20 (in fact, given that these were all “cult hits” of Schneider’s, they probably didn’t even crack the Top 40). “40 Dogs” marks a moment of triumph for Schneider, after almost a decade (or least half of one) of trying to come up with suitable material for the Triple-A market. His material has always sounded (to me, at least) like melodic, somewhat clever, indie rock, so I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly makes this song different enough from what he’s done before to gain as much attention as it has. Well, for one thing, bands like Death Cab for Cutie and Snow Patrol weren’t as popular as they are today when Schneider released his debut, and “40 Dogs” seems to take after the sound of those kinds of bands. And although his songs have always had clever lyrical content, this one seems to take the cake since it’s got a catchy hook and Death Cab/Snow Patrol-ish guitar riffs to boot. The term “40 dogs” in itself is actually a slang term for 40-oz. beers (the line in question where he says this is during the chorus - “We’re like Romeo and Juliet/We’re like 40 dogs, cigarettes/Or the good times that haven’t happened yet, but will”, and after this part, the chorus continues with “I can tell you how it’s going to be/When the whole world falls into the sea/We’ll be living ever after happily”). The song contains quite a few sexual metaphors, from what I can see (the chorus alone has, “Romeo and Juliet” and “The good times that haven’t happened yet, but will”, in addition to the “Turn a closed shade into a ‘woo-hoo’” from the 3rd verse, presumably a metaphor for sexual intercourse), and the “holy trinity” of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll is complete in the song with the titular item (“40 dogs, cigarettes” - the “drug” part). However, it’s not a “nasty, cynical” song, since the second part of the chorus reassures his lover that no matter what happens they’ll always be together. Another “reasurring” part of the song is during the second verse, where one of the lines starts out by asking “Are the boys taking you for granted?”, and ultimately is answered by, “I wouldn’t let ‘em talk to you like that”. “40 Dogs” is a great song and seems like the perfect song to be used for the next major indie flick, esp. if such a flick were to be in the tradition of “Garden State” or “Juno”.
20. “Staring Down” by Collective Soul: Wow. Here’s yet another “Hey! Wha’happened?” band (there seem to be a lot of these on this countdown this time around). Collective Soul’s unique brand of melodic post-grunge seemed really fresh and fun to listen to in the ‘90s. However, ever since then, they seemed to have dropped the whole “post-grunge” getup (after all, it’s not the dominant musical style in modern rock anymore), and instead, have just become more of a melodic pop-rock group (with a few exceptions, most notably the hard-rocking “Counting the Days”, which even briefly got airplay on L.A.’s classic rock station KLOS at the time the song first came out). If only Collective Soul could take a clue from other former ‘90s alt-pop acts like Fastball, who have refashioned themselves as indie-rockers (at least in sound) a la Kaiser Chiefs, Modest Mouse, The Killers, etc.
HONORABLE MENTION (# 22) “Say Please” by Monsters of Folk: (Members of) Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket, and M. Ward in ONE GROUP!! I was pretty psyched when I first heard about this group, and I had a good reason to be! Apparently they’ve gotten a lot of Traveling Wilburys comparisons, and although My Morning Jacket’s lead singer resents these comparisons, they have a pretty good reason to be made, because this song TOTALLY sounds like something Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and/or George Harrison would have done later in their careers. The name “Monsters of Folk” is pretty fitting for this group considering that although they are all alumni of folk-rock groups, there’s a pretty hard-rockin’ guitar solo in this song. Plus, all three groups (well, the third isn’t really a “group” since M. Ward is just one guy), have experimented with blues-rock at one time or another: My Morning Jacket (the Black Crowes-ish “I’m Amazed”), Bright Eyes (particularly in Conor Oberst’s solo songs, like the Tom Petty-ish country-rocker “Sausalito”, and the almost Allman Brothers-ish “Nikorette”), and M. Ward, too (“Never Had Nobody Like You”, whose guitar riffs are very much influenced by The Beatles’ “Revolution”, and whose drum riff pretty much echoes both Gary Glitter’s “Rock And Roll Part 2” and The Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight”). This song sounds a lot like The Beatles’ “Oh! Darling” to me, and it is probably the way George Harrison would have preferred to have that song arranged - with a more roots-y, Wilburys-ish sound, as opposed to the doo-wop with occasional bursts of 1960’s classic rock mixed in type sound he ended up with. George would probably be proud of this song if he were still alive today!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Death Cab for Cutie and Foo Fighters might be victims of "sell-out-itis", and...umm...oh yeah the Fray made this week's charts too (but I don't care)
Wow, what a week. THREE new entries on Mediabase's Triple-A charts. If you wanna read my reviews of these songs, scroll down towards the bottom of the page.
MY SCATHING REVIEW (well…kinda) OF THE TOP 20 SONGS ON MEDIABASE’S TRIPLE-A CHARTS:
1. “Fugitive” by David Gray: David, seriously, what happened to your music? Ever since you got a big fanbase with your 2000 record “White Ladder”, your music has gotten worse with each album, and unfortunately this is no exception. ‘Nuff said.
2. “Maybe” by Ingrid Michaelson: The way Ingrid Michaelson looks (and sounds) suggests something of a younger musical sister to Lisa Loeb, and this song is not only no exception to this rule, but probably the one that resembles Lisa Loeb’s music the most. It’s not as good, though. Where Loeb’s music (particularly her first and best-known single, “Stay [I Missed You]”) sounded nostalgic (and fresh, for its time) enough to be tolerable, Michaelson’s “Maybe” sounds like what has now become a tired cliché in the folk-pop world. That, and it also uses (practically) the same chord sequence as the main verses in Gladys Knight and The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” (though perhaps this wouldn’t bug me so much if I actually liked the song). What also bugs me about, well, any Ingrid Michaelson song that has become popular enough to hit the Top 20 on the Triple-A charts is that these people always seem to choose the more generic sounding songs in her catalog, as opposed to, say, the more delicate, poignant, Regina Spektor-ish “Breakable”.
3. Why I Am” by Dave Matthews Band: It’s nice to know that after their first riff-oriented but somewhat weary single off Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King (“Funny the Way It Is”), that the second one, “Why I Am”, is a welcome return to the funky, playful, energetic DMB sound in days of old, like their ’96 song “Too Much”, which is a similar song, but doesn’t feature quite the guitar noodling this one does.
4. “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight)” by U2: Should be re-titled “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Hear This Song Again Tonight)”. Don’t get me wrong, I love U2, but out of the three songs that have become hits off their latest release (No Line On the Horizon), this is my least favorite. It sounds more ordinary than the other two songs, (the Lenny Kravitz-ish “Get On Your Boots”, and “Magnificent”, which showcases their melodic brand of electric guitar-based rock well).
5. “Hey Soul Sister” by Train: This song just seems to copy off of Jack Johnson’s style (and maybe a bit Jason Mraz’s) directly. Wow, Train sure have gone a long way down musically. They started off as like a Counting-Crows-meets-Spin-Doctors kinda band on their debut (which is probably best known for “Meet Virginia”). Then “Drops of Jupiter” became their most popular song when their next album was released, and the success of it seemed to go to their heads so much, that every other song they’ve released since has veered away from their initial alternative/folk-rock style and gone more in the direction of more bland folk-pop a la Jason Mraz and John Mayer (with a bit of Maroon 5 and The Fray tossed in there for good, or in this case, bad measure). Honestly, why the heck are these guys still releasing records? They’ve completely wrecked what they once were.
6. “Falling For You” by Colbie Caillat: Yecch! Everything Colbie Caillat has done so far sounds like super-generic folk-pop, with a somewhat neo-soul inflection, and this is no exception. And to think this is the fourth time she’s been on the Triple-A charts. Wow. How some people become successful in the music biz, I’ll just never understand.
7. “The Fixer” by Pearl Jam: It’s cool how I’m always fooled into thinking this is a song by The Hives or The White Stripes when I hear the opening riff, proving that although Eddie Vedder might have gone all Bob Dylan on us with the “Into the Wild” soundtrack (which isn’t a BAD thing, mind you), him and the boys can still rock out when they want to! Also, it’s a pretty fun, catchy song for a band that has been labeled “grunge”. This has more of a garage rock-y flavor to it!
8. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon: Great song, but it’s stickin’ to the charts like crazy glue! It’s been on since January, fer goshsakes!! On a side note, this song is KOL’s attempt to be U2 (and/or Springsteen). Every song on that album (Only By the Night) that I’ve heard is like that, actually, but I like the songs anyway.
9. “Who Says” by John Mayer: Ugghh…If John Mayer is so talented at playing the blues, like he proved in his Trio’s almost Chili-Pepper-ish “Who Did You Think I Was?” and his cover of Hendrix’s “Bold As Love”, then why doesn’t he stick to it?! Honestly, this song sounds like what you’d hear on a Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup commercial, so therefore it sounds pretty cliché to me. About the only high point this song has is it’s (somewhat) hilariously delivered opening line, “Who says you can’t get stoned?” Mayer says this line like someone who’s trying to come off serious, yet somehow the image that pops in my mind with this line is someone who’s smirking and trying hard to hide their laughter as they sing it. Maybe it’s because Mayer does seem to have a funny side to him when he’s being just casually talked to or interviewed, despite how blandly mellow he tends to come off in songs like this.
10. “21 Guns” by Green Day: Again, don’t get me wrong. “Good Riddance” (aka “Time of Your Life”) was great, but it probably should have been the only “ballad” Green Day focused on. They seem to be taking a similar path now to what Heart took in the ‘80s. Heart’s ‘70s ballads (like “Dog And Butterfly” and “Dreamboat Annie”) were great because they were honest, heartfelt acoustic songs with no “flashiness” (Journey, anyone?) to prove how great they were, but their ‘80s ballads (like “What About Love” and “These Dreams”) relied on heavier instrumentation (not to mention more electronic keyboards) and therefore felt more cheesy than they did truly emotional. The same principle seems to apply to Green Day’s “ballads” after the ‘90s, like “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, and most recently, this song, “21 Guns”. All 3 songs start out acoustic, but they build up much in the same way songs like REO Speedwagon’s “Take It On the Run” did, with the songs ending up as “power ballads” with the electric guitar fronting and the acoustic backing. And these songs are by the same guys who did sarcastic, Ramones-y rants like “Basket Case” and “Welcome to Paradise”?!? Way to go, Green Day, you’ve continued to blow it with your last two albums.
11. “Backwards Down the Number Line” by Phish: Phish have often been compared to The Grateful Dead for their improvisational, “jam-band” approach to music, as well as their extensive touring. This song, which appears to be their most popular so far, despite the fact that Phish have been around (and known) since the early ‘90s, probably sounds more like The Dead than any song I’ve ever heard of theirs (and definitely more so than the Trey Anastasio solo records, which sounded more like Clapton than The Dead – not that that’s a bad thing…) You can hear little bits of The Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” and “Bertha” in this song, and the guitar solo even sounds like it could’ve been done by Jerry Garcia himself (had he still been alive at the time of this song’s recording, that is). The mellow folk-rock/blues combination that was trademark for The Dead, and now for Phish, pretty much makes this song irresistible! The only complaint I have about this song is that the chorus is repeated too many times. But the other factors of this song pretty much compensate for that.
12. “Dreams” by Brandi Carlile: Honestly, I don’t get how come Brandi Carlile has become so popular on the Triple-A circuit within the past 3 or 4 years. To me a lot of her songs just sound the same, and this is no exception. Basically it’s just k.d. lang stuff with higher vocals and a blander sound. I hate when all the really good songs on these charts are just inching to get to the Top 20 but they never do, and meanwhile the blander songs like this just shoot up to the top really quickly. Go figure.
13. “Something Beautiful” by Needtobreathe: This song does not live up to its title – well not for me, anyway. Should be more like “Something Average”. It tries hard to sound like an earnestly emotional song, but it just fails. Honestly, these guys are like Five For Fighting, but with acoustic guitars instead of pianos (sorry for those who like Five For Fighting, but even “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” got tiring after it became an Adult Contemporary radio staple).
14. “Just Say Yes” by Snow Patrol: Hmmm….Snow Patrol are one of those hit-or-miss kinda bands for me. Sometimes they’re amazing, and other times they sound a little bit too close to Coldplay’s later material for me to appreciate them. This one falls somewhere in between for me. It almost reminds me of “Human” by The Killers (you know, the one with the confusing lyrics, “Are we human, or are we dancer?” which, it turns out, is a misquoting, or misinterpretation, of something Hunter S. Thompson once said). The Killers rarely have any “miss” songs, and so far that’s been the only one they’ve had for me. It sounds more like Duran Duran than it does Springsteen, U2, or The Police like their other songs seem to. Getting back to Snow Patrol’s latest, it, too, sounds a bit more Duran Duran-ish than their other songs. While this is a step up from sleepers they’ve had like “Crack the Shutters” and their just-won’t-go-away hit of 2006, “Chasing Cars”, it’s also a step below their “rockers” like “Take Back the City”, “Hands Open”, and “You’re All I Have”, and it also lacks the earnestness some of their more tolerable “slower” songs like “Open Your Eyes”, “Run”, and “Shut Your Eyes” had. That being said, I’m kinda disappointed with this one. “Just Say Yes”? More like, “Just Say Maybe”, to me.
15. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer: Weezer have come along way in the course of the 2000’s. They started out being like a pseudo-grunge act with a quartet of hits that became alt-rock radio staples (“Buddy Holly”, “Undone – The Sweater Song”, “Say It Ain’t So”, and “My Name Is Jonas”). All of these songs basically came off as Green Day wanting to be Nirvana (but failing at it in the process). Then, in the early 2000’s, they released another self-titled album (known to fans as “The Green Album”), and they diversified their sound a bit. While “Hash Pipe” remained the average pseudo-grunge Weezer song, the second single off that album, “Island In the Sun”, was almost like a Beatlesque, day-at-the-beach, idyllic pop song, a departure from Weezer’s typical style. They have continued to diversify their style with ‘70s classic rock influences a la Steve Miller and Peter Frampton, only with an added alt-rock flair (“Beverly Hills”), piano-driven rock (“Perfect Situation”), Pixies-ish songs with acoustic guitar verses and electric guitar choruses (“Pork And Beans”), heartfelt (almost) acoustic ballads (“Heart Songs”), and straight up power pop that almost sounds reminiscent of The Knack, Cheap Trick, and The Romantics (“Troublemaker”). Which brings me to their latest song, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”. Of all the Weezer songs mentioned here, it is probably most like “Island In the Sun” for its carefree, Beatlesque pop melody, though “If You’re Wondering…” has a more uptempo, toe-tapping beat than the peaceful rhythms of “Island In the Sun”. I’ll probably get criticized for saying this, especially among people who have been fans of Weezer since 1994/’95, but I think they’re better at doing Beatlesque pop songs like this one than they are at doing the pseudo-grunge stuff they churned out in the ‘90s.
16. “Staring Down” by Collective Soul: Wow. Here’s yet another “Hey! Wha’happened?” band (there seem to be a lot of these on this countdown this time around). Collective Soul’s unique brand of melodic post-grunge seemed really fresh and fun to listen to in the ‘90s. However, ever since then, they seemed to have dropped the whole “post-grunge” getup (after all, it’s not the dominant musical style in modern rock anymore), and instead, have just become more of a melodic pop-rock group (with a few exceptions, most notably the hard-rocking “Counting the Days”, which even briefly got airplay on L.A.’s classic rock station KLOS at the time the song first came out). If only Collective Soul could take a clue from other former ‘90s alt-pop acts like Fastball, who have refashioned themselves as indie-rockers (at least in sound) a la Kaiser Chiefs, Modest Mouse, The Killers, etc.
17. “Meet Me On the Equinox” by Death Cab for Cutie: Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Death Cab for Cutie did a song for the Twilight soundtrack?!? What a bunch of sellouts!” (Of course, Death Cab’s most loyal fans prob’ly think that their “sell-out” point happened right when their album Plans was released in 2005, but I don’t). Anyway, I still don’t think they’ve “sold out” quite yet. “Meet Me On the Equinox”, first of all, uses a unique chord that (as far as I know) hasn’t been used in DCFC’s other songs – it’s like the chord The Beatles used at the very beginning of “A Hard Day’s Night”, only the part with the 7th on the low E string and the 3rd fret being played on the B string is inverted. It does a good job at trying to sound Beatlesque…for a generation of R.E.M. fans, that is. What’s also cool about this song is how it is built around that inversion of the mysterious G-type chord of “A Hard Day’s Night”. One last thing – don’t judge Death Cab just because they did a song for the Twilight soundtrack – Radiohead, Bon Iver, and Mutemath are all on there too (as is Muse, but I dunno if I like them as much as the three bands I previously mentioned). I’ll be darned the day someone calls Bon Iver (one of indie-folk’s many Nick Drake sound-alikes) a “sellout”. On the downside, though, this song probably will inspire a legion of pre-teen/early teen fangirls of Twilight to claim to be Death Cab fans, despite the fact that this will probably be the only song they know by them.
18. “Little Bribes” by Death Cab for Cutie: For a band called “Death Cab for Cutie”, this song sure is upbeat. Kinda comes off as a cross between Oasis’ “Lyla” and Neil Diamond’s “comeback” song (from 2005), “Delirious Love” (Who knew I’d be making a comparison of Death Cab to Neil Diamond?!? Didn’t see that one coming!) Honestly, what’s not to love about this song? (That is, if you’re not sick of hearing it…yet). It’s got a hook-y, toe-tapping beat, somewhat surreal lyrics (although most of Death Cab’s songs tend to have this), and an even more surreal (and fun) music video! Here’s hoping that more bands (and songs) like this will one day grace the music industry!
19. “Wheels” by Foo Fighters: Here’s another band people will inevitably accuse of “selling out” because of this song. Really, it seems like the Foos’ most loyal fans already did this by the time they started flaunting their classic rock roots with the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. This one goes a step further at being classified “lite rock”, since its sound is closer to The Eagles than it is to Bruce (in fact someone I know even mistook this one for a country-western song upon first listening to it!) That being said, it’s obviously not as good as “Long Road to Ruin”, but I don’t dislike “Wheels” either. It’s kinda fun, and apparently the alternative and mainstream rock charts are eatin’ this one up too, which is proof that even people who prefer listening to “hard” rock seem to like this one! It’s also not the first time the Foo’s have attempted doing a “soft rock” song, either. In fact they have done such songs ever since their debut (anyone remember the jangly, somewhat Beatlesque “Big Me”, with its hilarious “Mentos” parody in the music video version?) The trend continued with their 1997 acoustic ballad, “Walking After You”, the infectiously catchy “Learn to Fly” and R.E.M.-ish “Next Year” (both from ’99), unplugged versions of “Everlong” and “Times Like These”, the tender acoustic ballad “Miracle”, and, as mentioned, the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. To sum it all up, if Cobain was the John Lennon of Nirvana, then Grohl is definitely the group’s McCartney, what with his knack for churning out catchy, melodic, (and often humorous) pop songs like this one.
20. “Never Say Never” by The Fray: Warning – do NOT (I repeat, do NOT) confuse this for the Romeo Void alt-rock classic of the ‘80s of the same name. That song is MUCH better than this one, which is just another of the same-old same-old pop-y piano ballads from the Fray. Got nothin’ else to say ‘bout this one, ‘cuz the Fray are just that bland.
MY SCATHING REVIEW (well…kinda) OF THE TOP 20 SONGS ON MEDIABASE’S TRIPLE-A CHARTS:
1. “Fugitive” by David Gray: David, seriously, what happened to your music? Ever since you got a big fanbase with your 2000 record “White Ladder”, your music has gotten worse with each album, and unfortunately this is no exception. ‘Nuff said.
2. “Maybe” by Ingrid Michaelson: The way Ingrid Michaelson looks (and sounds) suggests something of a younger musical sister to Lisa Loeb, and this song is not only no exception to this rule, but probably the one that resembles Lisa Loeb’s music the most. It’s not as good, though. Where Loeb’s music (particularly her first and best-known single, “Stay [I Missed You]”) sounded nostalgic (and fresh, for its time) enough to be tolerable, Michaelson’s “Maybe” sounds like what has now become a tired cliché in the folk-pop world. That, and it also uses (practically) the same chord sequence as the main verses in Gladys Knight and The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” (though perhaps this wouldn’t bug me so much if I actually liked the song). What also bugs me about, well, any Ingrid Michaelson song that has become popular enough to hit the Top 20 on the Triple-A charts is that these people always seem to choose the more generic sounding songs in her catalog, as opposed to, say, the more delicate, poignant, Regina Spektor-ish “Breakable”.
3. Why I Am” by Dave Matthews Band: It’s nice to know that after their first riff-oriented but somewhat weary single off Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King (“Funny the Way It Is”), that the second one, “Why I Am”, is a welcome return to the funky, playful, energetic DMB sound in days of old, like their ’96 song “Too Much”, which is a similar song, but doesn’t feature quite the guitar noodling this one does.
4. “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight)” by U2: Should be re-titled “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Hear This Song Again Tonight)”. Don’t get me wrong, I love U2, but out of the three songs that have become hits off their latest release (No Line On the Horizon), this is my least favorite. It sounds more ordinary than the other two songs, (the Lenny Kravitz-ish “Get On Your Boots”, and “Magnificent”, which showcases their melodic brand of electric guitar-based rock well).
5. “Hey Soul Sister” by Train: This song just seems to copy off of Jack Johnson’s style (and maybe a bit Jason Mraz’s) directly. Wow, Train sure have gone a long way down musically. They started off as like a Counting-Crows-meets-Spin-Doctors kinda band on their debut (which is probably best known for “Meet Virginia”). Then “Drops of Jupiter” became their most popular song when their next album was released, and the success of it seemed to go to their heads so much, that every other song they’ve released since has veered away from their initial alternative/folk-rock style and gone more in the direction of more bland folk-pop a la Jason Mraz and John Mayer (with a bit of Maroon 5 and The Fray tossed in there for good, or in this case, bad measure). Honestly, why the heck are these guys still releasing records? They’ve completely wrecked what they once were.
6. “Falling For You” by Colbie Caillat: Yecch! Everything Colbie Caillat has done so far sounds like super-generic folk-pop, with a somewhat neo-soul inflection, and this is no exception. And to think this is the fourth time she’s been on the Triple-A charts. Wow. How some people become successful in the music biz, I’ll just never understand.
7. “The Fixer” by Pearl Jam: It’s cool how I’m always fooled into thinking this is a song by The Hives or The White Stripes when I hear the opening riff, proving that although Eddie Vedder might have gone all Bob Dylan on us with the “Into the Wild” soundtrack (which isn’t a BAD thing, mind you), him and the boys can still rock out when they want to! Also, it’s a pretty fun, catchy song for a band that has been labeled “grunge”. This has more of a garage rock-y flavor to it!
8. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon: Great song, but it’s stickin’ to the charts like crazy glue! It’s been on since January, fer goshsakes!! On a side note, this song is KOL’s attempt to be U2 (and/or Springsteen). Every song on that album (Only By the Night) that I’ve heard is like that, actually, but I like the songs anyway.
9. “Who Says” by John Mayer: Ugghh…If John Mayer is so talented at playing the blues, like he proved in his Trio’s almost Chili-Pepper-ish “Who Did You Think I Was?” and his cover of Hendrix’s “Bold As Love”, then why doesn’t he stick to it?! Honestly, this song sounds like what you’d hear on a Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup commercial, so therefore it sounds pretty cliché to me. About the only high point this song has is it’s (somewhat) hilariously delivered opening line, “Who says you can’t get stoned?” Mayer says this line like someone who’s trying to come off serious, yet somehow the image that pops in my mind with this line is someone who’s smirking and trying hard to hide their laughter as they sing it. Maybe it’s because Mayer does seem to have a funny side to him when he’s being just casually talked to or interviewed, despite how blandly mellow he tends to come off in songs like this.
10. “21 Guns” by Green Day: Again, don’t get me wrong. “Good Riddance” (aka “Time of Your Life”) was great, but it probably should have been the only “ballad” Green Day focused on. They seem to be taking a similar path now to what Heart took in the ‘80s. Heart’s ‘70s ballads (like “Dog And Butterfly” and “Dreamboat Annie”) were great because they were honest, heartfelt acoustic songs with no “flashiness” (Journey, anyone?) to prove how great they were, but their ‘80s ballads (like “What About Love” and “These Dreams”) relied on heavier instrumentation (not to mention more electronic keyboards) and therefore felt more cheesy than they did truly emotional. The same principle seems to apply to Green Day’s “ballads” after the ‘90s, like “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, and most recently, this song, “21 Guns”. All 3 songs start out acoustic, but they build up much in the same way songs like REO Speedwagon’s “Take It On the Run” did, with the songs ending up as “power ballads” with the electric guitar fronting and the acoustic backing. And these songs are by the same guys who did sarcastic, Ramones-y rants like “Basket Case” and “Welcome to Paradise”?!? Way to go, Green Day, you’ve continued to blow it with your last two albums.
11. “Backwards Down the Number Line” by Phish: Phish have often been compared to The Grateful Dead for their improvisational, “jam-band” approach to music, as well as their extensive touring. This song, which appears to be their most popular so far, despite the fact that Phish have been around (and known) since the early ‘90s, probably sounds more like The Dead than any song I’ve ever heard of theirs (and definitely more so than the Trey Anastasio solo records, which sounded more like Clapton than The Dead – not that that’s a bad thing…) You can hear little bits of The Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” and “Bertha” in this song, and the guitar solo even sounds like it could’ve been done by Jerry Garcia himself (had he still been alive at the time of this song’s recording, that is). The mellow folk-rock/blues combination that was trademark for The Dead, and now for Phish, pretty much makes this song irresistible! The only complaint I have about this song is that the chorus is repeated too many times. But the other factors of this song pretty much compensate for that.
12. “Dreams” by Brandi Carlile: Honestly, I don’t get how come Brandi Carlile has become so popular on the Triple-A circuit within the past 3 or 4 years. To me a lot of her songs just sound the same, and this is no exception. Basically it’s just k.d. lang stuff with higher vocals and a blander sound. I hate when all the really good songs on these charts are just inching to get to the Top 20 but they never do, and meanwhile the blander songs like this just shoot up to the top really quickly. Go figure.
13. “Something Beautiful” by Needtobreathe: This song does not live up to its title – well not for me, anyway. Should be more like “Something Average”. It tries hard to sound like an earnestly emotional song, but it just fails. Honestly, these guys are like Five For Fighting, but with acoustic guitars instead of pianos (sorry for those who like Five For Fighting, but even “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” got tiring after it became an Adult Contemporary radio staple).
14. “Just Say Yes” by Snow Patrol: Hmmm….Snow Patrol are one of those hit-or-miss kinda bands for me. Sometimes they’re amazing, and other times they sound a little bit too close to Coldplay’s later material for me to appreciate them. This one falls somewhere in between for me. It almost reminds me of “Human” by The Killers (you know, the one with the confusing lyrics, “Are we human, or are we dancer?” which, it turns out, is a misquoting, or misinterpretation, of something Hunter S. Thompson once said). The Killers rarely have any “miss” songs, and so far that’s been the only one they’ve had for me. It sounds more like Duran Duran than it does Springsteen, U2, or The Police like their other songs seem to. Getting back to Snow Patrol’s latest, it, too, sounds a bit more Duran Duran-ish than their other songs. While this is a step up from sleepers they’ve had like “Crack the Shutters” and their just-won’t-go-away hit of 2006, “Chasing Cars”, it’s also a step below their “rockers” like “Take Back the City”, “Hands Open”, and “You’re All I Have”, and it also lacks the earnestness some of their more tolerable “slower” songs like “Open Your Eyes”, “Run”, and “Shut Your Eyes” had. That being said, I’m kinda disappointed with this one. “Just Say Yes”? More like, “Just Say Maybe”, to me.
15. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer: Weezer have come along way in the course of the 2000’s. They started out being like a pseudo-grunge act with a quartet of hits that became alt-rock radio staples (“Buddy Holly”, “Undone – The Sweater Song”, “Say It Ain’t So”, and “My Name Is Jonas”). All of these songs basically came off as Green Day wanting to be Nirvana (but failing at it in the process). Then, in the early 2000’s, they released another self-titled album (known to fans as “The Green Album”), and they diversified their sound a bit. While “Hash Pipe” remained the average pseudo-grunge Weezer song, the second single off that album, “Island In the Sun”, was almost like a Beatlesque, day-at-the-beach, idyllic pop song, a departure from Weezer’s typical style. They have continued to diversify their style with ‘70s classic rock influences a la Steve Miller and Peter Frampton, only with an added alt-rock flair (“Beverly Hills”), piano-driven rock (“Perfect Situation”), Pixies-ish songs with acoustic guitar verses and electric guitar choruses (“Pork And Beans”), heartfelt (almost) acoustic ballads (“Heart Songs”), and straight up power pop that almost sounds reminiscent of The Knack, Cheap Trick, and The Romantics (“Troublemaker”). Which brings me to their latest song, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”. Of all the Weezer songs mentioned here, it is probably most like “Island In the Sun” for its carefree, Beatlesque pop melody, though “If You’re Wondering…” has a more uptempo, toe-tapping beat than the peaceful rhythms of “Island In the Sun”. I’ll probably get criticized for saying this, especially among people who have been fans of Weezer since 1994/’95, but I think they’re better at doing Beatlesque pop songs like this one than they are at doing the pseudo-grunge stuff they churned out in the ‘90s.
16. “Staring Down” by Collective Soul: Wow. Here’s yet another “Hey! Wha’happened?” band (there seem to be a lot of these on this countdown this time around). Collective Soul’s unique brand of melodic post-grunge seemed really fresh and fun to listen to in the ‘90s. However, ever since then, they seemed to have dropped the whole “post-grunge” getup (after all, it’s not the dominant musical style in modern rock anymore), and instead, have just become more of a melodic pop-rock group (with a few exceptions, most notably the hard-rocking “Counting the Days”, which even briefly got airplay on L.A.’s classic rock station KLOS at the time the song first came out). If only Collective Soul could take a clue from other former ‘90s alt-pop acts like Fastball, who have refashioned themselves as indie-rockers (at least in sound) a la Kaiser Chiefs, Modest Mouse, The Killers, etc.
17. “Meet Me On the Equinox” by Death Cab for Cutie: Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Death Cab for Cutie did a song for the Twilight soundtrack?!? What a bunch of sellouts!” (Of course, Death Cab’s most loyal fans prob’ly think that their “sell-out” point happened right when their album Plans was released in 2005, but I don’t). Anyway, I still don’t think they’ve “sold out” quite yet. “Meet Me On the Equinox”, first of all, uses a unique chord that (as far as I know) hasn’t been used in DCFC’s other songs – it’s like the chord The Beatles used at the very beginning of “A Hard Day’s Night”, only the part with the 7th on the low E string and the 3rd fret being played on the B string is inverted. It does a good job at trying to sound Beatlesque…for a generation of R.E.M. fans, that is. What’s also cool about this song is how it is built around that inversion of the mysterious G-type chord of “A Hard Day’s Night”. One last thing – don’t judge Death Cab just because they did a song for the Twilight soundtrack – Radiohead, Bon Iver, and Mutemath are all on there too (as is Muse, but I dunno if I like them as much as the three bands I previously mentioned). I’ll be darned the day someone calls Bon Iver (one of indie-folk’s many Nick Drake sound-alikes) a “sellout”. On the downside, though, this song probably will inspire a legion of pre-teen/early teen fangirls of Twilight to claim to be Death Cab fans, despite the fact that this will probably be the only song they know by them.
18. “Little Bribes” by Death Cab for Cutie: For a band called “Death Cab for Cutie”, this song sure is upbeat. Kinda comes off as a cross between Oasis’ “Lyla” and Neil Diamond’s “comeback” song (from 2005), “Delirious Love” (Who knew I’d be making a comparison of Death Cab to Neil Diamond?!? Didn’t see that one coming!) Honestly, what’s not to love about this song? (That is, if you’re not sick of hearing it…yet). It’s got a hook-y, toe-tapping beat, somewhat surreal lyrics (although most of Death Cab’s songs tend to have this), and an even more surreal (and fun) music video! Here’s hoping that more bands (and songs) like this will one day grace the music industry!
19. “Wheels” by Foo Fighters: Here’s another band people will inevitably accuse of “selling out” because of this song. Really, it seems like the Foos’ most loyal fans already did this by the time they started flaunting their classic rock roots with the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. This one goes a step further at being classified “lite rock”, since its sound is closer to The Eagles than it is to Bruce (in fact someone I know even mistook this one for a country-western song upon first listening to it!) That being said, it’s obviously not as good as “Long Road to Ruin”, but I don’t dislike “Wheels” either. It’s kinda fun, and apparently the alternative and mainstream rock charts are eatin’ this one up too, which is proof that even people who prefer listening to “hard” rock seem to like this one! It’s also not the first time the Foo’s have attempted doing a “soft rock” song, either. In fact they have done such songs ever since their debut (anyone remember the jangly, somewhat Beatlesque “Big Me”, with its hilarious “Mentos” parody in the music video version?) The trend continued with their 1997 acoustic ballad, “Walking After You”, the infectiously catchy “Learn to Fly” and R.E.M.-ish “Next Year” (both from ’99), unplugged versions of “Everlong” and “Times Like These”, the tender acoustic ballad “Miracle”, and, as mentioned, the Springsteen-esque “Long Road to Ruin”. To sum it all up, if Cobain was the John Lennon of Nirvana, then Grohl is definitely the group’s McCartney, what with his knack for churning out catchy, melodic, (and often humorous) pop songs like this one.
20. “Never Say Never” by The Fray: Warning – do NOT (I repeat, do NOT) confuse this for the Romeo Void alt-rock classic of the ‘80s of the same name. That song is MUCH better than this one, which is just another of the same-old same-old pop-y piano ballads from the Fray. Got nothin’ else to say ‘bout this one, ‘cuz the Fray are just that bland.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Yet ANOTHER new entry makes it to the Top 20 on Mediabase's Triple A chart
The song in question here is "Who Says" by John Mayer. In case you want to just read that one and skip the other 19 that have previously been posted, the song's position is number 16. And, as always, enjoy! :)
1. “Fugitive” by David Gray: David, seriously, what happened to your music? Ever since you got a big fanbase with your 2000 record “White Ladder”, your music has gotten worse with each album, and unfortunately this is no exception. ‘Nuff said.
2. “Maybe” by Ingrid Michaelson: The way Ingrid Michaelson looks (and sounds) suggests something of a younger musical sister to Lisa Loeb, and this song is not only no exception to this rule, but probably the one that resembles Lisa Loeb’s music the most. It’s not as good, though. Where Loeb’s music (particularly her first and best-known single, “Stay [I Missed You]”) sounded nostalgic (and fresh, for its time) enough to be tolerable, Michaelson’s “Maybe” sounds like what has now become a tired cliché in the folk-pop world. That, and it also uses (practically) the same chord sequence as the main verses in Gladys Knight and The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” (though perhaps this wouldn’t bug me so much if I actually liked the song). What also bugs me about, well, any Ingrid Michaelson song that has become popular enough to hit the Top 20 on the Triple-A charts is that these people always seem to choose the more generic sounding songs in her catalog, as opposed to, say, the more delicate, poignant, Regina Spektor-ish “Breakable”.
3. Why I Am” by Dave Matthews Band: It’s nice to know that after their first riff-oriented but somewhat weary single off Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King (“Funny the Way It Is”), that the second one, “Why I Am”, is a welcome return to the funky, playful, energetic DMB sound in days of old, like their ’96 song “Too Much”, which is a similar song, but doesn’t feature quite the guitar noodling this one does.
4. “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight)” by U2: Should be re-titled “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Hear This Song Again Tonight)”. Don’t get me wrong, I love U2, but out of the three songs that have become hits off their latest release (No Line On the Horizon), this is my least favorite. It sounds more ordinary than the other two songs, (the Lenny Kravitz-ish “Get On Your Boots”, and “Magnificent”, which showcases their melodic brand of electric guitar-based rock well).
5. “The Fixer” by Pearl Jam: It’s cool how I’m always fooled into thinking this is a song by The Hives or The White Stripes when I hear the opening riff, proving that although Eddie Vedder might have gone all Bob Dylan on us with the “Into the Wild” soundtrack (which isn’t a BAD thing, mind you), him and the boys can still rock out when they want to! Also, it’s a pretty fun, catchy song for a band that has been labeled “grunge”. This has more of a garage rock-y flavor to it!
6. “Falling For You” by Colbie Caillat: Yecch! Everything Colbie Caillat has done so far sounds like super-generic folk-pop, with a somewhat neo-soul inflection, and this is no exception. And to think this is the fourth time she’s been on the Triple-A charts. Wow. How some people become successful in the music biz, I’ll just never understand.
7. “Hey Soul Sister” by Train: …And speaking of Jack Johnson, this song just seems to copy off of his style (and maybe a bit Jason Mraz’s) directly. Wow, Train sure have gone a long way down musically. They started off as like a Counting-Crows-meets-Spin-Doctors kinda band on their debut (which is probably best known for “Meet Virginia”). Then “Drops of Jupiter” became their most popular song when their next album was released, and the success of it seemed to go to their heads so much, that every other song they’ve released since has veered away from their initial alternative/folk-rock style and gone more in the direction of more bland folk-pop a la Jason Mraz and John Mayer (with a bit of Maroon 5 and The Fray tossed in there for good, or in this case, bad measure). Honestly, why the heck are these guys still releasing records? They’ve completely wrecked what they once were.
8. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon: Great song, but it’s stickin’ to the charts like crazy glue! It’s been on since January, fer goshsakes!! On a side note, this song is KOL’s attempt to be U2 (and/or Springsteen). Every song on that album (Only By the Night) that I’ve heard is like that, actually, but I like the songs anyway.
9. “Backwards Down the Number Line” by Phish: Phish have often been compared to The Grateful Dead for their improvisational, “jam-band” approach to music, as well as their extensive touring. This song, which appears to be their most popular so far, despite the fact that Phish have been around (and known) since the early ‘90s, probably sounds more like The Dead than any song I’ve ever heard of theirs (and definitely more so than the Trey Anastasio solo records, which sounded more like Clapton than The Dead – not that that’s a bad thing…) You can hear little bits of The Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” and “Bertha” in this song, and the guitar solo even sounds like it could’ve been done by Jerry Garcia himself (had he still been alive at the time of this song’s recording, that is). The mellow folk-rock/blues combination that was trademark for The Dead, and now for Phish, pretty much makes this song irresistible! The only complaint I have about this song is that the chorus is repeated too many times. But the other factors of this song pretty much compensate for that.
10. “21 Guns” by Green Day: Again, don’t get me wrong. “Good Riddance” (aka “Time of Your Life”) was great, but it probably should have been the only “ballad” Green Day focused on. They seem to be taking a similar path now to what Heart took in the ‘80s. Heart’s ‘70s ballads (like “Dog And Butterfly” and “Dreamboat Annie”) were great because they were honest, heartfelt acoustic songs with no “flashiness” (Journey, anyone?) to prove how great they were, but their ‘80s ballads (like “What About Love” and “These Dreams”) relied on heavier instrumentation (not to mention more electronic keyboards) and therefore felt more cheesy than they did truly emotional. The same principle seems to apply to Green Day’s “ballads” after the ‘90s, like “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, and most recently, this song, “21 Guns”. All 3 songs start out acoustic, but they build up much in the same way songs like REO Speedwagon’s “Take It On the Run” did, with the songs ending up as “power ballads” with the electric guitar fronting and the acoustic backing. And these songs are by the same guys who did sarcastic, Ramones-y rants like “Basket Case” and “Welcome to Paradise”?!? Way to go, Green Day, you’ve continued to blow it with your last two albums.
11. “You Never Know” by Wilco: Proof that Wilco are still awesome after all these years! They are the only band I know whose sound went from sounding like an alt-rock version of The Eagles to being somewhat of a hodgepodge of The Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles (with a little Steely Dan-style riffs thrown in every now and again for good measure). The Beatles influence in “You Never Know” really shows itself, from the opening drum riff (reminiscent of “Glass Onion”), to the George Harrison-style riffs toward the end of the song. The whimsical, somewhat nonsensical lyrics only add to its charm. Well done, Wilco!!
12. “Dreams” by Brandi Carlile: Honestly, I don’t get how come Brandi Carlile has become so popular on the Triple-A circuit within the past 3 or 4 years. To me a lot of her songs just sound the same, and this is no exception. Basically it’s just k.d. lang stuff with higher vocals and a blander sound. I hate when all the really good songs on these charts are just inching to get to the Top 20 but they never do, and meanwhile the blander songs like this just shoot up to the top really quickly. Go figure.
13. “Little Bribes” by Death Cab for Cutie: For a band called “Death Cab for Cutie”, this song sure is upbeat. Kinda comes off as a cross between Oasis’ “Lyla” and Neil Diamond’s “comeback” song (from 2005), “Delirious Love” (Who knew I’d be making a comparison of Death Cab to Neil Diamond?!? Didn’t see that one coming!) Honestly, what’s not to love about this song? (That is, if you’re not sick of hearing it…yet). It’s got a hook-y, toe-tapping beat, somewhat surreal lyrics (although most of Death Cab’s songs tend to have this), and an even more surreal (and fun) music video! Here’s hoping that more bands (and songs) like this will one day grace the music industry!
14. “Something Beautiful” by Needtobreathe: This song does not live up to its title – well not for me, anyway. Should be more like “Something Average”. It tries hard to sound like an earnestly emotional song, but it just fails. Honestly, these guys are like Five For Fighting, but with acoustic guitars instead of pianos (sorry for those who like Five For Fighting, but even “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” got tiring after it became an Adult Contemporary radio staple).
15. “Life In Technicolor II” by Coldplay: Coldplay…another one of those “Hey! Wha’happened?” bands. Their synthesis of Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, and U2 on their debut was great, and pretty unique for a time when alt-rock was dominated by crappy “nu-metal” bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit. Some of that Radiohead/Buckley/U2 sound remained on their second album, but I have a feeling that the success of “Clocks” (which only sounded like the third band, if any) went to Chris Martin’s head, and that he’s basically wanted to be Bono from his third album on. Sorry Chris, the “ethereal” sound you’re going for on “Life In Technicolor II” just ain’t working for me. You’ll have to pull off something pretty good to make me forget that you’re a U2 wannabe.
16. “Who Says” by John Mayer: Ugghh…If John Mayer is so talented at playing the blues, like he proved in his Trio’s almost Chili-Pepper-ish “Who Did You Think I Was?” and his cover of Hendrix’s “Bold As Love”, then why doesn’t he stick to it?! Honestly, this song sounds like what you’d hear on a Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup commercial, so therefore it sounds pretty cliché to me. About the only high point this song has is it’s (somewhat) hilariously delivered opening line, “Who says you can’t get stoned?” Mayer says this line like someone who’s trying to come off serious, yet somehow the image that pops in my mind with this line is someone who’s smirking and trying hard to hide their laughter as they sing it. Maybe it’s because Mayer does seem to have a funny side to him when he’s being just casually talked to or interviewed, despite how blandly mellow he tends to come off in songs like this.
17. “Staring Down” by Collective Soul: Wow. Here’s yet another “Hey! Wha’happened?” band (there seem to be a lot of these on this countdown this time around). Collective Soul’s unique brand of melodic post-grunge seemed really fresh and fun to listen to in the ‘90s. However, ever since then, they seemed to have dropped the whole “post-grunge” getup (after all, it’s not the dominant musical style in modern rock anymore), and instead, have just become more of a melodic pop-rock group (with a few exceptions, most notably the hard-rocking “Counting the Days”, which even briefly got airplay on L.A.’s classic rock station KLOS at the time the song first came out). If only Collective Soul could take a clue from other former ‘90s alt-pop acts like Fastball, who have refashioned themselves as indie-rockers (at least in sound) a la Kaiser Chiefs, Modest Mouse, The Killers, etc.
18. “Just Say Yes” by Snow Patrol: Hmmm….Snow Patrol are one of those hit-or-miss kinda bands for me. Sometimes they’re amazing, and other times they sound a little bit too close to Coldplay’s later material for me to appreciate them. This one falls somewhere in between for me. It almost reminds me of “Human” by The Killers (you know, the one with the confusing lyrics, “Are we human, or are we dancer?” which, it turns out, is a misquoting, or misinterpretation, of something Hunter S. Thompson once said). The Killers rarely have any “miss” songs, and so far that’s been the only one they’ve had for me. It sounds more like Duran Duran than it does Springsteen, U2, or The Police like their other songs seem to. Getting back to Snow Patrol’s latest, it, too, sounds a bit more Duran Duran-ish than their other songs. While this is a step up from sleepers they’ve had like “Crack the Shutters” and their just-won’t-go-away hit of 2006, “Chasing Cars”, it’s also a step below their “rockers” like “Take Back the City”, “Hands Open”, and “You’re All I Have”, and it also lacks the earnestness some of their more tolerable “slower” songs like “Open Your Eyes”, “Run”, and “Shut Your Eyes” had. That being said, I’m kinda disappointed with this one. “Just Say Yes”? More like, “Just Say Maybe”, to me.
19. “Be There” by Howie Day: Howie Day tries to make his songs poignant and meaningful, but I personally think he tries too hard. This is no exception. It uses a somewhat “ethereal” sound in the beginning of the song as if to hammer into the listener’s head, “Look at me! I’m a poet! I’m making you listen to how meaningful this song is!” But it just comes off sounding like that brand of generic folk-pop that John Mayer (probably) started and has become like a bad itch, where you want it to go away, but it just won’t.
20. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer: Weezer have come along way in the course of the 2000’s. They started out being like a pseudo-grunge act with a quartet of hits that became alt-rock radio staples (“Buddy Holly”, “Undone – The Sweater Song”, “Say It Ain’t So”, and “My Name Is Jonas”). All of these songs basically came off as Green Day wanting to be Nirvana (but failing at it in the process). Then, in the early 2000’s, they released another self-titled album (known to fans as “The Green Album”), and they diversified their sound a bit. While “Hash Pipe” remained the average pseudo-grunge Weezer song, the second single off that album, “Island In the Sun”, was almost like a Beatlesque, day-at-the-beach, idyllic pop song, a departure from Weezer’s typical style. They have continued to diversify their style with ‘70s classic rock influences a la Steve Miller and Peter Frampton, only with an added alt-rock flair (“Beverly Hills”), piano-driven rock (“Perfect Situation”), Pixies-ish songs with acoustic guitar verses and electric guitar choruses (“Pork And Beans”), heartfelt (almost) acoustic ballads (“Heart Songs”), and straight up power pop that almost sounds reminiscent of The Knack, Cheap Trick, and The Romantics (“Troublemaker”). Which brings me to their latest song, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”. Of all the Weezer songs mentioned here, it is probably most like “Island In the Sun” for its carefree, Beatlesque pop melody, though “If You’re Wondering…” has a more uptempo, toe-tapping beat than the peaceful rhythms of “Island In the Sun”. I’ll probably get criticized for saying this, especially among people who have been fans of Weezer since 1994/’95, but I think they’re better at doing Beatlesque pop songs like this one than they are at doing the pseudo-grunge stuff they churned out in the ‘90s.
1. “Fugitive” by David Gray: David, seriously, what happened to your music? Ever since you got a big fanbase with your 2000 record “White Ladder”, your music has gotten worse with each album, and unfortunately this is no exception. ‘Nuff said.
2. “Maybe” by Ingrid Michaelson: The way Ingrid Michaelson looks (and sounds) suggests something of a younger musical sister to Lisa Loeb, and this song is not only no exception to this rule, but probably the one that resembles Lisa Loeb’s music the most. It’s not as good, though. Where Loeb’s music (particularly her first and best-known single, “Stay [I Missed You]”) sounded nostalgic (and fresh, for its time) enough to be tolerable, Michaelson’s “Maybe” sounds like what has now become a tired cliché in the folk-pop world. That, and it also uses (practically) the same chord sequence as the main verses in Gladys Knight and The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” (though perhaps this wouldn’t bug me so much if I actually liked the song). What also bugs me about, well, any Ingrid Michaelson song that has become popular enough to hit the Top 20 on the Triple-A charts is that these people always seem to choose the more generic sounding songs in her catalog, as opposed to, say, the more delicate, poignant, Regina Spektor-ish “Breakable”.
3. Why I Am” by Dave Matthews Band: It’s nice to know that after their first riff-oriented but somewhat weary single off Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King (“Funny the Way It Is”), that the second one, “Why I Am”, is a welcome return to the funky, playful, energetic DMB sound in days of old, like their ’96 song “Too Much”, which is a similar song, but doesn’t feature quite the guitar noodling this one does.
4. “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight)” by U2: Should be re-titled “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Hear This Song Again Tonight)”. Don’t get me wrong, I love U2, but out of the three songs that have become hits off their latest release (No Line On the Horizon), this is my least favorite. It sounds more ordinary than the other two songs, (the Lenny Kravitz-ish “Get On Your Boots”, and “Magnificent”, which showcases their melodic brand of electric guitar-based rock well).
5. “The Fixer” by Pearl Jam: It’s cool how I’m always fooled into thinking this is a song by The Hives or The White Stripes when I hear the opening riff, proving that although Eddie Vedder might have gone all Bob Dylan on us with the “Into the Wild” soundtrack (which isn’t a BAD thing, mind you), him and the boys can still rock out when they want to! Also, it’s a pretty fun, catchy song for a band that has been labeled “grunge”. This has more of a garage rock-y flavor to it!
6. “Falling For You” by Colbie Caillat: Yecch! Everything Colbie Caillat has done so far sounds like super-generic folk-pop, with a somewhat neo-soul inflection, and this is no exception. And to think this is the fourth time she’s been on the Triple-A charts. Wow. How some people become successful in the music biz, I’ll just never understand.
7. “Hey Soul Sister” by Train: …And speaking of Jack Johnson, this song just seems to copy off of his style (and maybe a bit Jason Mraz’s) directly. Wow, Train sure have gone a long way down musically. They started off as like a Counting-Crows-meets-Spin-Doctors kinda band on their debut (which is probably best known for “Meet Virginia”). Then “Drops of Jupiter” became their most popular song when their next album was released, and the success of it seemed to go to their heads so much, that every other song they’ve released since has veered away from their initial alternative/folk-rock style and gone more in the direction of more bland folk-pop a la Jason Mraz and John Mayer (with a bit of Maroon 5 and The Fray tossed in there for good, or in this case, bad measure). Honestly, why the heck are these guys still releasing records? They’ve completely wrecked what they once were.
8. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon: Great song, but it’s stickin’ to the charts like crazy glue! It’s been on since January, fer goshsakes!! On a side note, this song is KOL’s attempt to be U2 (and/or Springsteen). Every song on that album (Only By the Night) that I’ve heard is like that, actually, but I like the songs anyway.
9. “Backwards Down the Number Line” by Phish: Phish have often been compared to The Grateful Dead for their improvisational, “jam-band” approach to music, as well as their extensive touring. This song, which appears to be their most popular so far, despite the fact that Phish have been around (and known) since the early ‘90s, probably sounds more like The Dead than any song I’ve ever heard of theirs (and definitely more so than the Trey Anastasio solo records, which sounded more like Clapton than The Dead – not that that’s a bad thing…) You can hear little bits of The Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” and “Bertha” in this song, and the guitar solo even sounds like it could’ve been done by Jerry Garcia himself (had he still been alive at the time of this song’s recording, that is). The mellow folk-rock/blues combination that was trademark for The Dead, and now for Phish, pretty much makes this song irresistible! The only complaint I have about this song is that the chorus is repeated too many times. But the other factors of this song pretty much compensate for that.
10. “21 Guns” by Green Day: Again, don’t get me wrong. “Good Riddance” (aka “Time of Your Life”) was great, but it probably should have been the only “ballad” Green Day focused on. They seem to be taking a similar path now to what Heart took in the ‘80s. Heart’s ‘70s ballads (like “Dog And Butterfly” and “Dreamboat Annie”) were great because they were honest, heartfelt acoustic songs with no “flashiness” (Journey, anyone?) to prove how great they were, but their ‘80s ballads (like “What About Love” and “These Dreams”) relied on heavier instrumentation (not to mention more electronic keyboards) and therefore felt more cheesy than they did truly emotional. The same principle seems to apply to Green Day’s “ballads” after the ‘90s, like “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, and most recently, this song, “21 Guns”. All 3 songs start out acoustic, but they build up much in the same way songs like REO Speedwagon’s “Take It On the Run” did, with the songs ending up as “power ballads” with the electric guitar fronting and the acoustic backing. And these songs are by the same guys who did sarcastic, Ramones-y rants like “Basket Case” and “Welcome to Paradise”?!? Way to go, Green Day, you’ve continued to blow it with your last two albums.
11. “You Never Know” by Wilco: Proof that Wilco are still awesome after all these years! They are the only band I know whose sound went from sounding like an alt-rock version of The Eagles to being somewhat of a hodgepodge of The Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles (with a little Steely Dan-style riffs thrown in every now and again for good measure). The Beatles influence in “You Never Know” really shows itself, from the opening drum riff (reminiscent of “Glass Onion”), to the George Harrison-style riffs toward the end of the song. The whimsical, somewhat nonsensical lyrics only add to its charm. Well done, Wilco!!
12. “Dreams” by Brandi Carlile: Honestly, I don’t get how come Brandi Carlile has become so popular on the Triple-A circuit within the past 3 or 4 years. To me a lot of her songs just sound the same, and this is no exception. Basically it’s just k.d. lang stuff with higher vocals and a blander sound. I hate when all the really good songs on these charts are just inching to get to the Top 20 but they never do, and meanwhile the blander songs like this just shoot up to the top really quickly. Go figure.
13. “Little Bribes” by Death Cab for Cutie: For a band called “Death Cab for Cutie”, this song sure is upbeat. Kinda comes off as a cross between Oasis’ “Lyla” and Neil Diamond’s “comeback” song (from 2005), “Delirious Love” (Who knew I’d be making a comparison of Death Cab to Neil Diamond?!? Didn’t see that one coming!) Honestly, what’s not to love about this song? (That is, if you’re not sick of hearing it…yet). It’s got a hook-y, toe-tapping beat, somewhat surreal lyrics (although most of Death Cab’s songs tend to have this), and an even more surreal (and fun) music video! Here’s hoping that more bands (and songs) like this will one day grace the music industry!
14. “Something Beautiful” by Needtobreathe: This song does not live up to its title – well not for me, anyway. Should be more like “Something Average”. It tries hard to sound like an earnestly emotional song, but it just fails. Honestly, these guys are like Five For Fighting, but with acoustic guitars instead of pianos (sorry for those who like Five For Fighting, but even “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” got tiring after it became an Adult Contemporary radio staple).
15. “Life In Technicolor II” by Coldplay: Coldplay…another one of those “Hey! Wha’happened?” bands. Their synthesis of Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, and U2 on their debut was great, and pretty unique for a time when alt-rock was dominated by crappy “nu-metal” bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit. Some of that Radiohead/Buckley/U2 sound remained on their second album, but I have a feeling that the success of “Clocks” (which only sounded like the third band, if any) went to Chris Martin’s head, and that he’s basically wanted to be Bono from his third album on. Sorry Chris, the “ethereal” sound you’re going for on “Life In Technicolor II” just ain’t working for me. You’ll have to pull off something pretty good to make me forget that you’re a U2 wannabe.
16. “Who Says” by John Mayer: Ugghh…If John Mayer is so talented at playing the blues, like he proved in his Trio’s almost Chili-Pepper-ish “Who Did You Think I Was?” and his cover of Hendrix’s “Bold As Love”, then why doesn’t he stick to it?! Honestly, this song sounds like what you’d hear on a Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup commercial, so therefore it sounds pretty cliché to me. About the only high point this song has is it’s (somewhat) hilariously delivered opening line, “Who says you can’t get stoned?” Mayer says this line like someone who’s trying to come off serious, yet somehow the image that pops in my mind with this line is someone who’s smirking and trying hard to hide their laughter as they sing it. Maybe it’s because Mayer does seem to have a funny side to him when he’s being just casually talked to or interviewed, despite how blandly mellow he tends to come off in songs like this.
17. “Staring Down” by Collective Soul: Wow. Here’s yet another “Hey! Wha’happened?” band (there seem to be a lot of these on this countdown this time around). Collective Soul’s unique brand of melodic post-grunge seemed really fresh and fun to listen to in the ‘90s. However, ever since then, they seemed to have dropped the whole “post-grunge” getup (after all, it’s not the dominant musical style in modern rock anymore), and instead, have just become more of a melodic pop-rock group (with a few exceptions, most notably the hard-rocking “Counting the Days”, which even briefly got airplay on L.A.’s classic rock station KLOS at the time the song first came out). If only Collective Soul could take a clue from other former ‘90s alt-pop acts like Fastball, who have refashioned themselves as indie-rockers (at least in sound) a la Kaiser Chiefs, Modest Mouse, The Killers, etc.
18. “Just Say Yes” by Snow Patrol: Hmmm….Snow Patrol are one of those hit-or-miss kinda bands for me. Sometimes they’re amazing, and other times they sound a little bit too close to Coldplay’s later material for me to appreciate them. This one falls somewhere in between for me. It almost reminds me of “Human” by The Killers (you know, the one with the confusing lyrics, “Are we human, or are we dancer?” which, it turns out, is a misquoting, or misinterpretation, of something Hunter S. Thompson once said). The Killers rarely have any “miss” songs, and so far that’s been the only one they’ve had for me. It sounds more like Duran Duran than it does Springsteen, U2, or The Police like their other songs seem to. Getting back to Snow Patrol’s latest, it, too, sounds a bit more Duran Duran-ish than their other songs. While this is a step up from sleepers they’ve had like “Crack the Shutters” and their just-won’t-go-away hit of 2006, “Chasing Cars”, it’s also a step below their “rockers” like “Take Back the City”, “Hands Open”, and “You’re All I Have”, and it also lacks the earnestness some of their more tolerable “slower” songs like “Open Your Eyes”, “Run”, and “Shut Your Eyes” had. That being said, I’m kinda disappointed with this one. “Just Say Yes”? More like, “Just Say Maybe”, to me.
19. “Be There” by Howie Day: Howie Day tries to make his songs poignant and meaningful, but I personally think he tries too hard. This is no exception. It uses a somewhat “ethereal” sound in the beginning of the song as if to hammer into the listener’s head, “Look at me! I’m a poet! I’m making you listen to how meaningful this song is!” But it just comes off sounding like that brand of generic folk-pop that John Mayer (probably) started and has become like a bad itch, where you want it to go away, but it just won’t.
20. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer: Weezer have come along way in the course of the 2000’s. They started out being like a pseudo-grunge act with a quartet of hits that became alt-rock radio staples (“Buddy Holly”, “Undone – The Sweater Song”, “Say It Ain’t So”, and “My Name Is Jonas”). All of these songs basically came off as Green Day wanting to be Nirvana (but failing at it in the process). Then, in the early 2000’s, they released another self-titled album (known to fans as “The Green Album”), and they diversified their sound a bit. While “Hash Pipe” remained the average pseudo-grunge Weezer song, the second single off that album, “Island In the Sun”, was almost like a Beatlesque, day-at-the-beach, idyllic pop song, a departure from Weezer’s typical style. They have continued to diversify their style with ‘70s classic rock influences a la Steve Miller and Peter Frampton, only with an added alt-rock flair (“Beverly Hills”), piano-driven rock (“Perfect Situation”), Pixies-ish songs with acoustic guitar verses and electric guitar choruses (“Pork And Beans”), heartfelt (almost) acoustic ballads (“Heart Songs”), and straight up power pop that almost sounds reminiscent of The Knack, Cheap Trick, and The Romantics (“Troublemaker”). Which brings me to their latest song, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”. Of all the Weezer songs mentioned here, it is probably most like “Island In the Sun” for its carefree, Beatlesque pop melody, though “If You’re Wondering…” has a more uptempo, toe-tapping beat than the peaceful rhythms of “Island In the Sun”. I’ll probably get criticized for saying this, especially among people who have been fans of Weezer since 1994/’95, but I think they’re better at doing Beatlesque pop songs like this one than they are at doing the pseudo-grunge stuff they churned out in the ‘90s.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Weezer and Snow Patrol make new entries into the Triple-A Top 20
The Weezer song was actually there for about a week now, but no other new songs were showing up in the charts. Finally, today, one did! That being said, here is my review on the two songs that just made it (as well as the remaining 18 I reviewed a week or two ago).
1. “Fugitive” by David Gray: David, seriously, what happened to your music? Ever since you got a big fanbase with your 2000 record “White Ladder”, your music has gotten worse with each album, and unfortunately this is no exception. ‘Nuff said.
2. “Maybe” by Ingrid Michaelson: The way Ingrid Michaelson looks (and sounds) suggests something of a younger musical sister to Lisa Loeb, and this song is not only no exception to this rule, but probably the one that resembles Lisa Loeb’s music the most. It’s not as good, though. Where Loeb’s music (particularly her first and best-known single, “Stay [I Missed You]”) sounded nostalgic (and fresh, for its time) enough to be tolerable, Michaelson’s “Maybe” sounds like what has now become a tired cliché in the folk-pop world. That, and it also uses (practically) the same chord sequence as the main verses in Gladys Knight and The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” (though perhaps this wouldn’t bug me so much if I actually liked the song). What also bugs me about, well, any Ingrid Michaelson song that has become popular enough to hit the Top 20 on the Triple-A charts is that these people always seem to choose the more generic sounding songs in her catalog, as opposed to, say, the more delicate, poignant, Regina Spektor-ish “Breakable”.
3. Why I Am” by Dave Matthews Band: It’s nice to know that after their first riff-oriented but somewhat weary single off Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King (“Funny the Way It Is”), that the second one, “Why I Am”, is a welcome return to the funky, playful, energetic DMB sound in days of old, like their ’96 song “Too Much”, which is a similar song, but doesn’t feature quite the guitar noodling this one does.
4. “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight)” by U2: Should be re-titled “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Hear This Song Again Tonight)”. Don’t get me wrong, I love U2, but out of the three songs that have become hits off their latest release (No Line On the Horizon), this is my least favorite. It sounds more ordinary than the other two songs, (the Lenny Kravitz-ish “Get On Your Boots”, and “Magnificent”, which showcases their melodic brand of electric guitar-based rock well).
5. “The Fixer” by Pearl Jam: It’s cool how I’m always fooled into thinking this is a song by The Hives or The White Stripes when I hear the opening riff, proving that although Eddie Vedder might have gone all Bob Dylan on us with the “Into the Wild” soundtrack (which isn’t a BAD thing, mind you), him and the boys can still rock out when they want to! Also, it’s a pretty fun, catchy song for a band that has been labeled “grunge”. This has more of a garage rock-y flavor to it!
6. “Falling For You” by Colbie Caillat: Yecch! Everything Colbie Caillat has done so far sounds like super-generic folk-pop, with a somewhat neo-soul inflection, and this is no exception. And to think this is the fourth time she’s been on the Triple-A charts. Wow. How some people become successful in the music biz, I’ll just never understand.
7. “Hey Soul Sister” by Train: …And speaking of Jack Johnson, this song just seems to copy off of his style (and maybe a bit Jason Mraz’s) directly. Wow, Train sure have gone a long way down musically. They started off as like a Counting-Crows-meets-Spin-Doctors kinda band on their debut (which is probably best known for “Meet Virginia”). Then “Drops of Jupiter” became their most popular song when their next album was released, and the success of it seemed to go to their heads so much, that every other song they’ve released since has veered away from their initial alternative/folk-rock style and gone more in the direction of more bland folk-pop a la Jason Mraz and John Mayer (with a bit of Maroon 5 and The Fray tossed in there for good, or in this case, bad measure). Honestly, why the heck are these guys still releasing records? They’ve completely wrecked what they once were.
8. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon: Great song, but it’s stickin’ to the charts like crazy glue! It’s been on since January, fer goshsakes!! On a side note, this song is KOL’s attempt to be U2 (and/or Springsteen). Every song on that album (Only By the Night) that I’ve heard is like that, actually, but I like the songs anyway.
9. “Backwards Down the Number Line” by Phish: Phish have often been compared to The Grateful Dead for their improvisational, “jam-band” approach to music, as well as their extensive touring. This song, which appears to be their most popular so far, despite the fact that Phish have been around (and known) since the early ‘90s, probably sounds more like The Dead than any song I’ve ever heard of theirs (and definitely more so than the Trey Anastasio solo records, which sounded more like Clapton than The Dead – not that that’s a bad thing…) You can hear little bits of The Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” and “Bertha” in this song, and the guitar solo even sounds like it could’ve been done by Jerry Garcia himself (had he still been alive at the time of this song’s recording, that is). The mellow folk-rock/blues combination that was trademark for The Dead, and now for Phish, pretty much makes this song irresistible! The only complaint I have about this song is that the chorus is repeated too many times. But the other factors of this song pretty much compensate for that.
10. “21 Guns” by Green Day: Again, don’t get me wrong. “Good Riddance” (aka “Time of Your Life”) was great, but it probably should have been the only “ballad” Green Day focused on. They seem to be taking a similar path now to what Heart took in the ‘80s. Heart’s ‘70s ballads (like “Dog And Butterfly” and “Dreamboat Annie”) were great because they were honest, heartfelt acoustic songs with no “flashiness” (Journey, anyone?) to prove how great they were, but their ‘80s ballads (like “What About Love” and “These Dreams”) relied on heavier instrumentation (not to mention more electronic keyboards) and therefore felt more cheesy than they did truly emotional. The same principle seems to apply to Green Day’s “ballads” after the ‘90s, like “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, and most recently, this song, “21 Guns”. All 3 songs start out acoustic, but they build up much in the same way songs like REO Speedwagon’s “Take It On the Run” did, with the songs ending up as “power ballads” with the electric guitar fronting and the acoustic backing. And these songs are by the same guys who did sarcastic, Ramones-y rants like “Basket Case” and “Welcome to Paradise”?!? Way to go, Green Day, you’ve continued to blow it with your last two albums.
11. “You Never Know” by Wilco: Proof that Wilco are still awesome after all these years! They are the only band I know whose sound went from sounding like an alt-rock version of The Eagles to being somewhat of a hodgepodge of The Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles (with a little Steely Dan-style riffs thrown in every now and again for good measure). The Beatles influence in “You Never Know” really shows itself, from the opening drum riff (reminiscent of “Glass Onion”), to the George Harrison-style riffs toward the end of the song. The whimsical, somewhat nonsensical lyrics only add to its charm. Well done, Wilco!!
12. “Little Bribes” by Death Cab for Cutie: For a band called “Death Cab for Cutie”, this song sure is upbeat. Kinda comes off as a cross between Oasis’ “Lyla” and Neil Diamond’s “comeback” song (from 2005), “Delirious Love” (Who knew I’d be making a comparison of Death Cab to Neil Diamond?!? Didn’t see that one coming!) Honestly, what’s not to love about this song? (That is, if you’re not sick of hearing it…yet). It’s got a hook-y, toe-tapping beat, somewhat surreal lyrics (although most of Death Cab’s songs tend to have this), and an even more surreal (and fun) music video! Here’s hoping that more bands (and songs) like this will one day grace the music industry!
13. “Dreams” by Brandi Carlile: Honestly, I don’t get how come Brandi Carlile has become so popular on the Triple-A circuit within the past 3 or 4 years. To me a lot of her songs just sound the same, and this is no exception. Basically it’s just k.d. lang stuff with higher vocals and a blander sound. I hate when all the really good songs on these charts are just inching to get to the Top 20 but they never do, and meanwhile the blander songs like this just shoot up to the top really quickly. Go figure.
14. “Something Beautiful” by Needtobreathe: This song does not live up to its title – well not for me, anyway. Should be more like “Something Average”. It tries hard to sound like an earnestly emotional song, but it just fails. Honestly, these guys are like Five For Fighting, but with acoustic guitars instead of pianos (sorry for those who like Five For Fighting, but even “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” got tiring after it became an Adult Contemporary radio staple).
15. “Life In Technicolor II” by Coldplay: Coldplay…another one of those “Hey! Wha’happened?” bands. Their synthesis of Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, and U2 on their debut was great, and pretty unique for a time when alt-rock was dominated by crappy “nu-metal” bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit. Some of that Radiohead/Buckley/U2 sound remained on their second album, but I have a feeling that the success of “Clocks” (which only sounded like the third band, if any) went to Chris Martin’s head, and that he’s basically wanted to be Bono from his third album on. Sorry Chris, the “ethereal” sound you’re going for on “Life In Technicolor II” just ain’t working for me. You’ll have to pull off something pretty good to make me forget that you’re a U2 wannabe.
16. “Closer to Love” by Mat Kearney: As if Mat Kearney wasn’t bland enough, this song adds a happy, shiny feel to his previously Coldplay-meets-John-Mayer style material. This song, then, is both bland and sappy. Not a good combination, if you ask me, but somehow, the Triple-A audience digs it. Go figure.
17. “Staring Down” by Collective Soul: Wow. Here’s yet another “Hey! Wha’happened?” band (there seem to be a lot of these on this countdown this time around). Collective Soul’s unique brand of melodic post-grunge seemed really fresh and fun to listen to in the ‘90s. However, ever since then, they seemed to have dropped the whole “post-grunge” getup (after all, it’s not the dominant musical style in modern rock anymore), and instead, have just become more of a melodic pop-rock group (with a few exceptions, most notably the hard-rocking “Counting the Days”, which even briefly got airplay on L.A.’s classic rock station KLOS at the time the song first came out). If only Collective Soul could take a clue from other former ‘90s alt-pop acts like Fastball, who have refashioned themselves as indie-rockers (at least in sound) a la Kaiser Chiefs, Modest Mouse, The Killers, etc.
18. “Be There” by Howie Day: Howie Day tries to make his songs poignant and meaningful, but I personally think he tries too hard. This is no exception. It uses a somewhat “ethereal” sound in the beginning of the song as if to hammer into the listener’s head, “Look at me! I’m a poet! I’m making you listen to how meaningful this song is!” But it just comes off sounding like that brand of generic folk-pop that John Mayer (probably) started and has become like a bad itch, where you want it to go away, but it just won’t.
19. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer: Weezer have come along way in the course of the 2000’s. They started out being like a pseudo-grunge act with a quartet of hits that became alt-rock radio staples (“Buddy Holly”, “Undone – The Sweater Song”, “Say It Ain’t So”, and “My Name Is Jonas”). All of these songs basically came off as Green Day wanting to be Nirvana (but failing at it in the process). Then, in the early 2000’s, they released another self-titled album (known to fans as “The Green Album”), and they diversified their sound a bit. While “Hash Pipe” remained the average pseudo-grunge Weezer song, the second single off that album, “Island In the Sun”, was almost like a Beatlesque, day-at-the-beach, idyllic pop song, a departure from Weezer’s typical style. They have continued to diversify their style with ‘70s classic rock influences a la Steve Miller and Peter Frampton, only with an added alt-rock flair (“Beverly Hills”), piano-driven rock (“Perfect Situation”), Pixies-ish songs with acoustic guitar verses and electric guitar choruses (“Pork And Beans”), heartfelt (almost) acoustic ballads (“Heart Songs”), and straight up power pop that almost sounds reminiscent of The Knack, Cheap Trick, and The Romantics (“Troublemaker”). Which brings me to their latest song, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”. Of all the Weezer songs mentioned here, it is probably most like “Island In the Sun” for its carefree, Beatlesque pop melody, though “If You’re Wondering…” has a more uptempo, toe-tapping beat than the peaceful rhythms of “Island In the Sun”. I’ll probably get criticized for saying this, especially among people who have been fans of Weezer since 1994/’95, but I think they’re better at doing Beatlesque pop songs like this one than they are at doing the pseudo-grunge stuff they churned out in the ‘90s.
20. “Just Say Yes” by Snow Patrol: Hmmm….Snow Patrol are one of those hit-or-miss kinda bands for me. Sometimes they’re amazing, and other times they sound a little bit too close to Coldplay’s later material for me to appreciate them. This one falls somewhere in between for me. It almost reminds me of “Human” by The Killers (you know, the one with the confusing lyrics, “Are we human, or are we dancer?” which, it turns out, is a misquoting, or misinterpretation, of something Hunter S. Thompson once said). The Killers rarely have any “miss” songs, and so far that’s been the only one they’ve had for me. It sounds more like Duran Duran than it does Springsteen, U2, or The Police like their other songs seem to. Getting back to Snow Patrol’s latest, it, too, sounds a bit more Duran Duran-ish than their other songs. While this is a step up from sleepers they’ve had like “Crack the Shutters” and their just-won’t-go-away hit of 2006, “Chasing Cars”, it’s also a step below their “rockers” like “Take Back the City”, “Hands Open”, and “You’re All I Have”, and it also lacks the earnestness some of their more tolerable “slower” songs like “Open Your Eyes”, “Run”, and “Shut Your Eyes” had. That being said, I’m kinda disappointed with this one. “Just Say Yes”? More like, “Just Say Maybe”, to me.
1. “Fugitive” by David Gray: David, seriously, what happened to your music? Ever since you got a big fanbase with your 2000 record “White Ladder”, your music has gotten worse with each album, and unfortunately this is no exception. ‘Nuff said.
2. “Maybe” by Ingrid Michaelson: The way Ingrid Michaelson looks (and sounds) suggests something of a younger musical sister to Lisa Loeb, and this song is not only no exception to this rule, but probably the one that resembles Lisa Loeb’s music the most. It’s not as good, though. Where Loeb’s music (particularly her first and best-known single, “Stay [I Missed You]”) sounded nostalgic (and fresh, for its time) enough to be tolerable, Michaelson’s “Maybe” sounds like what has now become a tired cliché in the folk-pop world. That, and it also uses (practically) the same chord sequence as the main verses in Gladys Knight and The Pips’ “Midnight Train to Georgia” (though perhaps this wouldn’t bug me so much if I actually liked the song). What also bugs me about, well, any Ingrid Michaelson song that has become popular enough to hit the Top 20 on the Triple-A charts is that these people always seem to choose the more generic sounding songs in her catalog, as opposed to, say, the more delicate, poignant, Regina Spektor-ish “Breakable”.
3. Why I Am” by Dave Matthews Band: It’s nice to know that after their first riff-oriented but somewhat weary single off Big Whiskey And the Groogrux King (“Funny the Way It Is”), that the second one, “Why I Am”, is a welcome return to the funky, playful, energetic DMB sound in days of old, like their ’96 song “Too Much”, which is a similar song, but doesn’t feature quite the guitar noodling this one does.
4. “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight)” by U2: Should be re-titled “I’ll Go Crazy (If I Hear This Song Again Tonight)”. Don’t get me wrong, I love U2, but out of the three songs that have become hits off their latest release (No Line On the Horizon), this is my least favorite. It sounds more ordinary than the other two songs, (the Lenny Kravitz-ish “Get On Your Boots”, and “Magnificent”, which showcases their melodic brand of electric guitar-based rock well).
5. “The Fixer” by Pearl Jam: It’s cool how I’m always fooled into thinking this is a song by The Hives or The White Stripes when I hear the opening riff, proving that although Eddie Vedder might have gone all Bob Dylan on us with the “Into the Wild” soundtrack (which isn’t a BAD thing, mind you), him and the boys can still rock out when they want to! Also, it’s a pretty fun, catchy song for a band that has been labeled “grunge”. This has more of a garage rock-y flavor to it!
6. “Falling For You” by Colbie Caillat: Yecch! Everything Colbie Caillat has done so far sounds like super-generic folk-pop, with a somewhat neo-soul inflection, and this is no exception. And to think this is the fourth time she’s been on the Triple-A charts. Wow. How some people become successful in the music biz, I’ll just never understand.
7. “Hey Soul Sister” by Train: …And speaking of Jack Johnson, this song just seems to copy off of his style (and maybe a bit Jason Mraz’s) directly. Wow, Train sure have gone a long way down musically. They started off as like a Counting-Crows-meets-Spin-Doctors kinda band on their debut (which is probably best known for “Meet Virginia”). Then “Drops of Jupiter” became their most popular song when their next album was released, and the success of it seemed to go to their heads so much, that every other song they’ve released since has veered away from their initial alternative/folk-rock style and gone more in the direction of more bland folk-pop a la Jason Mraz and John Mayer (with a bit of Maroon 5 and The Fray tossed in there for good, or in this case, bad measure). Honestly, why the heck are these guys still releasing records? They’ve completely wrecked what they once were.
8. “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon: Great song, but it’s stickin’ to the charts like crazy glue! It’s been on since January, fer goshsakes!! On a side note, this song is KOL’s attempt to be U2 (and/or Springsteen). Every song on that album (Only By the Night) that I’ve heard is like that, actually, but I like the songs anyway.
9. “Backwards Down the Number Line” by Phish: Phish have often been compared to The Grateful Dead for their improvisational, “jam-band” approach to music, as well as their extensive touring. This song, which appears to be their most popular so far, despite the fact that Phish have been around (and known) since the early ‘90s, probably sounds more like The Dead than any song I’ve ever heard of theirs (and definitely more so than the Trey Anastasio solo records, which sounded more like Clapton than The Dead – not that that’s a bad thing…) You can hear little bits of The Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” and “Bertha” in this song, and the guitar solo even sounds like it could’ve been done by Jerry Garcia himself (had he still been alive at the time of this song’s recording, that is). The mellow folk-rock/blues combination that was trademark for The Dead, and now for Phish, pretty much makes this song irresistible! The only complaint I have about this song is that the chorus is repeated too many times. But the other factors of this song pretty much compensate for that.
10. “21 Guns” by Green Day: Again, don’t get me wrong. “Good Riddance” (aka “Time of Your Life”) was great, but it probably should have been the only “ballad” Green Day focused on. They seem to be taking a similar path now to what Heart took in the ‘80s. Heart’s ‘70s ballads (like “Dog And Butterfly” and “Dreamboat Annie”) were great because they were honest, heartfelt acoustic songs with no “flashiness” (Journey, anyone?) to prove how great they were, but their ‘80s ballads (like “What About Love” and “These Dreams”) relied on heavier instrumentation (not to mention more electronic keyboards) and therefore felt more cheesy than they did truly emotional. The same principle seems to apply to Green Day’s “ballads” after the ‘90s, like “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, “Wake Me Up When September Ends”, and most recently, this song, “21 Guns”. All 3 songs start out acoustic, but they build up much in the same way songs like REO Speedwagon’s “Take It On the Run” did, with the songs ending up as “power ballads” with the electric guitar fronting and the acoustic backing. And these songs are by the same guys who did sarcastic, Ramones-y rants like “Basket Case” and “Welcome to Paradise”?!? Way to go, Green Day, you’ve continued to blow it with your last two albums.
11. “You Never Know” by Wilco: Proof that Wilco are still awesome after all these years! They are the only band I know whose sound went from sounding like an alt-rock version of The Eagles to being somewhat of a hodgepodge of The Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles (with a little Steely Dan-style riffs thrown in every now and again for good measure). The Beatles influence in “You Never Know” really shows itself, from the opening drum riff (reminiscent of “Glass Onion”), to the George Harrison-style riffs toward the end of the song. The whimsical, somewhat nonsensical lyrics only add to its charm. Well done, Wilco!!
12. “Little Bribes” by Death Cab for Cutie: For a band called “Death Cab for Cutie”, this song sure is upbeat. Kinda comes off as a cross between Oasis’ “Lyla” and Neil Diamond’s “comeback” song (from 2005), “Delirious Love” (Who knew I’d be making a comparison of Death Cab to Neil Diamond?!? Didn’t see that one coming!) Honestly, what’s not to love about this song? (That is, if you’re not sick of hearing it…yet). It’s got a hook-y, toe-tapping beat, somewhat surreal lyrics (although most of Death Cab’s songs tend to have this), and an even more surreal (and fun) music video! Here’s hoping that more bands (and songs) like this will one day grace the music industry!
13. “Dreams” by Brandi Carlile: Honestly, I don’t get how come Brandi Carlile has become so popular on the Triple-A circuit within the past 3 or 4 years. To me a lot of her songs just sound the same, and this is no exception. Basically it’s just k.d. lang stuff with higher vocals and a blander sound. I hate when all the really good songs on these charts are just inching to get to the Top 20 but they never do, and meanwhile the blander songs like this just shoot up to the top really quickly. Go figure.
14. “Something Beautiful” by Needtobreathe: This song does not live up to its title – well not for me, anyway. Should be more like “Something Average”. It tries hard to sound like an earnestly emotional song, but it just fails. Honestly, these guys are like Five For Fighting, but with acoustic guitars instead of pianos (sorry for those who like Five For Fighting, but even “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” got tiring after it became an Adult Contemporary radio staple).
15. “Life In Technicolor II” by Coldplay: Coldplay…another one of those “Hey! Wha’happened?” bands. Their synthesis of Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, and U2 on their debut was great, and pretty unique for a time when alt-rock was dominated by crappy “nu-metal” bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit. Some of that Radiohead/Buckley/U2 sound remained on their second album, but I have a feeling that the success of “Clocks” (which only sounded like the third band, if any) went to Chris Martin’s head, and that he’s basically wanted to be Bono from his third album on. Sorry Chris, the “ethereal” sound you’re going for on “Life In Technicolor II” just ain’t working for me. You’ll have to pull off something pretty good to make me forget that you’re a U2 wannabe.
16. “Closer to Love” by Mat Kearney: As if Mat Kearney wasn’t bland enough, this song adds a happy, shiny feel to his previously Coldplay-meets-John-Mayer style material. This song, then, is both bland and sappy. Not a good combination, if you ask me, but somehow, the Triple-A audience digs it. Go figure.
17. “Staring Down” by Collective Soul: Wow. Here’s yet another “Hey! Wha’happened?” band (there seem to be a lot of these on this countdown this time around). Collective Soul’s unique brand of melodic post-grunge seemed really fresh and fun to listen to in the ‘90s. However, ever since then, they seemed to have dropped the whole “post-grunge” getup (after all, it’s not the dominant musical style in modern rock anymore), and instead, have just become more of a melodic pop-rock group (with a few exceptions, most notably the hard-rocking “Counting the Days”, which even briefly got airplay on L.A.’s classic rock station KLOS at the time the song first came out). If only Collective Soul could take a clue from other former ‘90s alt-pop acts like Fastball, who have refashioned themselves as indie-rockers (at least in sound) a la Kaiser Chiefs, Modest Mouse, The Killers, etc.
18. “Be There” by Howie Day: Howie Day tries to make his songs poignant and meaningful, but I personally think he tries too hard. This is no exception. It uses a somewhat “ethereal” sound in the beginning of the song as if to hammer into the listener’s head, “Look at me! I’m a poet! I’m making you listen to how meaningful this song is!” But it just comes off sounding like that brand of generic folk-pop that John Mayer (probably) started and has become like a bad itch, where you want it to go away, but it just won’t.
19. “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To” by Weezer: Weezer have come along way in the course of the 2000’s. They started out being like a pseudo-grunge act with a quartet of hits that became alt-rock radio staples (“Buddy Holly”, “Undone – The Sweater Song”, “Say It Ain’t So”, and “My Name Is Jonas”). All of these songs basically came off as Green Day wanting to be Nirvana (but failing at it in the process). Then, in the early 2000’s, they released another self-titled album (known to fans as “The Green Album”), and they diversified their sound a bit. While “Hash Pipe” remained the average pseudo-grunge Weezer song, the second single off that album, “Island In the Sun”, was almost like a Beatlesque, day-at-the-beach, idyllic pop song, a departure from Weezer’s typical style. They have continued to diversify their style with ‘70s classic rock influences a la Steve Miller and Peter Frampton, only with an added alt-rock flair (“Beverly Hills”), piano-driven rock (“Perfect Situation”), Pixies-ish songs with acoustic guitar verses and electric guitar choruses (“Pork And Beans”), heartfelt (almost) acoustic ballads (“Heart Songs”), and straight up power pop that almost sounds reminiscent of The Knack, Cheap Trick, and The Romantics (“Troublemaker”). Which brings me to their latest song, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”. Of all the Weezer songs mentioned here, it is probably most like “Island In the Sun” for its carefree, Beatlesque pop melody, though “If You’re Wondering…” has a more uptempo, toe-tapping beat than the peaceful rhythms of “Island In the Sun”. I’ll probably get criticized for saying this, especially among people who have been fans of Weezer since 1994/’95, but I think they’re better at doing Beatlesque pop songs like this one than they are at doing the pseudo-grunge stuff they churned out in the ‘90s.
20. “Just Say Yes” by Snow Patrol: Hmmm….Snow Patrol are one of those hit-or-miss kinda bands for me. Sometimes they’re amazing, and other times they sound a little bit too close to Coldplay’s later material for me to appreciate them. This one falls somewhere in between for me. It almost reminds me of “Human” by The Killers (you know, the one with the confusing lyrics, “Are we human, or are we dancer?” which, it turns out, is a misquoting, or misinterpretation, of something Hunter S. Thompson once said). The Killers rarely have any “miss” songs, and so far that’s been the only one they’ve had for me. It sounds more like Duran Duran than it does Springsteen, U2, or The Police like their other songs seem to. Getting back to Snow Patrol’s latest, it, too, sounds a bit more Duran Duran-ish than their other songs. While this is a step up from sleepers they’ve had like “Crack the Shutters” and their just-won’t-go-away hit of 2006, “Chasing Cars”, it’s also a step below their “rockers” like “Take Back the City”, “Hands Open”, and “You’re All I Have”, and it also lacks the earnestness some of their more tolerable “slower” songs like “Open Your Eyes”, “Run”, and “Shut Your Eyes” had. That being said, I’m kinda disappointed with this one. “Just Say Yes”? More like, “Just Say Maybe”, to me.
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