A little about music…
Driving in Chicago monday morning, I had the radio tuned to B96, which had one of their “lunch parties” going at the time. Right before they dropped “Lose Yourself,” they played this really sweet little song that mage me think of a less angry “I Got A Man” or “Déjà Vu (Uptown Baby).” Since it was a DJ set, I didn’t know who sang the song or anything, and I thought that would be that. I really liked the call-response chorus between a guy and a woman, since it was really well balanced—they’re both going to drink and smoke in order to both get high tonight. It was notably short on misogyny or anger. But I had no idea what the song was.
When I came home, I saw that Sam had downloaded one song the night before on the computer at the house, “Hey Ma,” by Cam’ron. Turns out it was the same song! Anyway, he’s given his account of the song already, and I tend to agree with it. It’s a very sweet number, and I’m happy to hear it every day.
On Tuesday, I downloaded Sigur Rós’s newest album, ( ). I didn’t know that Sigur Rós show up in Vanilla Sky until I’d already started listening. It’s very strange—I hated VS so much that I don’t think I noticed the music, yet when I listen to this, I do remember silly Monet-colored skies. It’s a shame the movie was as bad as it was—Crowe can do better, and it’s certainly a reasonably interesting plot. Now that I think about it some more, I think the movie would have worked more smoothly without the Cruise-behind-a-mask parts, but I’m not sure. I would probably have to see the movie again to remember why I didn’t like it.
In any event, ( ) is remarkable. Sam joked that I’m getting indie in my old age. I countered that if p knows about Sigur Rós, it can hardly be considered indie. I do, however, now worry that I’ll start liking Radiohead—that may definitely mean that I’m falling to pieces. The Amazon review namechecks both Radiohead and U2 as touchpoints—and both are bands I have quite a bit of disdain for. But, then again, my disdain for both bands is largely based on their hype—U2 is such an unchallenging band, so easy to like, that it seems pointless to say their one’s fav. band. Liking U2 is like liking Elvis. In fact, they’re almost identical. Liking U2 motivates no real cultural signification; it’s not answering the question in a way where even the not answering provides no data.
Radiohead I never liked. (Rattle and Hum, on the other hand, was one of the first albums I bought as a kid) I could never get behind “Creep,” so I never looked into Pablo Honey. But it was impossible to avoid the Pink Floyd cover album we all know as OK Computer. The album really just isn’t that good, but it launched Radiohead on some sort of mission from god to save music. And the hipsters ate it up, especially once Kid A came out. Now, I don’t mean to be an iconoclast, or to always hate what people like—I think I’ve shown that I can mark out and like stuff other people like as much as the next guy. I just don’t like false saviours, and I see both U2 and Radiohead as those.
No one is calling Sigur Rós saviours, at least no one whose opinions I value. Instead, I hear most people complain that Sigur Rós are “pretentious,” whatever that means. I fail to understand how releasing an album without a title or any titles for any songs makes that album (and band) pretentious, especially when they do have titles, just not ones that we are used to. ( ) is a perfectly acceptable title. Metallica and Zep had albums with unpronouncable titles—people got over it. Besides, one of the things ( ) seems to be trying to do, rather explicitly, is to move beyond language. If that’s possible or if the album suceeds isn’t for me to say (now, mostly since my head still hurts from destroying it at the Cove last night), but just calling it “pretentious” is pointless, lazy journalism.
Talk about pretentious: the absurdly titled “Sk8ter Boi” has been lodged in my head all day. I was singing the chorus non stop from the moment I woke up until I came to work, two hours later. That’s a lot of “see you later, boy”s.
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