Dropping the Ball

Pete Townshend and 2 guys

Jackson Free Press

February 3, 2010

The television event of the year is fast approaching: Super Bowl XLIV. Everyone knows that the Super Bowl is the annual perfect storm of sports, music, advertisements and pyrotechnics culminating in the highest-rated night of television of the year. Since Michael Jackson’s famous performance in Super Bowl XXVII in 1993, the NFL has tried to book a currently popular performer or a music legend. The last five years have favored the latter, and the talent assembled has been nothing short of astounding: Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Prince, Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen. Each of these acts actually made us care about halftime, usually the most boring part of the game.

This year, however, the NFL apparently has run out of superstars and has given us The Who.

There are a couple problems with The Who’s selection. First of all, and most glaringly, half the band’s original lineup is dead. They may have only been the drummer and the bassist, but they were the band’s two most talented instrumentalists. John Entwistle’s bass is the most recognizable instrument on their most popular song, “My Generation,” and drummer Keith Moon was indisputably one of the best drummers in rock history.

We still have the face (Pete Townsend) and the voice (Roger Daltry), but it’s just not the same. The NFL might as well parade out the bastardized version of The Temptations that tours casinos every few years.

The second problem is that The Who is just not on the same level as their halftime predecessors. They only have one song, “My Generation,” that anyone can legitimately claim to be recognizable from start to finish, and in recent years the band’s music has become more prominent on television commercials than on classic-rock radio. Just off the top of my head, “Baba O’Riley,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Happy Jack,” “Who Are You,” have all been used in this capacity. However, these are inevitably 30-second clips—essentially iTunes samples. Will this lead to them considerably abridging their songs? Will the prolonged synth pulsation in “Won’t Get Fooled Again” be trimmed or done away with entirely in order to get to the iconic ending?

The NFL has missed an opportunity to give us the greatest halftime show ever. In honor of Michael Jackson’s death, they could have put together a tribute for him with popular artists from today and from the past. What artist is going to turn down an opportunity to commemorate Michael Jackson on the biggest stage possible? Imagine the lineup that could have been: Stevie Wonder singing “I’ll Be There”; Justin Timberlake singing “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” (provided he’s allowed near halftime shows again post-Nipplegate); and, most tantalizingly, the talent organizers could have arranged for an updated version of “We Are the World.”

Instead, we’ll watch Pete Townsend, Roger Daltry and two strangers slog through songs that half the audience will know only as commercial jingles.

Original Article

Evaluating a Five-Star Album

U2's No Line on the Horizon: Not a 5-star album

Jackson Free Press

April 8, 2009

My family subscribed to Rolling Stone magazine through my grade school years. Though the stories often went over my head, I was always avidly interested in the album reviews—especially the star rating. I committed their key to memory at an early age: Three stars is “Good,” four stars is “Excellent,” five stars is “Classic.” For the first six years or so that we got the magazine, I can’t recall a single non-compilation release earning the coveted five-star rating.

It wasn’t until 2001 that Bob Dylan’s “Love and Theft” made personal history for me. I remember boggling at the five-star rating, gasping audibly and counting the stars with my finger the way a first-grader might count stickers on his conduct chart. The next chance I got, I went to the store to buy the record.

A few short months after “Love and Theft,” the bastardization of Rolling Stone’s five-star rating began. Mick Jagger’s tepid “Goddess in the Doorway” earned a five-star rating when it was universally thought to deserve about half of that. Since then, the five-star rating has appeared much more frequently. The magazine’s recent adornment of the “Classic” label upon two pedestrian albums—Bruce Springsteen’s “Working on a Dream” and U2’s “No Line on the Horizon”—proves that the magazine truly has lost its review compass.  This should be the criterion for a five-star rating.

The most obvious way to identify a classic record is if the album has great songs, beginning to end. Any album that you can play and not feel concerned about your stereo remote being out of batteries is a classic. This is a difficult feat, but there are ways an album can earn a classic rating even if a less-than-great song or two make the final album cut.

If the album has a truly genre-changing feel, it can be regarded as classic. Every song on Nirvana’s “Nevermind” isn’t “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” but the album left you with the feeling that it would have an immediate tangible effect on pop music’s sound and theme. It wasn’t until “Sgt. Pepper’s” that the Beatles started flirting with album perfection, but their early records are still classics because of their impact on their peers.

If an artist makes a record for reasons greater than simple consumption, I congratulate the musician, especially in this anti-intellectual pop-music age. We recognize that Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life” is imperfect, but still consider it a five-star record because of this reason.

We should reward a band willing to alienate their fans with a new sound or message. This includes Green Day’s denouncement of the apathy and suburban lifestyle enjoyed by so much of their base on “American Idiot” and The Clash’s willingness to upset their fans by expanding beyond punk’s limited sonic confines with “London Calling.”

Critics should consider artistic audaciousness. “London Calling” again comes into play here as do Outkast’s albums, which have never received a five-star rating. Any casual Outkast listener is able to listen to one of their songs and accurately classify the song into a writing period based on the sound, just the way a Beatles listener is able to differentiate their early songs from their latter-era material.

An album composed of mostly great songs filling any one of these criteria is exceedingly rare. When they do come along, we should reward them with an honest “Classic” rating, not group them in with “Goddess in the Doorway.”

Original Article

Heaven Help Us All

1972

Jackson Free Press

September 24, 2008

In post-World War II American history, 1968 was a seminal year. It began with a brutal awakening with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam and culminated in the election of President Richard Nixon. Between these benchmarks were the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, a riotous Democratic convention in Chicago and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Czechoslovakia to put down a growing political liberation.

It was a momentous year in history, and the artists of the day delivered a comparable musical soundtrack. There were songs reflecting the fatigue overtaking the country providing the strength to endure (“Mrs. Robinson,” “Dock of the Bay”), and there were songs calling for unity (“People Got to Be Free,” “Everyday People”). Then there were songs that combined the mood and the message. The Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” is the best example. It pulls off both without resorting to heavy-handedness, a trait that enables it to live on through strife and prosperity.

In ’69 and ’70, conditions did not markedly improve abroad or on the homefront, and the music of the time reflected this impasse. “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival and “Heaven Help Us All” by Stevie Wonder were two indispensable social-awareness songs released in those years. Both reached Top 10 status on the Billboard charts.

Marvin Gaye released his classic “What’s Going On” in 1973, and Stevie Wonder released a series of albums with recurring global- and domestic-conscious themes through the ’90s.

Yet singles and albums of this sort have all but disappeared. Why?

Say what you want about radio, but one thing has never changed: Top 40 stations have always tripped over their heels to play the newest single by the biggest artists. If you present the new Miley Cyrus song, it gets four plays an hour on the local station in 2008, just as the newest CCR song did in 1970.

But credit goes to record labels and artists who refused to let the non-threatening, asinine singles topping the charts intimidate them. (“Happy Together” and “I’m a Believer” were both Top 5 songs of 1967.) The increase in social awareness of the late ’60s was a result of their refusal. Labels and artists today have yet to take this step.

The vast majority of Americans agree that we’re headed in the wrong direction, and the country has never felt so divided. One feels a growing market for a song attempting to reduce this simmering acrimony. Where are the songs reminding us that a Republican family going through foreclosure in rural Texas is just as tragic as a Democratic father losing his job in urban Boston? A straightforward song reminding us of this could prove very profitable, and at the very least would be therapeutic for the nation’s battle-weary soul.

Instead, though, the music industry has ignored America’s growing quandary. We now find ourselves in the deepest depths of a post-Sept. 11 world, and the No. 1 song is about a girl enjoying kissing another girl. Even Kanye West, once so incensed about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, seems to have lost the fortitude to apply a catchy hook to a socially meaningful song.

The parallels between 1968 and 2008 continue to grow. However, artists’ gustiness of those days has been replaced by an apparent redoubled effort to keep the people apathetic.

Something needs to change.

It would be a shame if when history is written on this era, we were embarrassed by the soundtrack.

Original Article

Jazzy and Be-Boppin: Jazzfest 2008 Preview

Bettye Lavette

Jackson Free Press

March 26, 2008

With Jazzfest less than a month away, it is time to clear your schedule and figure out which days to attend. Each day has some high points and some equally expendable ones. Here is your guide:

Friday, April 25: I don’t readily admit it, but I have always been a closet fan of Sheryl Crow. I am the guy over age 11 who continues to happily allow “Soak up the Sun” to infect my being. Her and the tag team Alison Krauss and Robert Plant promise to be two highlights of the first day.

Saturday, April 26: This is the best day to skip. The lineup is mediocre, and the audience will be no doubt be one of the most crowded because of Billy Joel’s presence. One of the only reasons I can think of to succumb to such a large crowd is, ironically, to get away from seeing Billy Joel.

Sunday, April 27: This day more than makes up for Saturday. Irma Thomas is a knock-out headliner and will share the day with Al Green, and Elvis Costello with Allen Toussaint. There’s going to be a “Sophie’s Choice” dilemma here, as at least two of these artists will be performing at the same time on different stages. It makes you wish they had thrown at least one of these acts up on a stage against Billy Joel.

Ponderosa Stomp Festival: This annual festival is held April 29 and 30 and features a more interesting lineup than any of the individual Jazzfest days. Slated to perform are Ronnie Spector, Roky Erickson (from the forgotten acid-rock band The 13th Floor Elevators), ? and The Mysterians, Dr. John and a host of other forgotten though equally influential names.

Thursday, May 1: The other relatively weak lineup, this day at least features one of the most overlooked soul singers from Muscle Shoals in Bettye LaVette. Her story deserves an article unto itself, but she released one of 2007’s best albums in “Scene of the Crime.” She promises to be a great show and worth the price of admission herself.

Friday, May 2: The other reason I would stand in a crowd the size of Billy Joel’s is to see Stevie Wonder who, coincidentally, is playing today. This is the one day not to miss (and worth taking a vacation day for) solely because of Stevie. His tours are more expensive than they are rare.

Saturday, May 3: For anyone who has never seen The Roots in concert, this day is worth checking out. They are a band of trained and talented musicians (not just stiffs who picked up guitars and wandered into the studio because they wanted to do something against the mainstream, a la Lauryn Hill). Furthermore, they keep the good-time party aesthetic of old-school hip-hop alive, worrying less about proving their realness than having a good time and projecting that onto the crowd.

Sunday, May 4: Early in the day, a tribute to gospel great Mahalia Jackson featuring Irma Thomas, Marva Wright and Raychell Richard promises to be strong. The festival closes with another loaded lineup, with The Neville Brothers headlining with The Raconteurs and one of New Orleans’ premier brass bands, Rebirth Brass Band.

Every year Jazzfest does a great job at drawing acts from the ’60s through the present along with at least one icon that has stayed relevant throughout that entire span. The festival succeeds once again this year with interesting, supporting and headlining artists along with one of the most iconic in American music in Stevie Wonder.

Original Article

Constructing the Authentic Love Song

Van Morrison- composer of "Sweet Thing"

Jackson Free Press

February 13, 2008

The music industry produces two types of love songs. The first are songs about the ecstasy that comes with having a significant other, the types of songs played in movies, either over the montages of couples hanging out with each other, laughing and sharing milkshakes, or in those scenes where the girl rolls around on her bed clutching the picture of her new boyfriend to her chest like a teddy bear.

The second type is the true-to-life love song. They are the songs that deal with the realities of being in a relationship and the stresses and sacrifices that come along with the happiness.

There is nothing wrong with the first type of song. Many of the greatest love songs ever written fall into that category: “Then He Kissed Me” by The Crystals, or “All My Loving” by The Beatles or the epitome of the carefree love song, “I’m Into Something Good” by Herman’s Hermits.

Still, there is something to be said for the songs that understand the incredible amount of yourself you invest in another person and the choices and sacrifices you must make to keep the relationship strong. They are the songs that understand these sacrifices that capture the true happiness that comes from being in love.

The first thing that any authentic love song must convey is surrendering to a partner. You are no longer going through life looking out only for number one. You have a co-pilot and someone who must be taken into account when you make decisions. Often, though, it feels as if you give control of your life to your partner. Songs that deal with putting control in your partner’s hands, voluntarily or involuntarily, are a dime a dozen. It was a staple of early Motown, especially among the male artists (“You Really Got a Hold on Me,” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”). It continues today, though it is not as prevalent as it once was.

Other aspects of an authentic love song that are not captured by the carefree-type love songs are the unmatched level of vulnerability and the self-awareness that comes with love. You open yourself up to a person more than anyone, and with this disclosure comes a new level of meekness.

You know that scene in every Hollywood romance ever made when the guy looks sheepishly at his feet and says something like, “I’ve never been in love before,” or “I’ve never felt this way about someone”? There is actually a lot of truth in that scene. Stevie Wonder sings a line in “Knocks Me Off My Feet” saying, “I don’t want to bore you with my troubles, but there’s something about your love that makes me weak and knocks me off my feet.” There is no better line in music to capture the nervousness of first telling someone you are in love with them.

A final element of the authentic love song is the happiness and comfort that comes with being in love, the ability to, as Van Morrison sings in “Sweet Thing,” “be satisfied not to read in between the lines.” Thousands of lines capture this happiness; I’m sure everyone has a favorite.

Writing an authentic love song is difficult and is one of those things that can make you look incredibly stupid if you try and fail. But to pull it off and capture the warts along with the joy is something that lives forever.

But who wants to talk real love? It’s Valentine’s Day.

Original Article