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version seven. http://demongin.org |
5-1
The top half of my annual top 10 albums.
Wednesday, 2006-01-18 | Classic Gin, Music
V. R. KELLY - TP3 RELOADED.
Composition: 
Production:
Whatever you think about R Kelly, his charisma is undeniable. There are a number of artists working in popular music today who are as ubiquitous and successful but very few who consistently do what Kell does with nearly every track he releases. TP3 Reloaded is at least as weirdly ecclectic and scarily catchy as his previous offerings but, unlike 2002's The Chocolate Factory or his other hugely successful albums, TP3 is the work of a man who, despite his apparent disinterest in breaking any rules of composition, answers to no one but the genius who clearly possesses him. It's tempting to say that TP3's charm is solely a matter of the bizarre lyrical bon mot that R smoothly vocalizes in nearly every song (cf. "In the Kitchen" especially), but such criticisms are mostly superficial attempts to deny the most salient fact about R Kelly: somewhere between his penchant for the absurd, his supernatural (some would say "unnatural") libido and the fact that he, as an artist (i.e. a lyricist and a producer), is utterly bereft of even the vaguest notion of subtlety or nuance is a musical dynamo whose musical legacy casts a long, dark shadow from which contemporary and subsequent artists in the R&B; game will have a hell of a time escaping. Even the most inveterate and unrepentant hater will have to assent that, nearly 15 years since his arrival on the popular scene, his work remains compelling and unavoidable when reminded of the "Trapped In The Closet" phenomenon that began with TP3.
IV. THE MARS VOLTA - FRANCES THE MUTE.
Composition:
Production:
As a long-time, avid follower of the career of Cedric Bixler (vocals) and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (guitar), my first instinct when commenting upon their latest, self-produced record is to heap scorn on the critics who, mostly unequipped to say anything constructive or illuminating, tend to react to The Mars Volta with vapid, complacent and ultimately totally inconsequential one-liners about "Geddy Lee being flayed with a steak knife" (Maxim) or "concussive, nonlinear rhythms; mad-dog guitar algebra; bloody-nightmare suites sung in bilingual free verse" (Rolling Stone). Much more constructive and illuminating are the extraordinary circumstances which surround this extraordinary album. Legend holds that long-time friend of and engineer for Bixler and Rodriguez-Lopez, Jeremy Ward (who died while the album was in its earliest stages) discovered a mysterious journal/diary in the back of car he once repossessed in his previous career as a repo man and that Frances The Mute is attempt to translate that remarkably odd found document and its tale of a man's search for his family into a rock record. Bixler and Rodriguez, in a number of interviews, also say that they gave up smoking crack before they began to work on Frances. Also hugely influential on this record is the fact that, unlike the band's previous offering, 2003's Deloused In The Comatorium (produced by the implacable and venerable Rick Rubin), Frances The Mute is reported to have been recorded on something of a closed set: until the album was leaked to the internet shortly before its March release, legend holds that the band was unusually secretive about its progress. Considering that this constellation of unusual events surrounds an album with song titles in Vergil's Latin (Facilis Descenus Averni) as well as Medieval Latin (Vade Mecum) that vacillates between wandering, heavily electronic atmospherics and totally unapologetic cock-rock guitar solos, it's extremely difficult to accept the cloying reviews of most critics who, in their desire to appear objective and basically disinterested in music as a lense through which to consider the world, rattle off clever one-line reductions of Bixler and Rodriguez-Lopez's nuanced and groundbreaking work.
III. SLIPKNOT _ VOL 3. THE SUBLIMINAL VERSES (2004).
Composition:
Production:
Rick Rubin who, in his old age, seems to have dedicated his talents to righting the errant ships of popular artists whose tendency towards the obscure could very well be their ruin without him, does some of his best work with Iowa's most famous export, the nine-piece thrash band, Slipknot. As 2005's Frances The Mute demonstrates, The Mars Volta, when left to their own devices, will tend to indulge their hopelessly boring whims and artistic sensibilities in the form of long, atonal and arhythmic interludes that should never have been recorded. Rubin's most important work on TMV's 2003's Deloused... was, more than anything else, to prevent Bixler and Rodriguez-Lopez from drifting into the unmarketably obscure. Not even a year later, he was playing hegemon for Slipknot in almost precisely the same manner. Mustering his undeniable acumen as a technician (cf. the daring compression of #1 Joey Jordison's drums on "Duality") as well as his formidable force of personality, Rubin managed to represent Slipknot not as the undiscplined and pitiably under-produced (cf. 2001's Iowa) gang of misanthropes that previos producer Ross Robinson did but as a band that was as smart as it was furious. In defense of Robinson and his work on Slipknot's two previous albums, it certainly can't be easy to work in the midst of nine stubborn metal heads (one of whom is a DJ--producers and DJ's are, in my experience, like fire and water in a creative environment) and lead them to a final product that represents the whirling maelstrom that Slipknot must come across as in live performance. But where Robinson failed twice, Rubin succeeded on his first try: Vol. 3 The Subliminal Verses is just as malicious, spiteful, rude and abusive as it is articulate and incisive. Rubin's work on this album was certainly no mean feat.
II. TEAM SLEEP - TEAM SLEEP.
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Production:
More than anything else, the release and success of this album officially marks the apotheosis of the bedroom four-tracker. Say what you like about mash-ups, Danger Doom or whoever else, but the fact that Team Sleep exists and that a band was assembled to tour behind it is indicative of an increasingly widespread preference for independently produced and recorded, low-budget music. The album, which is an anthology of records from a loosely-connected group of musicians including Deftones front-man Chino Moreno, is about as coherent as a Kenneth Anger film but remains compelling and memorable inspite of its remarkable lack of focus and continuity. Given my tastes and preferences, it seems unlikely that I should nomniate such a work as one of the best of the year, but there's something great and praiseworthy about Team Sleep that can't be repeated often enough. I once heard it suggested that a truly great album (in the historical sense, i.e. in the sense of a classic or genre-defining album) is one that becomes inextricably linked with a period or a group or a subculture. While I don't agree entirely with this definition of a great album, there is something to it. Team Sleep is, first, foremost and throughout, a collection of songs that a group of guys thought were simply "cool." This record is as bereft of pretense as it is of continuity and that, to my mind, is one of the greatest things about it. As cats who came up recording their own albums in their houses on old, busted gear come to dominate popular music, albums like Team Sleep ought to become increasingly prevalent. It's good to see an honest representation of that experience; it's a bonus that such an honest representation of this lifestyle is also a joy to hear.
I. NINE INCH NAILS - WITH TEETH.
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Production:
In the course of my life, I've spilled a great deal of ink making sense of my fascination with Trent Reznor. It's often a love-hate thing between me and the Rez, but whether I'm lapsing into hyperbole in order to convey my utter astonishment at his consistent ability to reconcile meticulous, inventive production with stylish, absorbing songs or heaping scorn and abuse on Pennsylvania's most important native in an effort to prove (mostly to myself and mostly unsuccessfully) that he's not all that, the fact remains that the majority of my adolescent, teenage and adult life has been soundtracked by the man who took Top 40 radio by storm in 1994 with his venemous insistence that he wanted to "fuck you like an animal." 2005's With Teeth is a turning point as much as it is a mile-marker for Reznor: battling to win back his trademark (i.e. the name, Nine Inch Nails), his catalogue of audio and video recordings and a heap of cash from former right-hand John Malm Jr., legend holds that With Teeth grew from a dry erase board which Reznor divided into three columns labled, "Greed," "Delusion" and "Entitlement." The "new" Reznor, the one forged in the crucible of what must have been an incredibly painful, difficult and time consuming separation, is also clean: before he started work on With Teeth the official policy became "cero drogas" for the greatest figure in electronic music, for the man who once ran with the likes of Courtney Love and Marily Manson. That Reznor continues to write the rulebook for musical production nearly 20 years into his career is, to some, but a feather in his cap considering how well his albums continue to be received by consumers of music around the globe. To me, a man who was raised in a very literal and demonstrable sense by Reznor, his acumen as a producer is what keeps his music vital. Lyrical content, impressive musculature and newfound interest in foreign policy aside, Trent Reznor is still king of the hill. And, if I know anything about the Rez, he won't give up his perch until he's good and ready.
