Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
TV on the Radio
Touch & Go
(out of 5)
They Were Wrong So We Drowned
Liars
Mute
(out of 5)
OK, important lesson for indie bands everywhere:
You are in an indie band. You are not going to make
much money at that. If by some chance you happen
to come up with something truly amazing, something
that unites the indie community in proclaiming your
band the next big thing, that is probably your only
shot. That is, your next album had better live up
to expectations. If it does, you may have a shot
at the big time. If not, people will find someone
else who will.
Case Study No. 1: Liars. They Threw Us All in a Trench
and Stuck a Monument on Top. From the first time
I saw the Liars open for Phil Elvrum in the fall
of 2001, that album quickly attached itself to the
upper end of my year-end list. In the year that followed,
the album was more widely distributed as the band
toured in support of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
People liked what they heard—a lot. And how
could they not? They Threw Us All in a Trench was
instantly danceable, but revealed even further pleasures
upon subsequent listenings. Needless to say, expectations
were high for the followup.
But no one in the band cared. Instead, on They Were
Wrong So We Drowned, we get maybe one or two songs
that remind us of Point A, and the entire rest of
the album heads toward somewhere else, somewhere
often meandering and pointless, hiding under the
guise of “themed” or “art” music.
To an extent it works, and some more tolerant fans
may find something worthwhile here, but for the most
part, all I can hear are hundreds and hundreds of
people jumping off the bandwagon.
The members of TV on
the Radio fare somewhat better on their first full-length
album, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes. While
still somewhat of a disappointment after last year’s
sonically gooey (that’s
a good thing) Young Liars EP, the new album has some
noteworthy songs— and Tunde Adebimpe’s
voice is still a show-stopper (which is allegedly
what the band was focusing on this time around)— but
compared to Young Liars, the end mix just feels sloppy
at times. Not that that’s a bad thing. (I’ll
be the last to condemn lo-fi.) It’s just certainly
not what I’d expected or hoped for, especially
when a formula that worked so well was only milked
for, like, four songs.
I’m all for a band evolving its sound. But
after The Bends, Radiohead didn't just jump right
into Kid A. They recorded OK Computer. They won a
Grammy. They took over the world. Then they started
experimenting. Oh, indie bands! Be ye therefore even
as Radiohead! Go forth and conquer!
Schizophrenic
JC Chasez
Jive
(out of 5)
Yeah, that’s right. I’m reviewing JC
Chasez. Me. Brent Sallay (rhymes with Chasez). Have
I ever listened to *NSYNC? No. What are you going
to do about it? Stop reading? (Please don’t
stop—your dreams keep us alive.) Let’s
just accept the fact that I’m reviewing JC
Chasez’s solo album and get on with the review.
First off, as JT (Justin Timberlake, not to be confused
with JC) has already amply proven, *NSYNC solo projects
need not have any of that crappy boy-band stigma
attached. And while JC (not to be confused with “Home
Improvement’s” JTT) continues in that
vein, it’s also pretty much impossible to review
his album without referring more than a few times
to his fellow Mousketeer/friend-for-life.
For example, JC is to KJQ as JT is to KZHT. Whereas
JT’s production from the Neptunes and Timbaland
felt more hip-hop, JC’s reliance on eccentric
dance purveyors Basement Jaxx, Rockwilder and several
unknowns yields a decidedly more new-wave feel on
several tracks. I’m copying this from Entertainment
Weekly, but JC is to Prince as JT is to Michael Jackson.
Granted, several of
the tracks on this very long album (come on, people,
just because a CD fits 80 minutes on it doesn’t
mean you have to use all of them) probably regress
into *NSYNC style schmaltziness. (I wouldn’t
know, remember?) And for an album so sexually charged,
JC’s lyrics are uniformly
PG-13— not “Whale Rider” or “The
School of Rock” PG-13, but the kind of PG-13
that desperately wishes it had the balls to be R,
the kind that is sure to please your mom, but not
so much your girl.
Still, as the album's title suggests, Schizophrenic
is much more varied than JT could ever hope to be,
and more importantly, it’s extremely catchy
and listenable, only stooping to cringeworthy high
school-level libido pining on a rare few occasions.
In conclusion, maybe JC isn’t as good as JT,
but at least he’s better than *NSYNC. At least
I’m assuming. I don’t listen to that
crap.
brent@red-mag.com
