I have found myself in the strange position this week of defending Michael Jackson’s place in pop culture.

It’s a strange position because I honestly didn’t think it would need defending. But after Jackson’s sudden death last Thursday at age 50, I’ve fielded many questions and remarks about the strange sideshow his life had become in the past 15 years, and had to remind a surprising number of people of the 25 years or so before that, in which Michael Jackson was pop music.

It’s hard to believe the man was only 50. He started performing with his siblings in the Jackson Five in 1966, when he was just eight years old, and they signed with Motown when he was 10. He released his first solo album, Got to Be There, in 1972, when he was 13. He was only 20 when he recorded Off the Wall. If you’ve heard Off the Wall, you know how insane that is. “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” was the first Michael Jackson original on record, and damn, what an opening gambit.

Then, of course, there was Thriller. Released in 1982, produced by Quincy Jones, recorded when Jackson was only 24, Thriller is an unimpeachably great pop record. It is a dynamic update of the Motown sound, bringing genuine Detroit soul to the mechanical music of the ‘80s. Let’s just run down some of the songs on Thriller, shall we? “Billie Jean.” (We could probably stop there – if Jackson had recorded nothing else, his place in pop history would have been assured.) “Beat It.” “Wanna Be Startin’ Something.” “Thriller.” “Human Nature.” “Baby Be Mine.” “P.Y.T.” The closest this album comes to a loser is the sickly-sweet “The Girl is Mine,” but that’s an old-school Motown ballad in ‘80s clothes.

Thriller is the best-selling album of all time. If it weren’t, it would still be a great record.

And I think Bad, released in 1987, is almost as good. It takes some stylistic detours – the guitar-driven “Dirty Diana,” the goopy ballad “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” – but with Jones back in the producer’s chair, the Motown sound is given another ‘80s spin. “The Way You Make Me Feel” is an awesome little song, as is “Another Part of Me.” Call me a chump, but I love “Man in the Mirror.” And there’s no knocking “Smooth Criminal,” with its immediately memorable groove.

During these years, Jackson was inescapable. He was on MTV every 10 minutes. He did a hundred commercials. He was always in the news (for good stuff). I remember seeing Captain Eo in 3D at Disney World. Jackson was everywhere, the biggest pop star in the world. It’s difficult to remember now, but there was a time when crowds would go wild for him wherever he went. His hit streak continued with Dangerous in 1992, even though the album wasn’t as good – his biggest mistake was replacing Quincy Jones with Teddy Riley, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, creators of the “new jack swing” sound. He left Motown behind on this record, and it suffered for it.

But you know, I still quite like a lot of the insular, paranoid, fascinating HIStory, released in 1995. It’s a crazy, schizophrenic record, Jackson spending half of it lashing out at his detractors, the other half trying to find his joy. The music is mostly minimal and danceable, but the attraction here is Jackson unleashed, striking out against his Disney-fied image. Alas, his final record, 2000’s Invincible, was a disaster, a confused and overstuffed attempt at a commercial comeback.

By that time, Jackson’s reputation was in tatters, his face on tabloids and his name in headlines for increasingly uncomfortable reasons. It’s important to remember he was never charged with a crime. Regardless, many in the court of public opinion convicted Jackson as a child molester, and he did very little to resuscitate his image. His sudden death was the sad last stop in a personal decline that, like the rest of his life, played out in public.

But none of that – none of it – can detract from the musical legacy he left. In particular, Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad are extraordinary pop albums, proof that when he was at the top of his game, Michael Jackson was ridiculously talented. His death still strikes me as surreal – I grew up listening to his stuff, and he’s been a part of the pop cultural landscape for my entire life. I honestly haven’t thought about Michael Jackson the musician for more than a decade, but like many over the past few days, I’ve pulled out my old copies and listened again. They more than deserve the praise I’ve heaped on them.

Rest in peace, Michael. And thanks.

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As many of you no doubt know, I’m a fan of Derek Wright’s Liner Notes Magazine.

Specifically, his bi-weekly podcasts, in which he dissects six new albums each time out. Full disclosure – I’ve contributed to those podcasts, on the occasions Derek is nice enough to invite me. But I’d be listening anyway, even if I didn’t know him personally.

In his last missive, Derek gave high marks to the two albums on my docket this week, saying they’ve been all but anointed the best records of 2009 so far by the indie-minded press. And he’s right – it’s a strange quirk of the now-now-NOW music press that they feel they must be the first to proclaim the best stuff of the year. Even if they have to do it the year before – I started hearing best-of-2009 buzz on one of these records, Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest, last November.

The other one, the Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca, seemingly came out of nowhere. But the acclaim it’s gathering has been deafening, at least when it comes to the critics. I am sure, if you walk down any street in America and grab 10 random people, you’ll find just about none of them has even heard of Grizzly Bear or the Dirty Projectors. Such is indie hype – it happens in this little bubble, and only the people inside the bubble truly care.

I do often feel like my invitation to the bubble got lost in the mail. I will admit it, though: I feel guilty if I don’t at least hear hyped-up records like these. Like I’m not doing my job. Veckatimest has been on my list for some time, since I bought and (reservedly) enjoyed Grizzly Bear’s last album, Yellow House. But I picked up Bitte Orca strictly on the strength of the reviews. And perhaps it’s a reaction to the hype, but I haven’t fallen in love with either album so far.

Let’s take Dirty Projectors first. I’m a newbie, so I won’t be able to compare this to their last album. Although as I understand it, that last album (Rise Above) was an attempt to cover Black Flag’s Damaged from memory, so perhaps the comparison wouldn’t be very strong anyway. The Projectors have been around since 2002, a rotating cast of characters surrounding the band’s visionary, Dave Longstreth. Bitte Orca is their seventh album, and reportedly their most concise and accessible.

I can see where it would be. Longstreth’s songs are all over the place here, but you can almost hear him reining himself in. Opener “Cannibal Resource” is a weird mix of afro-pop and Led Zeppelin, with layers of extraordinary backing vocals darting in at odd times. It sounds like it would be impenetrable, but it’s actually pretty accessible stuff. Second track “Temecula Sunrise” is full-on Yes – the acoustic guitars could not be more Steve Howe. It’s here that you get your first really good listen to Longstreth’s voice, part Jeff Buckley and part Antony Hegarty. Some will love it, some will hate it. I am on the fence.

The album goes on like this, like some sort of Cuisinart version of global pop. “Stillness is the Move” is part Japanese rock, part modern soul, with lead vocals by Amber Coffman. “Two Doves” is the record’s prettiest moment, a chamber-pop excursion with a complex melody and a terrific string arrangement. It’s probably my favorite thing here, and Coffman’s supple voice works wonders with it. Longstreth doesn’t do quite as well with the Radiohead-tinged “Useful Chamber,” the album’s longest song at 6:28. I do like the guitar fills on “No Intention,” and its soaring chorus.

Still, I’m finding that Bitte Orca is keeping me at arm’s length. Part of it is that, while I find the mix of styles and sounds compelling, the songs themselves aren’t doing much for me. I’m on my fourth listen now, and some, like “Remade Horizon,” are just starting to stick – that one combines a lounge music verse with an Afro-pop chorus, complete with distorted electronic bass. But it’s repetitive, and even over four minutes, it wears thin. And some songs, like “The Bride,” have failed to register at all.

It could be that Bitte Orca is a grower that’s just taking a while, but so far, I’m responding to this the same way I respond to Fiery Furnaces albums: I’m working to parse it, instead of sitting back and enjoying it. This is by no means a bad album, but it is a difficult one, and I’m not finding the beauty in its corners that some have. And perhaps it’s because this is my first Dirty Projectors album, and I can’t marvel at how streamlined it all is in comparison. I understand this is their least difficult work, a tasty reward for those who have followed along.

I haven’t, but I will stick with Bitte Orca anyway, and hopefully come to love it. I can see how I would, eventually. As it is, I respect and appreciate it, but I’m not feeling it yet.

Grizzly Bear actually suffers from the opposite problem: rather than taking in a million influences and diving from style to style, Veckatimest stays within narrowly defined parameters for its entire running time. As a result, the album is dull and meandering on first listen, and only after a few spins does it start to take shape.

By all rights, I should love Grizzly Bear. They play a low-key form of acoustic-based mood music, rarely rocking their own boat – it’s float music with an earthy feel, if that makes sense. I usually respond well to this sort of thing, but every Grizzly Bear album has been hard work for me, and it comes down to the same problem that plagues Bitte Orca: these songs, on their own, just aren’t very compelling. The best thing on Veckatimest is single “Two Weeks,” which strides forward on a ‘60s-style piano part and vocal arrangement. But Brian Wilson would never have settled for the simple melody at the core of this song.

Once again, though, I very much admire the sound of Veckatimest. Over three albums, the Bears have grown from a bedroom project for Ed Droste to a full-blooded band, and they’ve used the studio as another instrument here, adding sonic depth without ever abandoning their lo-fi roots. “Two Weeks” is simply gorgeous, particularly the vocals, and it provides ample contrast for the relatively sedate “All I Ask,” sequenced next. They incorporate choirs and strings on this record, and yet still come away with something that sounds homespun.

I wish they’d put as much work into the songs. “All I Ask” is a good example of what’s wrong with this album – it wanders around in search of any kind of melody for more than five minutes, ending up where it started. Chords shift with no real momentum, no build to anything – the song kind of happens, then it stops happening, and the world remains unchanged. Sadly, the same thing happens six more times in a row, before “While You Wait for the Others” charges in to save the second half.

That song brings the electric guitars to the fore, and gets those Brian Wilson vocals going again, giving them their best “ooh-ooh” melody since “Two Weeks,” more than half an hour previous. The final two songs keep the forward momentum going – “I Live With You” is almost psychedelic in its ebb and flow, choirs ringing in to fill out the sound, and “Foreground” is the album’s most lovely moment, its slowly cycling piano augmented by dark strings. But it’s too late – the bulk of Veckatimest is given over to dull pieces that just kind of lie there. Even “Foreground” seems to peter out without reaching any sort of climax.

It probably just comes down to what I’m looking for, which I know is different from what a lot of critics want in their music. Both Bitte Orca and Veckatimest are sonically stunning albums, but they don’t contain any songs I’ll be singing by year’s end, and I expect by next month, I won’t even feel compelled to keep working at them. From a certain standpoint – sonic exploration, sounds that Move Music Forward – I can see how these records would be competing for best of 2009. As it stands right now, I don’t think they’ll even be fighting for an honorable mention on my list.

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Speaking of my list, it’s time for the Second Quarter Report.

For newbies: every year I have a running top 10 list, which I add to and subtract from as new music comes out. For a few years now, I’ve been posting that list-in-progress at the end of each quarter, so readers can see where I’m headed before the big reveal in December. Halfway through 2009, the top five on my list is pretty amazing – I’d be okay if nothing changed there before the end of the year, but I’m still hoping something else (Armistice? Please?) comes along to shake things up.

Still, I’m pretty happy as it stands. I do have a tie for the #10 spot, and if this were the final list, I would choose one to receive an honorable mention. But it’s not, so I won’t. That aside, here’s what my top 10 list would look like if today were December 31:

#10. The Bird and the Bee, Ray Guns are Not Just the Future; Richard Swift, The Atlantic Ocean. (tie)
#9. British Sea Power, Man of Aran.
#8. Loney, Dear, Dear John.
#7. Tinted Windows.
#6. Duncan Sheik, Whisper House.
#5. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion.
#4. Bat for Lashes, Two Suns.
#3. Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown.
#2. Quiet Company, Everyone You Love Will Be Happy Soon.
#1. The Decemberists, The Hazards of Love.

And there you have it. Comments and questions welcome at tm3am.blogspot.com. Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tm3am.

Next week, progging out with Dream Theater, the Mars Volta and Devin Townsend. After that, a little Wilco, a little Michael Roe, and a little Dead Weather.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

As a writer, I love a good gimmick.

You have no idea how much I struggle, staring at a blank page, trying desperately to find something to say about 10 or 12 good songs on a shiny plastic disc. There are only so many ways to praise your average good-to-great album, and only slightly more ways to pan your average mediocre-to-bad album. But give me an in – a good story, an interesting hook to hang a review on – and I’m a happy man. Sufjan Stevens is making an album for each of the 50 states? Fantastic. My first three paragraphs are already written.

Ah, but here’s the rub: as a music fan, I couldn’t care less about the gimmicks. All I need to be happy is that aforementioned 10 or 12 good songs on a shiny plastic disc. Your gimmick might get me to buy your record, but without musical substance, that’s all it is – an empty sales tactic. I don’t have time for those.

Ideally, I’m looking for the best of both worlds. The gimmicks I’m happiest with end up etched into the DNA of the recordings themselves. I love it when artists come up with interesting and unique ways to do something, and then turn out a record that couldn’t have come about any other way. Just last year, Tod Ashley of Firewater created one – his The Golden Hour was assembled piece by piece as Ashley made his way through the Middle East, recording local musicians one at a time. The result was stunning, a one-world statement that wouldn’t have been as potent without its gimmicky origins.

The test for me is this: in five years, will I be pulling out your novel-for-now project to listen to as music? It’s impossible to tell right away, but I have two contestants this week that I think will fit that bill, two albums that are undoubtedly gimmicky, but also superb musical endeavors, ones that could not have been created any other way.

First is Ben Folds, who is no stranger to gimmicks. This is the guy, after all, who covered “Bitches Ain’t Shit” as a piano ballad, and who made an entire album with William Shatner. If you’re familiar with Folds, you know the geeky excitement he feels over projects like these, and you can just imagine how pumped he was to put together his latest, Ben Folds Presents University A Cappella.

The concept’s in the title, but here it is anyway: rather than compile a greatest hits collection, Folds sought out college a cappella groups to perform their versions of his songs, and traveled to their schools to record them on their home turf. Right now you’re either shaking your head or you’re grinning widely, depending on whether you’ve ever sat in the audience and been dazzled by one of these a cappella collectives. I love this music – the arrangements, the performances, the inventive ways the singers come up with to emulate the original records. And it’s obvious Folds loves it too.

Better than that, though, University A Cappella gives these singers the chance to be on a Ben Folds album, and have their voices heard around the world. That’s just neat. Folds waded through dozens of audition tapes and, in the end, selected 14 college groups from across the country. He leads it off with two from his native North Carolina, but includes contributions from Ohio, Georgia, Louisiana, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Colorado and a bunch of others.

And man, these performances are wonderful. I’m biased, of course, but one of my favorites is “Magic,” by the University of Chicago’s Voices in Your Head. While I like the song well enough on The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, I think I like this version more – the bass singers approximate the tympani hits while the harmonies just soar. It’s heartrending. I’m also quite fond of the Washington University Mosaic Whispers’ take on “Still Fighting It.” Individual singers are not credited, but the lead male voice on this one is extraordinary.

Washington University (in St. Louis) also provides the closing track, performed by that school’s Amateurs. It’s an amazing version of “The Luckiest,” perhaps Folds’ prettiest song – the piano-and-strings version on Rockin’ the Suburbs sends chills anyway, but the gentle backing voices swelling and subsiding here are almost impossibly gorgeous. Of course, a cappella groups can rock, too – check out the University of Rochester Midnight Ramblers’ version of “Army,” with its full-on brass solos done entirely in voice. I’m also extremely impressed with the complex arrangement of “You Don’t Know Me,” by the University of Georgia group With Someone Else’s Money.

As much as I love this stuff, you can imagine just how many shades of pale white the executives at Epic Records must have turned when Folds pitched this idea. As a sales booster, the record company forced Folds to contribute two tracks himself, and as much as he says he didn’t want to outshine the college groups, his tunes are highlights. He reinvents “Boxing,” the pretty closing track from the first Ben Folds Five album, giving it a cheesy/brilliant middle section, and his take on “Effington” absolutely slams. I prefer this version by far to the one on Way to Normal – there’s something every few seconds that cracks me up. (And the opening and closing vocals by his kids, Gracie and Louis, are adorable.) It’s the best thing here by a country mile.

But Ben’s brilliance shouldn’t detract from the sterling arrangements and performances elsewhere on University A Cappella. This is such a great idea, and the groups highlighted here have made the most of their spotlight moments. (One more highlight? The smooth-jazz overtones of “Selfless, Cold and Composed” are beautifully accented by the Sacramento State Jazz Singers.) Yeah, it’s gimmicky, but it’s also wonderful, something I’ll be listening to for years to come.

As novel as Folds’ project is, British Sea Power have outdone it. It’s strange for me to type that sentence, because they’re not one of my favorite bands – their three albums have steadily improved on one another, but they’re still an unimaginative three-chord drama-rock band, one you can imagine forming over a shared love of U2 while in the pub one day. Their sound has grown bigger with each record, although their songwriting has struggled to keep pace. They unironically titled their third album Do You Like Rock Music?, so you kind of know what you’re getting.

But their new venture, Man of Aran, simply blew me away, and I’m stunned that such a project has sprung from this band. Here’s the high concept: Man of Aran is a 1934 silent film by Robert Flaherty, the man who made Nanook of the North. It depicts 19th-century life on a craggy Irish island, and the daily trials of a family making their home there. The members of British Sea Power stumbled on a copy of this film, and they’ve written an entirely new score for it. The Man of Aran package includes the score on CD, and a DVD with the film and new score matched up.

Let’s start with the movie – it’s awesome. It’s not a documentary, but it looks like one, and the shoot was obviously quite dangerous, with actors climbing up rocky surfaces and braving raging waves and really battling giant fish. The images captured here are amazing, and Flaherty drives home the emotional bonds between the three characters as well – there’s an extended sequence near the end in which the father rows his tiny boat through choppy seas, trying to get home, while the mother and son run along the coastline, concerned for his safety. The final scenes of all three walking back towards home are lovely.

As good as the film is, it’s improved immeasurably by British Sea Power’s new score. In truth, it’s not a million miles away from the music they’ve always made – it’s repetitive, deriving its impact from dramatic crescendos and breakdowns – but the band has never wielded this kind of force before. On its own, the score is by turns the prettiest and most powerful music the band has ever made, but paired with the movie, the effect is extraordinary.

The early shots of the family getting ready for its day, and of the mother gathering seaweed for her garden (since there is no soil on Aran), are paired with lovely piano-and-texture pieces that remind me of Sigur Ros, and a heartrending cover of old folk tune “Come Wander With Me.” “Boy Vertiginous” accompanies shots of the young son climbing the rocks to fish, and is merely a prelude to the most impressive section of both movie and score, the nearly 12-minute “Spearing the Sunfish.” While the father and his fellow villagers wrestle with a massive fish, hoping to kill it for food and oil, the band erupts, firing bursts of electric guitar noise over a thumping percussion backdrop. It builds and builds to almost unbearable levels, and finally collapses in a heap.

The final third of the film is more sedate, and the music matches it. The father’s treacherous trek home is accompanied by the 11-minute “It Comes Back Again,” and the music is reassuring and hopeful, a nice counterpoint to the nervous energy of the footage. The film-ending reunion is scored with closing track “No Man is an Archipelago,” a reworking of Rock Music track “The Great Skua.” (Two other old BSP songs have been repurposed here as well.) It’s the perfect closer, triumphant and nostalgic at once – you feel the relief and joy as the father comes ashore, and as the three of them make their way towards the horizon. The final choral swells are just gorgeous, as all is right in this battered, difficult world.

If you’d told me last year that one of my favorite projects of 2009 would come from British Sea Power, I might have choked on my own laughter. But here it is – Man of Aran is an unqualified success, a fantastic idea executed brilliantly. Is it a gimmick? Sure, but it’s also a work of art, a cross-generational collaboration that yields astounding results. It’s also the sound of a band discovering its own power, and finding unexpected inspiration in something more than seven decades old. That’s kind of beautiful, if you think about it. Whatever you call it, Man of Aran is one of 2009’s best things, and for me will likely be as timeless as the rocks of Aran itself.

Next week, examining critical acclaim with Grizzly Bear and the Dirty Projectors.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Ever-Expanding Empire

As promised, this week’s column is brought to you by the letter E. I have probably taken the concept too far, but I’ll let you be the judge.

So I’ve been keeping this under wraps for a bit while I get my footing, but I’ve taken a few steps towards tm3am’s inevitable world domination. The biggest deal is tm3am.blogspot.com, a regularly-updated blog that I hope will serve as a supplement and a companion to this column.

I have so much music coming at me on a regular basis that it’s almost impossible to keep up. That’s where the blog will come in – I plan to post first-listen reactions to new albums, music news I find interesting, and an occasional look at the albums that shaped me. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean the end of the column – rather, I hope the two outlets will intertwine nicely, with the quick-hit stuff on the blog and the more considered reviews here.

Also, I’ve decided to accept comments on the blog, something I’ve resisted when it comes to the column. I want tm3am to be just my voice, but on the blog, I’m hoping to spark some interesting conversations. I’ve met some smart, opinionated people during my nearly nine years working on this column, and I hope to hear from you. There will be a post on the blog each time a column is uploaded in this space, so feel free to comment over there on what you read here.

The other step I’ve taken is to join Twitter. I haven’t used it much yet, because I haven’t quite figured out how to differentiate my Twitter presence from my Facebook and blog entities, but feel free to follow me anyway, if you like. I’m at www.twitter.com/tm3am. Today, social media, tomorrow the world!

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Expecting Excellence

If there’s one album this summer I’m breathlessly awaiting, it’s Armistice, the sophomore effort from New Orleans quartet Mute Math. Their 2006 debut was pretty much perfect, a mix of Radiohead and the Police (among other things), and was packed full of terrific songs. I still can’t get enough of it, particularly “Chaos,” “Noticed” and the sublime “You Are Mine.”

The band has taken its sweet time on the follow-up, and apparently they trashed everything and started over at least once. But now it’s done, and it’s out on August 18. If you go here, you can hear the first track on the record, “The Nerve.” It’s a blazingly fast drum-and-bass assault with an explosive one-note chorus that slams through everything it has in less than three minutes. It sounds absolutely nothing like Mute Math.

I’ve been trying to like this for days now. I have grown to appreciate what’s there – the production is amazing, the energy is palpable, the drums (the drums!) are fantastic. This will probably kill live. But as the first taste of an album one of my favorite new bands has been toiling over for years, I have to say, it’s not much of a song. Hopefully this is just an opening salvo, and the memorable pop songs kick in later. But nestled at track four on Armistice is the band’s contribution to the Twilight soundtrack, “Spotlight,” which is in much the same vein – fast, loud, melody-deficient. So we’ll see if this is just the new Mute Math sound.

I’m still excited about this album, but now I think I’m expecting something completely different from what I thought I’d be getting. August 18 cannot come quickly enough – I can’t wait to see how “The Nerve” fits in with whatever else they’ve come up with.

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Enjoying Eels Effortlessly

I cannot explain just why I like the Eels.

I’ve never been able to. I remember buying their second album (and first out-and-out masterpiece), Electro-Shock Blues, and being so conflicted over it that I played it for my friend Chris. He liked it, and didn’t understand why I was struggling, but the answer is simple: while the band is more than the sum of its parts, none of its parts thrill me in the slightest. So I can’t figure out just why I like the result so much.

Eels leader Mark Oliver Everett, known simply as E, writes very simple little songs. His melodies are basic, although he stumbles over a good hook now and then. His lyrics are at best trite and at worst atrocious. His voice is limited and ragged, his playing is rudimentary, and his albums are (mostly) short and slight. If it sounds like I’m being mean here, remember that I really like this band, and E in particular. I know all these drawbacks are true, and yet I keep listening, and I keep enjoying.

It’s been four years since E delivered his second out-and-out masterpiece, the two-CD Blinking Lights and Other Revelations. Everett’s music is always better when he digs deep, and talks about his childhood and family struggles. Blinking Lights was all about this, in some cases directly addressing his brilliant yet emotionally cold father, and over 93 minutes worked through pain to come out on the other side, full of hope. That album joined Electro-Shock to form the twin pillars of E’s catalog – the rest of his work is enjoyable and random, but sits a few levels down.

That’s where his new one, Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire, fits in. On this record, Everett is back to writing fun pop-rock and sweet ballads in equal measure, and expressing his joy and heartbreak in simple terms. E promises a lot with his long, shaggy beard – that and the record’s title make you think he’s going to some Howlin’ Wolf places, and a couple of the songs are louder and bluesier than the Eels have been before. “Tremendous Dynamite” and “Fresh Blood,” in particular, are built on piercing electric guitars and levels-in-the-red distorted vocals.

But most of Hombre Lobo just sounds like the Eels. “That Look You Give That Guy” is a delightful little pop number about jealousy, “In My Dreams” is a simple, circular ballad of imaginary contentment, and “My Timing is Off” is a sad-sack Everett special, buoyed by a Byrds-style guitar strum and melody. I’m particularly fond of the ‘80s reggae feel of “Beginner’s Luck” and the naked, live vibe of closing love song “Ordinary Man.” But despite some sloppier production and a few more incendiary moments, this is just another Eels album.

And you know what? I like it just as much as I’ve ever liked Everett’s work. Granted, it all works better if you don’t read the lyric sheet. Here’s a sample of the pedestrian rhymes that pepper this record, from “The Longing”: “The longing is a pain, a heavy pressure on my chest, it rarely leaves, and my day becomes a quest, to try not to think about her, and all that she brings, forget about her magic, all the beautiful things…” Yes, that’s a real verse, not something I borrowed from a fourth-grade poetry class.

But I can’t explain it. I really like Hombre Lobo – I’ve played it probably 30 times since buying it, and while it’s unspooling, the trite elements just fade into the background. Eels music is like baking something delicious from very basic ingredients. I can’t point to one thing I like about this album in isolation, but when mixed all together, the resulting concoction is thoroughly enjoyable. If you ever liked the Eels, you’ll like this.

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Elvis’ Elegant Experiments

Here is what I don’t understand about Elvis Costello’s critics.

If you look at the last 10 Costello albums, only two of them – 2002’s When I Was Cruel and last year’s Momofuku – would qualify as rock and roll records. Open that up to his last 15 albums, and you get two more, 1994’s Brutal Youth and 1996’s All This Useless Beauty, and some argue that Beauty isn’t a rock album either. Just in the last 10 years, Costello has given us a full-length ballet, a record of orchestrated ballads, a jazz album, a country-rock weeper, and a stunning New Orleans funk collaboration with Allen Toussaint. He’s a jack of all trades, a versatile and restless performer who refuses to be pigeonholed.

So why do some critics insist on demeaning these efforts as “genre exercises?” The jazz, orchestral and soul albums aren’t detours, they’re essential parts of his artistic makeup. I understand, these critics want Costello to write My Aim is True and Armed Forces again, perhaps not realizing that his earliest works were the only ones on which he was pigeonholed. At the time, he was writing unreleased gems like the country-fied “Stranger in the House,” and angling to work with Johnny Cash. I don’t quite get why some want to shove him back into a box he worked so hard to get out of.

All of which brings us to another of these “genre exercises,” Secret, Profane and Sugarcane. Fresh off the barnburning Momofuku, Costello has teamed with T-Bone Burnett for the first time since the great King of America in 1986. The pair assembled a group of superb bluegrass players, and they’ve turned out a down-home delight. This is one of Costello’s earthiest records, and Burnett’s production is brilliant as usual – this may as well have been recorded standing in a circle around one microphone, so authentic is the mood.

But wait, it gets weirder. Some years ago, Costello wrote an opera about Hans Christian Anderson, called The Secret Songs. That beast has never seen the light of day, but Costello has arranged some of its songs for this ensemble, and while the result is jarring at first, this drumless band manages to roll with the complex pieces marvelously. The first of these, “She Handed Me a Mirror,” comes off like a particularly well-written old-time ballad, and by the end, I can barely imagine this played any other way.

Still, the best things here are the more straightforward ones. “Sulphur to Sugarcane” is just awesome, a lengthy tale of depravity and temptation that is, to borrow a Costello phrase, almost blues. “My All Time Doll” would probably work well with thumping drums and electric guitars, but its slinky groove works very well in this setting. And an unexpected highlight is “Complicated Shadows,” originally released on Beauty – this song has never sounded better, stripped of its rock production.

If Secret, Profane and Sugarcane is a genre exercise, it’s a successful one. But to me, it’s just further proof of what Costello does – he writes songs, and finds interesting groups of musicians to play them with. A lot of this record shouldn’t work, but it does, and I’m constantly amazed at how many different styles of music Costello can adapt his unmistakable, meaty voice to fit. If you’re still longing for another This Year’s Model while listening to this, you’ll probably miss its many charms. This is just another great little Elvis Costello album in a career filled with them.

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Ex-Every-man Enders Entertains, Exasperates

I am a sucker for ambition.

Give me a two-CD (or even better, a three-CD) album, and I’ll check it out without hesitation. Later this year, I’m going to pick up Oneida’s Rated O, a triple-album that serves as part two of a triptych, even though I’ve never really heard the band at all. My favorite Frank Zappa albums are the ones on which he stretches out his conceptual ideas over two or three hours. I love concept records, I love rock operas, I love lengthy experiments – there’s just something about hanging over the edge and betting on your own vision that inspires me.

So when Arthur “Ace” Enders led his post-punk band The Early November through a three-CD musical novel in 2006 with The Mother, The Mechanic and the Path, I was so there. The concept borrowed from Rashomon – the same events, viewed through three different lenses, representing three members of a dysfunctional family – and the execution was fantastic. The 22 songs that made up The Mechanic and The Mother were all well-written and engaging, and the 50-minute radio play that was The Path was one of the most original pieces of the year. It’s not bragging if you can do it, and Enders did it.

It probably should be no surprise that this monster was the final album from The Early November. After the band collapsed in a heap, it took some time for Enders to dig himself out. But now he’s back with his solo debut, When I Hit the Ground, released under the name Ace Enders and a Million Different People. And while I like this disc well enough, Enders has reined in every ounce of ambition he once had, concentrating on glossy, melodic rock tunes.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with glossy, melodic rock tunes, of course. “Reaction” is a singalong winner, “The Only Thing I Have” would make for a good single, and with “Sweeter Light,” he’s written one of my favorite Ace Enders songs. Much of this album slows things down – three of the last four tracks are varying shades of epic balladry, and they’re all good songs. Enders’ voice has improved immeasurably for this record – gone are the shakier moments that used to plague Early November albums, and he’s emerged as a fine, strong frontman.

No, there’s nothing wrong with this album, but there’s nothing that distinguishes it from a million others just like it. Though catchy, the songs are all pretty simple, and the production is big and radio-ready. This is obviously a bid for wider popularity – one song is actually called “Take the Money and Run” – and it’s no accident Enders is on tour with the All-American Rejects right now. I wish him luck, because when he’s giving himself free rein, he’s a very good songwriter, and I feel like this album just doesn’t capture all the sides of him.

But that’s fine. Enders is only 27, and hopefully has dozens more albums in him. If he wants to make an undeniably fun, hummable little disc like this one, and then bankroll some more ambitious projects later, that’s entirely up to him. And he didn’t phone it in on When I Hit the Ground – this record is enjoyable, if slight and unoriginal, and it sounds great. I miss the creativity that leaped off previous Enders discs, but this is a fine modern rock album, and hopefully will find its way onto radio playlists and into CD players across the country.

But next time, Enders, I’m expecting more. I know you have it in you.

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Exit, Everyone

Next week, a look at two of the coolest gimmicks I’ve seen in quite some time. After that, new things from Dream Theater, the Mars Volta, Moby, Wilco, and Jack White’s new band The Dead Weather. Don’t forget to drop by the tm3am blog and leave me a comment or two about this column. Thanks for reading.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Before you ask, no, 35 doesn’t feel any different than 34.

Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes. I had seven people sing to me, which is a new record. You’re all wonderful people, and I’m so blessed to have you in my life.

So it’ll be a quick one this week, with only one record to discuss. The list of upcoming awesomeness is pretty immense, though. Just in the next two months, new ones are on the way from Sonic Youth, Dredg, Devin Townsend, Street Sweeper Social Club (Tom Morello’s new project), Dream Theater, The Mars Volta, Bjork, Spinal Tap (really!), Moby, Wilco, Son Volt, Oneida, The Dead Weather (Jack White’s new thing), Fiery Furnaces, Riceboy Sleeps (Jonsi from Sigur Ros), and a two-disc rarities thing from Starflyer 59. Yeesh. So there will be no break.

This is not to mention what I have on tap for the next couple of weeks. Next week’s column will be brought to you by the letter E, and the week after that will feature two of the weirdest, most fascinating gimmick albums I’ve seen in ages. Really looking forward to writing that one.

This week, though, the most important album Dave Matthews has ever made.

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It’s not tragedy that defines you, it’s how you react to it. It’s true in life, and it’s true in music.

For instance, when John Bonham died in 1980, that was the end for Led Zeppelin. Plant, Page and Jones knew full well that the magic came from the alchemy of all four members, and without Bonham, it wouldn’t be the same. The Who trundled on for a couple more (sub-par) albums after Keith Moon died in 1978, but eventually came to the same conclusion. And when Freddie Mercury succumbed to an AIDS-related illness in 1992, Queen came to an end. (I know both the Who and Queen subsequently regrouped, but the pale imitations they’ve churned out only prove that they were right to disband in the first place.)

But for some, continuing on is the right choice. When Ian Curtis killed himself in 1980, the remaining members of Joy Division formed New Order, and went on to make some amazing music. The specter of Curtis hung over their first few efforts, but in time, they forged a worthwhile new identity. Likewise, when Bill Berry suffered a brain aneurysm in 1995 and left R.E.M. two years later, the band continued, and though it’s been a rocky road, they made their best album in more than a decade last year (Accelerate), and seem to be taking new directions.

You can’t plan for it. You can only adapt and react. And it’s always fascinating to me to see just how long-running bands adapt and react to accidents of fate. Some will collapse, but some will continue, and that next album, that next tour, will define who they are. For most bands, the post-tragedy album is the most significant moment of their careers.

Which brings us to Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King.

It’s been about a year since LeRoi Moore, saxophone master for the Dave Matthews Band, died from injuries he suffered in an ATV accident. His death was sudden and unexpected – Moore’s accident happened in June of 2008, and left him with broken ribs and a punctured lung, but he was released from the hospital after a couple of days. Complications found him back in the hospital in mid-July, and he died in August. The band kept touring while Moore was recovering, with Flecktones sax man Jeff Coffin sitting in, and actually played a show the night of Moore’s death, delivering a tribute to him from the stage.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. He was the saxophone player. It’s not like John Bonham’s death, or Freddie Mercury’s. And to that I say, you don’t know the Dave Matthews Band. It may be named after the guitarist and singer, but every single member of that band is vital to their sound. Moore wrote songs, arranged them, and added to the intangible, indefinable brew the band concocted. DMB has an unfortunate and mostly undeserved reputation as a hippy-dippy pop act, but in reality, they’re a jazz band with a pop singer. Now, imagine losing the sax player from a jazz band. That’s how big a deal this is.

The question is a valid one: we still have Dave Matthews, and he still has a band, but do we still have the Dave Matthews Band? It’s a question the remaining members have obviously struggled with. But in the end, they’ve decided to continue, at least for now. Moore had completed some sessions for the band’s seventh studio record before his accident, and Matthews and company have decided to complete the album as a tribute to him. They even named it after him – GrooGrux was Moore’s nickname amongst his bandmates.

If you’re expecting a sappy-yet-moving eulogy in musical form, you’re in for a surprise. Matthews and the band chose a different route – they paid respects to Moore by playing their asses off. In many ways (some of them disappointing), Big Whiskey is a typical latter-day Dave Matthews Band album, but it has a phenomenal energy to it, a life pulsing through its veins. It’s easily the best DMB album in more than a decade, if only because it jumps out of the speakers at you instead of lying there flat.

That’s not the only difference. The band hired Rob Cavallo, producer of Green Day’s American Idiot, to helm this one, and he in turn convinced Matthews to crank up the amps. Much of Big Whiskey is saturated big-riff electric guitar, something of a new sound for DMB, and the whole thing is glossy and shiny. This is also the first studio album with Coffin on sax, although some of the lines are obviously Moore, and the first since Before These Crowded Streets in 1998 to feature Tim Reynolds on guitar.

The result is, well, huge. DMB has always had a surprisingly dense sound, but Big Whiskey is the loudest record they’ve made, and their most confident work since Streets. It opens with the only overt tribute to Moore, a saxophone solo called “Grux,” but then slams into the horn-driven “Shake Me Like a Monkey,” and all pretense of a grief-driven album is out the window. “Monkey” is about sex leading to deeper love, and it rocks pretty convincingly. The horns are cheesy, but Matthews locks into a guitar groove, and his rhythm section responds with some of their most awesome studio work ever.

I just want to take a moment here to praise Carter Beauford, one of the best drummers in the business. It hasn’t been quite as apparent on the studio albums lately, but Beauford is heart-stoppingly good, and Big Whiskey finally gives him a chance to shine. Listen to the first single, “Funny the Way It Is” – it’s a decent song, with a nice surprise in the middle, but Beauford just owns this number. He never just drums, he composes these little percussion symphonies under the songs – mute everything else but him, and Big Whiskey would still be a satisfying experience.

The songs are the strongest in ages here, too. “Lying in the Hands of God” – one of several songs that don’t specifically mention Moore, but sound awash in his spirit – is one of the prettiest things the band has written. “Why I Am” does specifically mention Moore (“Still here dancing with the GrooGrux king”), and elevates its simple riff with some superb time changes. “Spaceman” and “Alligator Pie” make room for some nice banjo parts, and while “Time Bomb” starts off slow, with an acoustic guitar and saxophones, it positively erupts halfway through. You’ve never heard Matthews give it his all like he does here.

So what’s the problem? This is another Dave Matthews Band album that doesn’t play to the group’s big strength – its instrumental interplay. It was obviously constructed piece by labor-intensive piece in the studio, and while it’s lively in a way DMB records haven’t been in years, it still never takes flight. In fact, the thudding electric guitar on nearly every song keeps it earthbound and dirty. The last two songs are the most disappointing for me. “Baby Blue” is gorgeous, but is just Matthews on guitar, backed by a string section. It’s not really a Dave Matthews Band song at all. And “You and Me” is a fine little pop song, but the drums are programmed. That’s like using synth strings when you have Yo Yo Ma.

This is not a new problem. DMB’s first three albums were wonderful examples of capturing a band’s live sound in the studio. Before These Crowded Streets, especially, is a fantastic ride, songs extending to seven and eight minutes as the band explores their corners. Then, in 2000, the band fired producer Steve Lillywhite, scrapping months of fruitful sessions, and Matthews took the reins, making Everyday with Glen Ballard. (Yes, the Alanis guy.) It was slick, it was studio-polished, and it wasn’t the Dave Matthews Band.

Since then, every album has been varying shades of the same thing. 2005’s Stand Up was the nadir, but the band has been uninspired in the studio for this entire decade. Big Whiskey goes some distance toward correcting this – “Alligator Pie,” for instance, makes the best use of violinist Boyd Tinsley in a long, long time – but not far enough. The best DMB experience is still the live one.

But Big Whiskey is definitely the band’s finest studio album since Streets, bar none. I’m impressed each time through with the consistency of the songwriting, and with the variety of tones on display. But more than that, Matthews and the band sound reinvigorated, alive and at fighting weight. Perhaps it was the shared desire to make an album worthy of bearing Moore’s nickname on the cover. If so, the struggle was worth it, and the grief has resulted in a winner.

Matthews has said he doesn’t know exactly where the band will go next, now that Big Whiskey is done and out. Maybe they will go nowhere, and quietly disintegrate in the coming months. If so, this album would serve as a fine finale. The last song, “You and Me,” revolves around the line “We can do anything, you and me together,” and it’s a hopeful, beautiful way to go out. If this is the last DMB album, it’s a very good one, and they should be proud. If it isn’t, it points to some new directions, and revives their studio career nicely. Together, they can do anything, and for the first time in a long while, it sounds like the Dave Matthews Band believes this again. That’s all you can ask for, and I’ll bet all LeRoi Moore would have wanted.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

So lately I’ve become addicted to Breakfast at Sulimay’s.

If you haven’t seen this little Internet sensation, here’s the concept: three Philadelphia senior citizens get together at their favorite diner once a week and review new tracks by modern musical artists. Last time, they talked about metal band Mastodon and electro-poppers The Juan McLean. It’s a lot funnier and a lot less “get off my lawn” than you’re expecting – thoughtful Joe offers up some cogent musical criticism at times, while regular-guy Bill and salty Ann trade wisecracks.

My favorite bits so far have involved Ann’s love of metal – she headbangs her way through the Sepultura review, and complains that Mastodon’s “Oblivion” is just too soft. I also like watching Bill’s face whenever a rap song starts up. I know what’s coming, but it’s always hilarious. I’d never say that the Sulimay’s trio is offering insightful commentary, but they’re a lot of fun to watch.

* * * * *

About 15 years ago, I started reading a comic called Preacher. It was written by British upstart Garth Ennis and drawn by Steve Dillon, fresh off their successful run on Hellblazer. (Starring the real John Constantine. The one who lives in London and looks nothing like Keanu Reeves.) Preacher was the story of Jesse Custer, a priest on a literal search for God, and the trail of corpses he leaves in his wake.

It was, at the time, more shocking than anything I’d ever read. One of the main characters was a teenager named Arseface – he’d tried to kill himself with a shotgun, emulating Kurt Cobain, but ended up surviving, his face a twisted ruin. And Arseface was played for laughs. It also featured sadomasochistic serial killers, child rapists, an inbred descendant of Jesus, and in later issues, a guy who has sex with raw meat. It was kind of awesome, especially for a 19-year-old.

Fast forward to 2009, and Preacher seems oddly tame. Garth Ennis has gone on to write blistering runs on a few great comics, and he’s about halfway through his current opus, The Boys. But where Preacher balanced its sadism with real character moments and a sense of hope, The Boys is just pure nihilism. It’s about a team of people who kill superheroes for fun and profit, and every issue, there’s a new attempt at dropping your jaw, whether it be through sex or violence. In just about every way, The Boys ups the ante from Preacher, and yet I find myself less engaged with it. All the swearing and masochism leaves me bored, to tell you the truth.

I think that’s a sign of just how desensitized we’ve become as a culture. Preacher drew protests in its day, people complaining that the content was just too shocking. While DC Comics did drop The Boys, forcing Ennis and artist Darrick Robertson to take it to Dynamite Entertainment with issue seven, there hasn’t been a single peep about it since. (Issue 30 just came out.) In every conceivable way, The Boys is more depraved, more corrosive than Preacher, but no one seems to care. Its lurid sexuality and ultraviolence have been met with yawns across the board.

So what do you do if your entire career so far has been built on shock tactics? How to you stun an unstunnable world? That was the question facing both Eminem and Marilyn Manson as they released their comeback records, one week apart, last month. For Eminem, it’s been five long years since his last album, and even longer since his last good one. And for Manson, well, he hasn’t been culturally relevant at all this decade, and his music has certainly suffered for it – he’s hoping that welcoming bassist Twiggy Ramirez back into the fold will reinvigorate his career.

The similarities don’t end there. Both Eminem and Manson reached their high-water marks amid a firestorm of controversy. The last genuinely shocking moment in music, as far as I’m concerned, was “Stan,” the tour de force single from 2000’s The Marshall Mathers LP. Framed as a letter from an obsessed fan, “Stan” showed that Mathers has a firm grasp on his social responsibility as an artist, and it put the blood-soaked adventures of his slippery alter-ego, Slim Shady, into chilling new perspectives. For his first two albums, Eminem trafficked in complex social satire that blurred lines and pushed buttons, and “Stan” made it clear that it was all on purpose.

Manson’s most popular records form a trilogy – 1996’s Antichrist Superstar, 1998’s Mechanical Animals, and 2000’s Holy Wood. Together they tell the tale of a neglected, hated young man who grew up to become a satanic killer, and finally, to take over the world. It was Alice Cooper’s horror movie imagery mixed with David Bowie’s theatrical fantasy, and it’s little wonder the miserable misfit kids of the time identified with it. It’s been 10 years since Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot up Columbine High School, and many pointed fingers at Manson (along with other acts the pair listened to) in the aftermath of the tragedy.

That’s a horrible way to attain cultural relevance, but that’s where Manson (known without the face paint as Brian Warner) found himself. But he took on the criticisms, and used the spotlight as an opportunity to talk about the real causes of violence, for which I applaud him. But I think once Warner showed himself as the intelligent, reasonable guy he is, it became much more difficult for anyone to take his on-stage alter-ego seriously. That, coupled with a steady decline in the quality of his music, led to a decade of wilderness-wandering for Marilyn Manson.

A similar thing happened to Marshall Mathers, who, on 2002’s The Eminem Show, dropped the Slim Shady antics and bared his soul. For the first time, he rapped seriously about his place in pop culture, his relationship with his ex-wife Kim, and his genuine love for his daughter Hailie. It was as if he had stepped away from Slim Shady forever, growing up and facing the world as himself.

All of which made the juvenile, puerile, ridiculously bad Encore, released two years later, all the more unforgivable. Since then, Mathers has been invisible, dropping off the pop cultural radar for five years. Turns out, he’s struggled with drug addiction in that time – he made some music, but scrapped it all after sobering up. But now he’s back with two albums – Relapse, his fifth, is the first of a matched set, and its twin will be out later this year.

The initial similarities between Relapse and The High End of Low, Manson’s seventh, are striking. Addiction is at the center of both – Manson and Eminem both begin their albums hooked on pills and covered in blood. However, while Eminem’s “3 A.M.” is clearly meant as a return to his horror-core play-acting (“Wake up naked at McDonald’s with blood all over me, dead bodies behind the counter, shit, I guess I must have blacked out again…”), Manson’s “Devour” begs to be taken seriously, its slow crawl and oh-so-sinister tone leading to the hook line: “I can’t sleep until I devour you…”

From there, though, Mathers’ album only goes up, while Manson’s goes straight down. The High End of Low is, without a doubt, the worst record he’s ever made – turgid, slow, overlong, and borderline unlistenable in places. Manson’s greatest achievement over the past 10 years is somehow avoiding becoming a Danzig-like parody of himself, but this record comes dangerously close, and does not bode well for the future of this once-frightening songwriter.

Like Mathers, Manson has upped the shock value on his album, which for him means saying “fuck” a lot and pretending that it’s sexy to kill people. The lead single from this record is called “Arma-goddamn-motherfucking-geddon,” and aside from the title phrase, the chorus features shouts of “Eat! Fuck! Kill!” There’s a song here called “Pretty as a Swastika.” There’s another called “I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies.” There’s a line in “Blank and White” that is basically Manson by numbers: “I want to celebrate, I want to sell you hate, today’s the day you’re gonna fucking die.”

Are you yawning yet? Nothing about this record is even remotely shocking. It’s just tired and weak. Granted, this is the sort of thing Manson’s been doing all along, but it was more digestible when it was accompanied by explosive gothic-industrial music. Not so The High End of Low, which takes the mid-tempo grind of 2007’s Eat Me Drink Me and turns it down a notch or two. Only four of these 15 songs rise above the slow muck. The rest are drowned in melodramatic melancholy, undoubtedly a stab at maturity that doesn’t suit him or his flailing, noteless voice.

The man’s entitled to be depressed and morose, but he does so in such flat, uninspiring ways that the record simply bores. Take “Running to the Edge of the World,” a six-minute acoustic-strum power ballad that could have come from Bret Michaels, if Michaels ever ruminated on the eternal nature of dissatisfaction. That’s followed by “Movies,” the biggest waste of time in Manson’s catalog. It’s nine minutes long, and out of ideas by minute two – the final two-thirds of this song just blunders along, repeating its one slow note as Manson wails about how every time he kills you, he’s really just killing himself. Really.

Buried at track 12 is the one moment of glorious fist-pumping satirical joy here. It’s called “We’re From America,” and while it’s a bit on the nose, it still bites: “We don’t like to kill our unborn, we need them to grow up and fight our wars,” Manson shouts, before proclaiming that America is “where Jesus was born.” The riff is repetitive, but it has an energy everything else here lacks. And three minutes later, it’s over, and Manson ends the album with three more soggy ballads.

The failure of The High End of Low has nothing to do with how “shocking” it all is, or isn’t. It’s just pretty obvious that Manson is tired of his persona. The music just sounds exhausted, the lyrics recycled, the vulgarities rote. On some level, Brian Warner has to know how silly this all is, and how ineffective. He’s a smart guy who has made a dumb, dreary record, and I hope he takes it as a sign that this Marilyn Manson idea has pretty much run its course.

Say what you want about Relapse, but it’s never boring. Eminem didn’t gain his reputation just because of his skin color – he’s a furious, dizzying rapper, and his skills are back in fine form here. When he’s on fire, Mathers can spit a tale like no other, and his gift for internal rhyme structures has rarely been better than it is here. His new lyrics have seemingly energized Dr. Dre, who produces – his beats are frequently amazing on Relapse, a far cry from the mediocrity he turned out on Encore. Five years away has done wonders for both rapper and beatmeister.

With Eminem, it’s never been a question of talent, but of how that talent is used. I’ve dropped this analogy before, but his work reminds me of D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film Birth of a Nation – astonishing skill used in abhorrent ways. Yes, once again Mathers relapses into Slim Shady, and we get several murder fantasies and celebrity slasher flicks set to music. These are the moments when Relapse sounds almost as worn out as Manson’s album – no matter how dazzling the wordplay on “Same Song and Dance,” it’s still a song about brutally murdering Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears. It would be laughable if it weren’t so sad.

But when Mathers drops the act and turns the spotlight on himself, Relapse is riveting. About half of the record concerns Mathers’ drug problems, and just where the hell he’s been for the last half-decade, and these tales are harrowing. On “My Mom,” he aims at a frequent target, his mother Debbie, but draws a straight line between the drugs he was fed as a child and his current addictions. “Insane” is a terrifyingly funny account of the sexual abuse Mathers’ stepfather inflicted upon him, with a third verse delivered almost entirely in a chilling little kid voice.

It’s unfortunate, then, that the album is so inconsistent. “Bagpipes from Baghdad” is not a political statement, but an incongruous attack on Mariah Carey. “Must Be the Ganja” fits in with the drug abuse theme, but is remarkably lame, as is “We Made You,” the token Slim-Shady-hates-celebrities tune. And Eminem doesn’t need guest stars to elevate his material – in fact, they usually bring it down, as both Dre and 50 Cent do on “Crack a Bottle.” These songs only serve to make dynamite numbers like “Medicine Ball” seem more exciting.

Relapse does get a late-album shot in the arm from one of the most honest songs Mathers has ever penned, the downright pretty and inspiring “Beautiful.” The track samples Queen and Paul Rodgers’ version of “Reaching Out,” and finds Mathers in a reflective mood, rapping about his emotional vulnerability. It is here that he confides that he nearly gave up on his talent, so heavy was the weight of his depression over the last five years. This is Marshall Mathers, naked to his soul.

But here’s the thing. The very presence of songs like “Beautiful” and “Déjà Vu” call into question the violent, misogynistic, homophobic fantasies that pepper this album. In fact, they make those fantasies inexcusable. “Stay Wide Awake” is a particularly gruesome tale of rape and murder, including a passage in which Slim Shady forcibly impregnates a woman, watches as she births triplets, and kills the babies with cyanide. This is all delivered with devilish glee, of course, because Shady is “only playin’.”

Now, let’s be clear. None of this is shocking to me. It’s just lamentable. I understand that Slim Shady is a character, the dark side of Mathers’ id. I get it. But the piercing emotional insight of some of Relapse raises the question of why Mathers continues to play him. At one point on the album, Shady is describing a forced home abortion. In another, he’s delivering an entire verse as the late Christopher Reeve, talking through his voice box and challenging Eminem to a breakdancing contest. And seconds later, Mathers is discussing his genuine pain in the most heartfelt way he’s ever attempted.

The inconsistency is more than jarring, it’s sad. For half of this album, we get the real Marshall Mathers, and his work is gripping. But for the other half, we get Slim Shady, relying on the same old celeb-baiting and graphic violence he’s always given us. I would think even Mathers would be tired of his alter-ego by now, and the thinner the joke wears, the more repugnant it becomes. I wish Relapse weren’t such a good record. As it is, it stands as another example of Mathers’ phenomenal talent, and the unfortunate use he’s made of it.

Both of these albums take great pains to shock and disturb, and I expect Eminem’s Relapse 2 will follow the same path. But as society moves on, and it becomes harder and harder to shock us, court jesters like Mathers and Manson will hopefully have no choice but to go the other direction, and offer us real substance. There are moments on Relapse when I hear this happening, when its author is taking the biggest risk of all – being real. And that is more shocking than anything his alter ego (or Brian Warner’s) can devise.

* * * * *

So I will be 35 on Friday. Not sure yet if I will be writing a column for next week, but I probably will – there’s a lot of good stuff coming out, including Dave Matthews Band’s tribute to the late LeRoi Moore, and new ones from Elvis Costello, the Eels, Sonic Youth, Rhett Miller and Trey Anastasio. Plus there’s that column on awesome gimmicks, coming up very soon.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Sad news this week. Former Wilco member Jay Bennett died unexpectedly in his sleep on Sunday, of unknown causes. He was only 45.

With Bennett in the band, Wilco made two very good albums (Being There and Summerteeth), and one unassailably amazing one (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which I named the best album of 2002). He also contributed to the two volumes of Mermaid Avenue, which found Wilco teaming up with British troubadour Billy Bragg. Bennett wrote or co-wrote all the best songs, and played a hundred different instruments.

The sad decline of Wilco since his acrimonious departure (chronicled in the breathtaking film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart) is a testament to just how good he was, and just how important he was to the band’s magic. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of album, a work of alchemy, and even if he’d never done anything else in his life, Bennett would have left quite a legacy. Of course, he did much more, including several swell solo albums – he was working on his latest, which he wanted to title Kicking at the Perfumed Air, when he died.

Rest in peace, Jay.

* * * * *

Given how often I have recommended one television show or another in this space, it may surprise you to learn that I don’t actually watch very much of it.

It’s not the medium that bothers me, it’s the use of it. I’m a fan of long-form, serial storytelling, and television offers an opportunity to do that kind of broad-canvas stuff over years, beaming it directly into living rooms across the world. And yet, most producers and networks use this medium to either offer up comfort food – sitcoms, procedural dramas in which nothing ever changes – or ever-more-distasteful reality shows. The lost potential I see all the time just makes me sort of sad.

That’s why I’m overjoyed, elated, and stunned whenever something truly imaginative makes it through the filter. Particularly if that something uses the serial nature of television to its fullest. It’s so rare that it’s worth celebrating.

My point is this. I have just watched “The Incident,” the riveting fifth-season finale of Lost, for the sixth time. Every single time, I find something new to marvel over, some new moment of clarity that puts the events of the past five seasons into sharper focus. I think I am ready to call it: Lost is one of the finest pieces of television art ever made. And as it rounds third and heads for home, I can only hope the guiding lights behind this masterpiece know exactly how to wrap things up.

More detailed thoughts on “The Incident” would require spoilers, and after a lot of thought, I don’t think I’m going to do that. The revelations were so game-changing, so perfectly revealed, that I’d be doing a disservice to anyone who hasn’t watched this show for themselves. But I’ve been working my way back through the fifth season (in my copious spare time), and seeing things in new lights. I’m watching certain scenes, certain characters, in entirely different ways.

Lost, as a whole, has been all about widening perspectives. We began with a group of people stranded on an island, and have gradually pulled back one curtain after another, to end up with a saga of global proportions. And now, in their final season-ending cliffhanger, producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have redefined their show again – it’s now much bigger, much stranger than I ever suspected.

But above all, it has remained about the characters and their choices. The theme of the show, crystallized in “The Incident,” is an age-old one: fate vs. free will. Can we choose our own destinies, or have they been determined for us? This season framed that question in some startling ways, involving time travel and even more behind-the-scenes manipulation than we’ve ever seen on this show. And in its final episodes, it rushed headlong into a jaw-dropping plotline about erasing the past and rewriting the future. As heady as it all was, the cast and producers kept things grounded – Lost is about people, at its core. Even its gods are, in the end, people.

There are 17 episodes of Lost left, and then it’s all done – it will be the first major network show with a long-range, planned ending. I’ve never seen a show with Lost’s capacity to surprise me – I’ve been with it since the beginning, and I have no idea where this train is headed. But the ride has been amazing, and I can’t wait for next year to see how it all ends up.

The first four seasons are available on DVD, with the fifth set to come out in December. If you’re going to watch, you have to start from the beginning. Trust me, though – it’s worth every minute you’ll spend with it. Every head-spinning, nail-biting, brain-melting minute. This is television at its finest.

* * * * *

I feel like I’ve been breaking up with Tori Amos since 1998.

Argue if you like, but dedicated (okay, obsessive) music fans do have actual relationships with the art they consume. I’d never say I know Amos personally, but there are few artists whose work I hold more dearly than hers. And I wish I knew how to quit her, because this relationship hasn’t been working for at least 10 years, and yet I keep coming back, hoping the pieces we both bring will still fit.

If I could travel in time, like the cast members on Lost this season, I think I would go back to 2002 and stop Amos from making Scarlet’s Walk. That’s where it started to become apparent that Amos had become someone different, someone I was less interested in. But truthfully, the roots of this decay go back quite a bit further than that.

Everything started out so well. Amos’ first three albums remain unimpeachable to me, and I don’t think this is just a case of association. It’s true, the songs on Little Earthquakes remind me of specific moments in high school, just as the ones on Under the Pink remind me of college. Her third album, Boys for Pele, was the first record I reviewed for Face Magazine, back in 1996. I have a lot of memories wrapped up in these songs, but I swear, that’s not why I love them.

I love them because Amos makes me feel her joy, pain, wonder and sadness more acutely than just about anyone else. It’s been 17 years since I first heard “Winter,” for example, and that moment before the third chorus, when Amos sharply inhales into the silence, still gives me chills. “Me and a Gun” still makes time stop whenever I hear it. I still raise my arms skyward, like a giddy idiot, when she brings the long and winding “Yes, Anastasia” in for its heart-stopping ending. “Professional Widow” still hurts, as does “Precious Things.” These are not songs, they are emotional conduits.

Even with all of that, my brain is still working when listening to Amos. Her early songs are remarkably complex and well-constructed – if the deep feelings behind them ever lose their edge (which I don’t anticipate they ever will, for me), the actual maps of these melodies will be worth treasuring all on their own. I know I have written more about the first three Tori Amos records through the years than anyone would ever want to read, but they are worth all that praise and more.

In retrospect, things started to go wrong with 1998’s From the Choirgirl Hotel. Simplistic songs, production that masked Amos’ emotional gift, and an overall slapdash effect that landed with a leaden thud. There are songs I love on here, but not enough, and there are a few – “Playboy Mommy,” “Hotel” – that I never want to hear again. Also in retrospect, I cut the electronica-drowned To Venus and Back and the so-so covers experiment Strange Little Girls way too much slack. Neither are particularly good.

But they are works of genius compared to Scarlet’s Walk. Eighteen songs, and I like three of them. The Beekeeper was even worse – 19 songs, and I don’t like any of them. I welcomed 2007’s American Doll Posse with open arms, since Amos sounded refreshed and reinvigorated on most of it, but it’s faded with time. I still like about half of it, but at 23 songs and 79 minutes, it’s a slog. Tori’s recent output has been very generous, in terms of sheer quantity, but she’s stopped making music that opens a vein. Most of her stuff since 2002 has been merely pleasant, instead of moving and affecting.

And now here is album number 10, another 70-plus-minute monster with the worst title in her catalog: Abnormally Attracted to Sin. It’s her debut for Universal Republic, after three albums on Epic, and if you’re hoping the change has awoken her muse, prepare for disappointment.

Just to be clear up front: I don’t hate Abnormally Attracted to Sin. If you’re keeping score at home, I like about eight of these 17 songs well enough, and the whole thing has a sonic depth to it that I find appealing. It’s not Beekeeper bad. Not even close. But I don’t like it very much, and all of my admiration for Amos’ voice, piano playing and piercing lyrics can’t distract me from the fact that I am bored out of my skin for most of this record’s running time.

While the album is not terrible, it does serve as a good example of just what’s been wrong with Amos’ recent output. Here are a few things:

1. This album is too long. I know, it’s churlish to complain about getting so much music from someone I admire. And it’s actually only a couple of minutes longer than Green Day’s new album. But the problem is focus, and all of Amos’ recent discs have lost that focus about halfway through their gargantuan running times. Some artists can do 74-minute albums, and do them well. Amos has proven again and again that she can’t. Honestly, this wouldn’t be a problem if everything else clicked, but it doesn’t, and Amos should have seen that and pared it down.

2. Many of these songs are beneath her. I guess the longer this downward slide goes on, the weaker this argument gets, but Amos songs used to be instantly memorable, and most of these are immediately forgettable. “Not Dying Today” is a b-side if I’ve ever heard one, and “Police Me” and “That Guy” should have stayed on the cutting room floor. “Fire to Your Plain” sounds like an unearthed Y Kant Tori Read number. Even the songs I feel I should enjoy, like “Maybe California,” simply don’t go anywhere – not just by Tori’s standards, but by anyone’s. I’m not saying every song has to be genius, but I want some sense that Amos is pushing herself, and these songs just don’t give me that.

Worse, her lyrics are typically excellent here. She’s in familiar territory, of course, criticizing the patriarchy and organized religion, but she finds some interesting parallels between faith and sex, and weaves them together so well that you’re often not sure which one she’s talking about. My favorites are the sweeter ones this time, like “Maybe California,” which finds Amos talking a suicidal friend down off the ledge. But the music just doesn’t match up, and that is, if you’ll forgive me, a sin.

3. The production doesn’t play to her strengths. This has been an issue for some time, ever since she bought her Bland-o-Matic in 2002. Much of Abnormally Attracted to Sin makes use of synthesizers and drum loops, which she’s done before, but rarely to this extent. Sometimes it works: “Flavor” is nice, mixing piano fragments with a trip-hop beat, and opener “Give” is suitably spooky, Amos doing her best Portishead. Often, though, the production just sucks the life out of things, and Amos is once again too restrained – even something like “Strong Black Vine,” which ought to rock convincingly in a “Kashmir” kind of way, just sort of lies there.

Amos’ two strongest weapons are her stunning voice, and her piano playing. Her earlier albums made those the focus, and rightly so – here, Amos’ voice is folded, spindled and mutilated too often, and her piano work is either buried or absent. There are moments when the spotlight shines on the right parts of the stage, most notably “Mary Jane,” which is all piano and voice. The experiments do sometimes work, but more often you’ll get something like the title track, a repetitive synth crawl that goes on forever, or like “500 Miles,” which just kind of sounds like wallpaper.

4. This album is soulless. This one sort of encompasses the other three, but it goes further, and is the crux of my criticisms over the past decade. I simply don’t feel anything listening to this. Maybe I’m missing it, and Amos actually invested every fiber of her being into these songs, but I don’t think so. This album is missing even the fire and sense of fun that permeated American Doll Posse. Even the songs I like aren’t getting anything more than a reserved smile from me this time, and I barely remember them when they’ve finished playing. I want to cry, to cheer, to hurt and heal and hurt again, and I simply don’t.

Maybe that’s not fair. Maybe a handful of decent songs with interesting production should be enough. From some artists, it would be. But not from Tori Amos. There are songs on Abnormally Attracted to Sin that some singer/songwriters would kill for. But Tori Amos is not just some singer/songwriter. This is one of the best things she’s done since Choirgirl, and it still leaves me cold. If my expectations are set too high, it’s because Amos set them there. It’s to the point, though, that I don’t even feel disappointed anymore. I just feel nothing.

There are songs I like, and I don’t want to give them short shrift. I have already mentioned “Give” and “Flavor,” the trip-hop experiments that work. I also like “Curtain Call,” reservedly, for its soaring chorus. But the best material is at the end – the last five songs are all varying shades of very good, starting with the piano-vocal show tune “Mary Jane.” “Starling” is a mostly effective rewrite of “Spark,” off of Choirgirl, while “Fast Horse” has an interesting rhythm. “Ophelia” almost brings back the old glory, with a lovely piano part and strong vocal, and closer “Lady in Blue” is kind of a late-night jazz club affair for the first four of its seven minutes, before launching into a pretty neat drums-and-piano coda.

But “mostly effective” and “pretty neat” are not adjectives I should be using to describe new Tori Amos music. I fear it’s the best I can muster, unfortunately – Abnormally Attracted to Sin is merely okay. It’s halfway decent. It’s two stars, two and a half if I’m feeling generous. I will not treasure it, but I can live with it.

And this is how I see the relationship going, until one of us dies. Amos will keep making these 70-minute records, I will keep buying them, and I will come away from each one shrugging my shoulders. And yet, I won’t be able to stop. I am abnormally attracted to her work, and I will never pass up the chance to hear new Tori, no matter how many dispiriting albums she makes. It’s unhealthy, I know, but I don’t know what to do about it.

All I can hope for – and I hope for this with everything I have, every time – is that Amos finally makes something that moves me again, something that connects what I want with what she has to offer. Until then, I will keep paying my money, and keep coming back for more. Because there was something there, once, and I keep on believing it can be there again.

Next week, probably Eminem, but maybe something else. I’m cagey like that. If reading my babble isn’t enough for you, I contributed to Derek Wright’s podcast again this week. I’d been battling a cold when we recorded it, but I still valiantly defended Tinted Windows, and took aim at a few other records, and Derek was his usual insightful, knowledgeable self. Check it out.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

Have you noticed that the summer blockbusters come earlier and earlier each year?

We’re not even to Memorial Day yet, and we’ve had three – Wolverine, Star Trek and Angels & Demons. Used to be, you could go from September to the end of May without seeing a single movie in which expensive shit blows up, but now, the crowd-pleasers come early and often. These movies aren’t necessarily bad – Star Trek, in fact, is a lot of fun – but they do follow the same formula: action-packed scripts, filmed with visual flair and marketed as if they were cultural events.

It makes sense, then, that the year’s first musical blockbuster has just hit stores. Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown is almost a guaranteed success: it’s a sequel of sorts (to 2004’s American Idiot), and those always do well, plus it’s a massive, ambitious affair. The whole thing just feels important – not self-important, necessarily, but significant. Plus, this record is going to do very, very well at the box office, as it were.

But is it worth talking about? Most summer blockbusters ride in on a tsunami of hype, bust their blocks for two weeks, and then go away, leaving almost no sign of their passing. Is anyone still talking about last year’s big summer movies? Indiana Jones? The Hulk? Hancock? Even The Dark Knight has all but gone away, in a cultural sense.

The analogy is apt, because Green Day has structured Breakdown like a movie, or at least a play. It’s a 70-minute concept album divided into three acts, with characters and something of a plot. It’s the second time they have done this – Idiot was similarly ambitious, tracking half a dozen different characters as they made their way through George Bush’s America. But this time, the scope is even more cinematic – much of the music on Breakdown sounds made for the big screen.

It’s worth pausing here to remember that this is the same band who once wrote three-chord punk songs about becoming bored with masturbation. If anyone expected this kind of a third act surprise from Green Day, they weren’t talking. This trio faithfully aped Stiff Little Fingers on its first few releases, and hit big with an album actually titled Dookie, and a song that kicked off with the line, “Do you have the time to listen to me whine?”

Put simply, ambition was never their thing. Their follow-up, Insomniac, was so one-note that I couldn’t even name four songs off of it now, and while they did stretch out on 1997’s Nimrod and 2000’s Warning, they came off like a band without a direction. (And if I never hear “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” again, I will die happy.)

Which is why American Idiot was such a surprise. Here was a fully revitalized Green Day, embracing the very thing their punk idols were created to destroy: the prog-rock concept album. Here were nine-minute songs, with subsections denoted by Roman numerals. Here was huge, intense production that took their guitar-bass-drums aesthetic to new heights. Just when they should have started sucking in earnest, they embraced their inner Pete Townshends and delivered their masterpiece.

Except, you know, I didn’t really like American Idiot all that much. The trappings of art-rock were there, but the musical evolution was almost nonexistent. The lengthier suites were just half a dozen two-minute, two-chord punk songs jammed together with no connective tissue, and as much as I liked songs like “Holiday” and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” they weren’t any Great Leap Forward.

Much to my surprise, though, I do like 21st Century Breakdown quite a lot.

This is what American Idiot should have been. It retains the essence of Green Day while maturing before our ears, and the ambition that floated on the surface of Idiot is suffused into this one’s bones. I decried Idiot for sticking to Green Day’s established template, but there’s so many different kinds of music on Breakdown that I lost count after a while. And unlike its predecessor, which sagged in the middle and collapsed at the end, this one’s solid all the way through.

Tellingly, the story Breakdown relates is simpler than Idiot’s convoluted tale. Where that one gave us St. Jimmy and Jesus of Suburbia in an attempt to craft a Defining Statement of an Era, this one just follows two kids in love.

Their names are Christian and Gloria. He is a hotheaded punk with a violent streak, she is a hopeful soul with dreams of harmony. The album is a series of impressions, with a faltering, dying world as a backdrop, and it becomes about holding on to the things you love while everything is crumbling around you. Cliched? Sure. Effective? You bet. Green Day clearly set out to make an iconic reflection of our times, and I think they have.

That doesn’t mean Breakdown is insightful. For the most part, it isn’t. But it is serious-minded, and its grand-scale music works in its favor. The first act (Heroes and Cons) is the weakest, but still remarkably strong – the album opens with the minute-long a cappella overture “Song of the Century” before slamming into the multi-part title track. In five minutes, we pass through a U2-ish piano-guitar opening, a three-chord singalong, a Who-esque breakdown, a nearly Celtic middle section reminiscent of the Dropkick Murphys, and a finale that reminds me of Mott the Hoople. It’s a tour-de-force call to arms.

Things even out from there – the punky stomp of “Know Your Enemy” sets the tone for two songs with false beginnings. You’re going to think “Before the Lobotomy” is this album’s sickly acoustic ballad, until the splendid guitar riff cranks up. (Spoiler: there is no sickly acoustic ballad on this album. Hurrah!) “Last Night on Earth” is actually the slow one, but this tune goes full John Lennon (or at least Julian Lennon), all pretty pianos and wondrous melodies.

It’s the second act, Charlatans and Heroes, that really catches fire. “East Jesus Nowhere” may be the best rock song in this band’s catalog, its lyrics a diatribe against organized religion: “Bless me Lord, for I have sinned, it’s been a lifetime since I last confessed, I threw my crutches in the river of a shadow of doubt, and I’ll be dressed up in my Sunday best.” But hang on, because next we get Mariachi rockabilly (“Peacemaker”), Weezer-esque pop (“Last of the American Girls”), Klezmer-punk (“Viva La Gloria”) and an absolutely awesome slice of ELO balladry (“Restless Heart Syndrome”).

The third act (Horseshoes and Handgrenades) may be less diverse, but it is the most consistent, and most important. It is here that Billie Joe Armstrong ties his disparate threads together – where American Idiot fell apart in its final moments, 21st Century Breakdown coalesces, and the weaving together of themes makes all the difference. “21 Guns” is, musically, the closest Green Day come to re-writing “Boulevard” here, but lyrically, it brings into focus the album’s central question – what is worth fighting for? “Lay down your arms, give up the fight,” Armstrong sings, his characters tired of taking on the world.

The two-part “American Eulogy” starts with a reprise of “Song of the Century,” then explodes, as Christian and Gloria bid the modern world goodbye in a thunderous four and a half minutes. It all ends in an explosion, and then the piano part that kicked off the title track shimmies back in for the final song, “See the Light.” A simple singalong, this tune ends things on a hopeful note, our two characters clinging on to each other and looking for reasons to keep going. “I just want to see the light, I need to know what’s worth the fight,” Armstrong sings, over the thing his band does best after all – a three-chord rock stomp. You almost want more of a finale, but since it’s not really the end for our characters, it feels right.

Breakdown is an extremely quick 70 minutes, practically exploding with creative fire and energy. It will also be remembered as the moment when this band completed its transformation from college goofballs to full-fledged icons. American Idiot found Green Day clinging to their past, and dressing up in Pete Townshend’s clothes, but Breakdown finds those clothes a perfect, lived-in fit.

Is it an important album? I find it hard to classify 21st Century Breakdown as a pop cultural watershed moment, but I think people will be talking about it long after the summer of 2009. While this album is not as immediate (and may not be as overwhelmingly popular) as American Idiot, it represents the giant step forward its predecessor merely promised. Far from a Breakdown, this album fully solidifies Green Day’s place as a band finally (finally!) worth paying attention to.

* * * * *

From a summer blockbuster perspective, I should be excited about the next couple of weeks in music. But I’m not.

This week, we got Tori Amos’ Abnormally Attracted to Sin, an album title I can barely even type without retching. It’s not good. I will talk about it next week, but let’s just say right now that American Doll Posse was a fluke. Also, we got Eminem’s comeback album, Relapse, which is… interesting. More on that once I’ve fully absorbed it. And we got former Grandaddy frontman Jason Lytle’s first solo album, which sounds an awful lot like Grandaddy. That’s not a bad thing, but it is a predictable one.

Next week, Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest hits. The internet’s in a tizzy about this one, but what I’ve heard hasn’t been too inspiring. And Marilyn Manson returns from wherever he’s been with The High End of Low. The week after that, it’s Elvis Costello doing bluegrass, the Eels getting back to fuzzy rock, Franz Ferdinand doing dub versions of the songs from their new album, and “supergroup” Chickenfoot rocking like it’s 1989. Lots of stuff, none of it very exciting. I’m most looking forward to the new Dave Matthews Band, actually.

I’m also still processing the fifth-season finale of Lost. Thoughts on that next week, I believe, coupled with a look at Tori’s still-declining career. Is there anything coming out soon that’s thrilling you guys out there? If so, I’d love to hear about it. Meanwhile, I’m off to listen to Green Day again.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m constantly on the lookout for signs of the apocalypse, and I think this might be one of them. Yes, it’s the Oak Ridge Boys covering “Seven Nation Army.” Complete with “bom bom bom” vocal bass line. You can almost hear the four horsemen saddling up.

But this brings up an interesting point. Why is the thought of a song like this being desecrated so horrifying? I’m not even a big White Stripes fan, and I found myself somewhat nervous before pressing play. The actual rendition is kind of cool, in a “what the holy hell” kind of way, but I know White Stripes fans who would take a hostage if they heard this.

I think there is a concept of the sacred in music. It’s been said that you should never meet your idols, to avoid that moment of disillusionment when you realize they’re just people. But isn’t that what we’re talking about? They’re just people, they’re only songs. Right? Believe me, I feel the same way about some records and some artists – they are beyond reproach in my eyes. But should they be? It’s taken me a long time to be able to listen to Sgt. Pepper and hear the flaws. Do the ill-considered moments ruin the album? Or do they make it more human, more relatable?

I remember the first time I met Derri Daugherty of the Choir, one of my favorite bands. Until I actually shook hands with the man, it never really entered my head that this fragile, grand, beautiful music I loved was made by actual people. I used to cringe at human moments in Choir live recordings (the studio versions are unfailingly perfect) – Daugherty missing notes, flubbing guitar sections, that kind of thing. Now I cherish them. I find I’m looking for human imperfection in my music more and more. It reminds me that there are living, breathing people behind those instruments.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, it’s often a good thing to watch your idols topple. Quite a lot of music is based on mystique, on the idea that the artist should be wrapped up in a theatrical enigma. But to me, the best music comes from people willing to put themselves out there and forge real connections, willing to wipe away all pretense and say, “This is me, and these are my songs.” It’s the difference between building a pedestal, and building a bridge.

Take Bob Dylan, for example. I can’t think of anyone more consistently lionized over such a long career. It’s to the point with some acolytes that if you even whisper that Self Portrait may have been a little shabby, they stab you with their eye daggers. And those things hurt. But Dylan himself has always been the guy who lets those pesky imperfections shine through. With his singing voice, he’d kind of have to be, but he’s never made any attempt to sweeten up what he does, and lately, he’s even tossed aside that self-important streak that sometimes infected his work.

Dylan’s latest album is called Together Through Life, and if you can find anything self-important about it, you’ve looked harder than I have. To my ears, this is a good old fashioned blues jam. Ten short-ish songs, all performed with a loose, six-guys-in-a-room vibe – it’s like this thing was written and recorded over a weekend. Dylan produced it himself, under his usual Jack Frost moniker, and he invited a special guest – David Hidalgo, of Los Lobos, who adds New Orleans flavor to every track with his accordion.

As for Dylan himself, his ruined voice has taken on Howlin’ Wolf proportions, and his ease with death-blues lyrics has rarely been more apparent. Opener “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” sets the tone, its loping beat supporting a simple rhyme about love that staves off the darkness. “Don’t know what I’d do without it, without this love that we call ours, beyond here lies nothin’, nothin’ but the moon and stars…” “Life is Hard” could have been overly sentimental, if not for that wizened growl at its center.

The classic here is “My Wife’s Home Town,” and while I’m glad the title didn’t ruin the joke, I’m going to do it here: the full phrase is “Hell’s my wife’s home town.” It’s here that Dylan lets the sinister edge in his voice out – this is a killer little blues gem, coughed out with genuine menace. “One of these days I’ll end up on the run, I’m pretty sure she’ll make me kill someone, I’m going inside, roll the shutters down, I just wanna say that Hell’s my wife’s home town…”

But that’s the exception. Most of these songs are so simple, and so breezy, that the record just zips by. I find it hard to believe anyone would be scouring the lyrics to “Forgetful Heart” or “Shake Shake Mama” for the secrets to the universe. But they do offer glimpses at Dylan the man – “The door has closed forevermore, if indeed there ever was a door,” he gasps in the former. He sounds like death, and he’s ruminating on it, but it’s not getting in the way of his good time on most of this record.

I guess the point for me is that Dylan is refusing to feed his own myth on Together Through Life. This is just a blues jam, from start to finish – if this hadn’t come out with the words Bob and Dylan on the cover, no one would care. This is a fun little record – not as momentous as Time Out of Mind, or even Modern Times. It’s just Bob and his band having a good time, with no indication that anyone thought of this as The New Bob Dylan Album. It’s refreshing.

While Dylan takes the prize for most idolized, I don’t think there’s a modern artist who has done more to spin his own self-myth than Conor Oberst. He’s not even 30 yet, and he’s done everything but proclaim himself America’s most important new songwriter. His seven albums and numerous EPs as Bright Eyes are almost impenetrable cocoons of precious artsiness, every shambling note given weight it can barely hold.

But as he’s grown up, Oberst has started to burst out of that cocoon. His last Bright Eyes album, 2007’s Cassadaga, was his best – it was still pretentious, but the songs deserved it. And then he went down to Mexico, formed a new band, and started a solo career. (Well, you know, kept making solo records, but started putting his name on the cover.) Ironically, these records are the least self-serious, most fun slabs of tuneage Oberst has ever turned out. Where he was once wrapped in layers of mystique, Oberst now sounds open-hearted and content.

I mean, check this out: his second solo record, Outer South, is actually credited to Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, his six-man collective. And they’re not just there to back up their boss – Outer South has 16 songs, and a full seven of them were written and sung by other band members. On these tunes, Oberst plays guitar, or piano, or tambourine, and he sings backup, sounding overjoyed to be supporting his bandmates. And these are not second-rate songs – they’re just as good as Oberst’s numbers.

But then, Oberst’s own songs are miles away from the eight-minute angst-fests he used to turn out. This album is a blast, a rock and roll stomp, an American roots extravaganza with melody to spare. On Bright Eyes albums, a song called “Slowly (Oh So Slowly)” would probably be an acoustic snooze-fest, and Oberst would undoubtedly push his voice into an “emotional” scream near the five-minute mark. Here, it sounds like a Jeff Tweedy song that didn’t make Being There, and it opens the album on a strong note.

I don’t know if it’s the case, but Outer South sounds like the Mystic Valley Band laid it down live. The guitars are thick and strong, the muscular interplay is tight, and even the acoustic numbers (like “Spoiled”) rock. Above all, there’s no hint of Conor Oberst the Precious Artiste – the only song that comes close is “White Shoes,” performed with just acoustic guitar and voice. But even that one is restrained, and very pretty. Oberst does shout his way through “Roosevelt Room,” but that song kicks so much bluesy ass, I don’t care.

It’s telling that Oberst opened himself up to light-hearted collaboration here, and ended up with his best album. He even lets guitarist Taylor Hollingsworth get the last word – his galloping “Snake Hill” closes the record. By demolishing his own self-created image, Oberst has expanded his horizons, and you can tell just by listening how much fun he had making this thing. Best of all, he didn’t just churn out simplistic rock songs – these are some of Oberst’s strongest tunes, played with joyous force, and his bandmates have matched his creative fire.

Both Dylan and Oberst have seen the wisdom of toppling their own statues, and coming to you with arms outstretched. They’ve both come up with fiery records that depict them in moments of pure creative ecstasy, enjoying every minute of the loose-limbed racket they’re making. Neither album may fit particularly well with some fans’ ideas of who these men are, but that’s the fun of it. They both know that killing the idol is the first step towards knowing the artist.

* * * * *

But I must admit, neither Dylan nor Oberst have ever meant that much to me. If Bob Dylan decided to whip up an album of Poison covers, all in a ska style, I’d only be curious, not furious. Same with Oberst. I was born too early for one, and too late for the other.

The artists who really matter to me are the ones I heard as a teenager, the ones who formed who I am today. And those are the idols I find really hard to kill. Tori Amos. Freddie Mercury. Robert Smith. I find I want the mystique, the enigma, the show more often than not. I don’t know why this is, but I want dark, depressing Robert Smith, with the black eye makeup and everything. I don’t even care if he’s really depressed, that’s the Cure I want.

It’s a tough lesson to learn. Case in point: another of those formative artists for me was Jane’s Addiction. I was listening to a lot of Los Angeles metal at the time Nothing’s Shocking came out, and it still baffles me that Jane’s came up in the same scene as L.A. Guns. I simply had no reference point for what Jane’s Addiction was doing, but I loved it. I mean, “Mountain Song”? Where did they even get that? It’s part Led Zeppelin, part hippie carnival, and all killer, a totally crushing piece of music. Even now, the opening “Coming down the mountaaaaain!” makes me grin uncontrollably.

But it was the band’s second studio album, 1990’s Ritual de lo Habitual, that cemented it for me. Here was ambition on a scale my 16-year-old mind just hadn’t encountered – massive, heavy, extraordinary, emotional music, performed by brilliant aliens. Ritual was my first major encounter with censorship as well – nowadays the papier mache cover is tame, and can be found anywhere, but in 1990, it was deemed inappropriate, and lead banshee Perry Farrell whipped up a suitable replacement: a stark white cover with the First Amendment printed on it.

Ritual still ranks highly with me. In a Face Magazine feature in 1999, I called it the second-best album of the ‘90s (behind OK Computer, naturally), and while I may not agree with that anymore, I still get chills when “Three Days” starts up, or when “Then She Did” hits that explosive climax head-on. It’s just an awesome record, and I’ve found through the years that it’s kind of like a great magic trick for me – I don’t want to peer behind the curtain and see how it was done.

Which makes the A Cabinet of Curiosities box set somewhat problematic for me. These three CDs (and one DVD) are all about peering behind the curtain, and they bring Jane’s Addiction down to earth with a thud. Rarely has there been such a disconnect between sumptuous packaging and barrel-scraping contents – it looks essential, and it’s anything but. It is, however, revelatory, as long as you don’t mind that the revelation keeps turning out to be, “How did these drug-addled fuckups make this amazing music?”

First, the audio. You get 20 demos, representing almost every song in the Jane’s catalog. “Jane Says” sounds about the same. The rest sound thinner, more like four guys in a room bashing out funk-metal jams. I don’t know what Dave Jerden did to the studio version of “Mountain Song,” but this demo is missing its stomp-you-into-atoms power. Guitarist Dave Navarro will occasionally hit wrong notes, and Farrell will reach for a melody that isn’t there, and I’m reminded again and again that these were people, working on this not-yet-transcendent music.

The demos continue onto disc two, and then you get a bunch of b-sides and rarities. I’m particularly glad to have the Jane’s version of “Ripple,” which appeared on a long-out-of-print Grateful Dead tribute album in 1991. (The whole tribute is fantastic, actually.) I’m less excited to have live slams through Led Zep’s “Whole Lotta Love,” and their Dylan/Bauhaus mash-up “Bobhaus.” These misfires find them sounding like any other band they might have shared the stage with at that time. I want to scream, “You’re Jane’s Addiction! Don’t do this crap!”

Ah, but the third disc is a complete concert from 1990, the Ritual tour, and damn, it’s monolithic. Just hearing Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins slam through the funk-tastic “No One’s Leaving,” or the jittery mini-epic “Stop,” erases the bad taste the first two discs left. And “Three Days” live is just unstoppable. I know we already have this version on Kettle Whistle, but there’s something about the cumulative effect of this 10-minute monster within this set list. It’s an incredible song, made even more incredible.

The DVD straddles the same line. “Soul Kiss,” an absurdly boring fan video from 1990, leads it off, and shows our heroes in drunken, drugged-out states throughout. At one point, Farrell sets off a bottle rocket in his bedroom, while his adoring girlfriend looks on, just because. This is followed by six crappy music videos – the hideous “Had a Dad” clip is the most egregious. But then, the whole shebang is capped off with live footage, and it’s awesome. Seeing the band perform “Then She Did” and “Three Days” made me wonder how they got it together on stage when they were such fuck-ups in real life.

In the end, they’re still a mystery – the music Jane’s created remains vital to this day, and yet, without each other to spark off of, the four members haven’t been able to match it since. Even Strays, the third Jane’s album (with Flea instead of Eric Avery), is sub-par in comparison. Three-fourths of the equation just didn’t cut it. In this case, knowing the artist better doesn’t help me understand the music. It’s magic, it’s alchemy, it’s something beyond its component parts. Farrell and Navarro have both made solo albums, and when they have said to me, “This is me, and these are my songs,” I have found both wanting. And yet, if the Oak Ridge Boys tried to cover “Ain’t No Right,” I would probably be inexplicably sad.

And maybe that’s how it starts. Maybe this idol worship thing begins in the formative years, and just can’t be shaken. People older than me can’t fathom what I hear in Jane’s Addiction, the same way I don’t understand what people younger than me hear in Bright Eyes. Maybe there are some enigmas that have written themselves onto my pages as they are, some pedestals that will never be toppled. No matter how much Farrell and company try to connect with me, I will likely resist, preferring the myth to the men.

Is there a lesson here? Perhaps it is this: everyone else’s idols are easier to kill than your own.

* * * * *

Next week, Green Day’s mammoth rock opera 21st Century Breakdown.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I just got back from California, where I celebrated the marriage of one of my oldest friends.

I met Mike Lachance about 18 years ago, in high school. Apparently, it’s an odd thing for high school friends to remain close throughout adulthood, but we have, and there’s something amazing about knowing someone for half your life. Amazingly, he’s been dating his new wife Kate for most of that time – they’ve been together for 14 years. That’s right, 14 years. At this point, getting married is really a formality – these two will be together forever, ring or no ring.

But if you’re going to do it, do it right, I always say, and man, they did it right. The wedding and reception were held at Calamigos Ranch in Malibu, an unspeakably beautiful place. The ceremony itself was the first non-religious wedding I’ve been to, and it was wonderful. It was also very funny, and absolutely adorable. Kate had worked out a silent signal for the bridesmaids to hand her tissues for her eyes, which cracked everyone up. And Mike kept forgetting his lines. The irony of that is, he writes screenplays for a living.

For their first dance, Mike and Kate chose “The Luckiest,” by Ben Folds, and you could tell watching them that they both feel they are, in fact, the luckiest. It was one of those moments when I knew a song I loved would now and forever be associated with an event in my life, and I was so glad. “I love you more than I have ever found a way to say to you…” Not a dry eye, I’m telling you.

The best man was Ray Tiberio, another of my closest friends, whom I also met in high school. His toast centered on friendship, on the bonds people build over nearly two decades, and I couldn’t agree with him more. I’m honored and overjoyed to have these people in my life, and to get to be there on the happiest days of their lives. As Mike and Kate can tell you, time deepens relationships, and solidifies them, and I feel so blessed to have the friends I’ve had for so long. Congratulations, Mike and Kate. Love to you both.

* * * * *

It’s fascinating to me that the term “EP” has stuck around.

Like “b-side,” it’s a relic of an older, more analog time. Gather round, kids, and I’ll tell you the story. See, music used to come on slabs of vinyl called “records.” I kid, I kid. I know we still have these today, and they’re still surprisingly popular, but there was a time when vinyl records weren’t just one of the alternatives. All music – yes, all of it – came out on these black discs with grooves in them.

You had the album, a regular-sized record that contained a full complement of songs. But you also had the single, a smaller disc with (usually) two songs on it, the a-side and the b-side. Sometimes, though, a single would be released with more than just one b-side. You’d get four or five of them, and this was called an “extended play single.” Or, for short, an EP. These days, EP has come to mean a little album, something with only a few tunes, and it’s usually a debut project or a stopgap between “real” records.

I’m always at something of a loss when it comes to reviewing EPs. You just can’t use the same standards, because you’ll never get from five songs what you get from 12. By the same token, the shorter trips need to be that much more compelling – a dead spot in a 15-minute CD is worse than in one four times as long. There should be some reason these five or six songs have been released together, and not saved for a full album project. And you can’t judge them like proper albums. They are what they are.

Take The Open Door EP, the new release from Death Cab for Cutie. The band was right up front about this 17-minute offering: it’s made up of leftovers from the sessions for Narrow Stairs, their excellent album from last year. Given that, don’t expect that you will be as thrilled or as moved by this as you were by Stairs, or by its predecessor, Plans. But if you thought this band was getting just a bit big for its britches lately, The Open Door may be right up your alley. (Count the cliches! It’s like a drinking game.)

I considered Stairs more of a short story collection, after the engaging novel that was Plans. This new EP bears that out – it’s four more disconnected stories of lost love and relationships in disrepair. Musically, these songs are like the more average parts of Stairs, all driving-yet-wistful guitar pop with sweet little melodies, and they were clearly dropped in favor of more challenging material. But these are nice little songs, worth having on their own.

My favorite is “My Mirror Speaks,” with its twin guitar and vocal melodies. Ben Gibbard has a splendid pop-rock voice, and he proves it here, singing a difficult verse and then reaching for a flawless falsetto in the chorus. He turns a mean phrase too: “My mirror speaks with irreverence, like a soldier I can’t command, as it sees the frightened child in the body of a full grown man…”

“A Diamond and a Tether” is a sad love letter from a guy who can’t commit, and Gibbard describes him as “a boy who won’t jump when he falls in love, he just stands with his toes on the edge…” And “I Was Once a Loyal Lover” is the spryest song here, yet another tale of a man frightened of commitment. (Perhaps freedom from relationships is the open door of the title?) “You can’t even believe, there’s so many bridges engulfed in flames behind me,” Gibbard sings, shooting his voice skyward again.

If freedom is the theme, it’s punctuated by the last track, a solo demo of “Talking Bird,” performed by Gibbard on a ukulele. On Stairs, this was one of the most normal songs, saved by its glorious lyrics – the talking bird of the title is kept in an open cage, but caged in other ways. The sadness in the song is truly captured in this version. Like the rest of The Open Door, it’s not essential, but it is a good listen, and the EP as a whole won’t make you feel like you wasted 17 minutes.

Speaking of wasting my time, I didn’t even bother to review the latest Joy Electric album, My Grandfather the Cubist, because it failed on so many levels. Ronnie Martin’s pet project – he records sparking pop songs using nothing but analog synthesizers – has been on a roll lately, with a strong series of albums, but he ground that to a halt with Cubist. The songs were all mid-tempo crawls, the melodies were slight, and the vocals poor. I was unhappy, but I knew I wouldn’t stay that way for long – Martin’s too good of an artist to let one slip-up stop him.

The new Joy Electric EP is entitled Curiosities and Such, which might lead you to expect b-sides and rarities. But no! These six tracks are all new, and taken as a 19-minute whole, the EP blows Cubist out of the water. There are three new songs, two new instrumentals, and a wordless take on the title track, and the result is a varied and engaging listen.

The big winner here is “Which Witch,” a classic Joy E number. It’s as minimal as Cubist, but Martin remembered to write hooks this time – the little mid-chorus synth figure is just sweet. The other two songs are terrific as well, with special mention to “Let Us Speak No More, Let Us Speak Light,” with its throbbing bass line and zippy vocal melody. Speaking of the vocals, Martin has found his voice again – he’s always better when he double- and triple-tracks. He’s not a bad singer, but his thin voice needs some reinforcement now and again.

That leaves three minutes of wordless ambient stuff, all of it beautiful, particularly “Cluster of Bare Trees.” The EP is capped off with “Misuses, Atrocities,” the aforementioned instrumental version of “Curiosities and Such,” and for a process junkie like me, hearing the structures Martin builds around his melodies is enlightening. Of the six, though, this one has the least replay value, and the disc would have been fine without it.

Let’s hope this EP signals a rekindled creative fire for Ronnie Martin, because I hope to keep collecting Joy E discs for another few decades at least. Martin is one of the most idiosyncratic musicians I know, but once he sucks you into his little world, you won’t want to leave. Curiosities and Such, despite its title, is a pretty good starting point, if you want to dip your toe into these waters. Pick it up here.

* * * * *

And now, an EP version of Stuff I Missed.

I can’t imagine what Glen Phillips could do to lose me as a fan, but he might be on the verge of losing me as a customer. The former Toad the Wet Sprocket singer has a host of new projects up at his website, from bands with interesting names like Works Progress Administration and Remote Tree Children. But they’re all download-only at the moment, and I like stuff I can hold in my hand. I’m still not quite on board with paying for music without context.

Like many artists, Phillips has struck out on his own, without a label, so it’s kind of miraculous that he releases any physical product at all. I rejoiced, then, to find that he’d put out a six-song EP last year called Secrets of the New Explorers. I missed this for a simple reason – I have a million different artists to keep track of, and I rely on news aggregate sites to do much of the heavy lifting for me. An independent songwriter like Phillips just ain’t gonna get the headlines, and I plain forgot to check his site for much of last year.

That kind of sums up my thoughts on his music, too. I love Phillips’ songs while they’re playing, but don’t remember to think about him when they’re not. Which is a shame, because he’s a gifted writer with a strong voice, and he tries new things all the time – witness his unironic cover of Huey Lewis’ “I Want a New Drug” on his last full-length, 2006’s Mr. Lemons. And Secrets of the New Explorers is yet another experiment – six songs about space travel, with textures unlike any Phillips has used before.

Phillips has a reputation as an earthy performer, so a song cycle about space capsules in orbit is unexpected, to say the least. But he makes it work, incorporating some “Space Oddity” influences on “Return to Me,” and some very cool keyboard and percussion on “They’ll Find Me.” These are songs about science fiction, sure, but they’re also about isolation and loneliness, and their emotional heart beats true.

“Space Elevator” is the only one I’d call a rock song – the rest are dreamy acoustic folk-pop, the kind Phillips does so well. Perhaps the biggest surprise is “The Spirit of Shackleton,” all about the titular rocket ship on the CD’s sleeve: “I’m not coming back from here, I’ve been too far, I’m cold but I’m not scared in the Spirit of Shackleton…” The song’s super-cool electronic drums and keyboard doodles were performed by Phillips, and they sound so good decorating his simple little song that I hope he keeps traveling down this path. The EP ends with the brief and haunting “A Dream,” just voice and guitar, and it’s lovely.

I do hope Phillips releases more music in a physical format – without the artwork that accompanies this EP, some of the imagery in the lyrics just wouldn’t make a lot of sense. It’s all about context for me, and as much as I like what I’ve heard from Phillips’ new projects, I want to hold them in my hand. Discovering Secrets of the New Explorers months after it was released was like finding a present still under the Christmas tree days later, and I’m glad I can add this to my Glen Phillips collection. I’m sorry I missed it on the first go-round, but I’ll remember to check in with Phillips more often now so it doesn’t happen again.

Next week, I was going to talk about some fascinatingly gimmicky new releases, but one of them was delayed, so that will have to wait. Instead, expect reviews of Conor Oberst, Great Northern and that Jane’s Addiction box set. Congrats again to Mike and Kate, and enjoy that honeymoon.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I’m not going to lie to you, folks. It’s been pretty miserable out there.

The national economy is in shambles. Jobs are scarce, and layoffs are happening everywhere. My chosen industry is collapsing around me, and even the brightest minds in my field can’t figure out how to stop the bleeding. And to top it all off, Michael Bay has actually made a second Transformers movie, which will infect our movie theaters in just a few short weeks.

With all that, it would be easy to give in to despair. Sensitive souls like myself need reasons to be cheerful, to borrow a phrase, lest we crumble into sobbing heaps, lamenting the state of things. We need distractions, escapes – as much as I love challenging, serious art, in times like these I appreciate a well-crafted, silly pop song more than just about anything else.

So all things considered, there’s never been a better time for a band like Tinted Windows.

The members of Tinted Windows have been very good about avoiding the word “supergroup.” It’s a term that doesn’t really fit them anyway – it usually refers to a bunch of egotists producing bloated, pretentious garbage that will always play second fiddle to the members’ regular gigs. But they’ve been gaining a lot of mileage from their jaw-dropping lineup anyway, and it’s the first thing you’re going to want to know about them, so here it is.

Tinted Windows is guitarist James Iha from the Smashing Pumpkins, bassist Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, drummer Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick, and vocalist Taylor Hanson, of (you guessed it) Hanson. He’s the youngest at 26, Carlos the oldest at 57. It’s an incredibly strange assemblage of people, some of which you wouldn’t think would have the connections they do – Iha and Schlesinger, for example, co-own Scratchie Records, and Schlesinger has known Hanson for years, ever since he was tapped to write some songs for Taylor and his siblings.

What could this possibly sound like? How about the coolest cheeseball power pop since the likes of T. Rex and the Raspberries? Yeah, you betcha. The band’s self-titled debut, recorded in three days, is the most fun I’ve had in 35 minutes this year.

One of the big draws for me is hearing more Adam Schlesinger songs. I’m a big fan of Fountains of Wayne’s joyous melodicism, although Schlesinger has a reputation for being a bit too clever with that band. Not so here – while the bubbly pop melodies are intact (boy, are they ever), the lyrics are almost goofy in their simplicity. This is boy-meets-girl power pop, and despite a song called “Dead Serious,” it’s just frothy fun all the time. (There’s one song in which the protagonist repeatedly refers to the object of his affection as “my cha cha.” That’s the chorus.)

What’s fascinating about listening to Tinted Windows is just how well the quartet has preserved the individual components of their sound. First track (and first single) “Kind of a Girl” is the sort of effervescent teen-pop gem the Click Five are so good at, but the guitar sound is pure James Iha, thick and strident. Bun E. Carlos’ drumming is rock-solid, just as it’s been with Cheap Trick for decades.

And of course, there is Taylor Hanson. I’ve been taking shit for years for digging Hanson, but these 11 (well, 10 – Iha sings one) songs should prove that Taylor is a born frontman. His high, strong, appealing voice has never sounded better to these ears, and his years singing silly pop songs with his main band have prepared him well for these harder-edged, but no less silly tunes here. Listen to how he carries “Can’t Get a Read on You” on his back, and his own songwriting contribution “Nothing to Me” is easily the equal of Schlesinger’s songs.

In my more lucid moments, I understand that I can’t recommend this record without qualifying it, for fear of losing my Serious Music Critic credibility. God forbid anyone think I consider Tinted Windows high art, or that I’m mistaking lines like “I got love, if you want it, say the word and I’m on it” for poetry. I mean, who just enjoys music anymore? It all has to Mean Something Important, or it’s no good, right?

But then I remember that I’m the guy who included Greetings from Imrie House on my top 10 list, and I’m the guy who highly recommended Phantom Planet and Def Leppard and Roger Manning, and who named Silverchair’s Young Modern the best of the year in ‘07. Most recently, I’m the guy who actually kind of liked Chris Cornell’s record with Timbaland, which many dismissed as the ultimate sellout. Fizzy, disposable pop is part of my DNA, and I somehow doubt I have any Serious Music Critic credibility left.

So yeah, I love Tinted Windows. If you’re hungry for the days of Big Star and the Knack and the Nazz and, hell, even Cheap Trick, you will love this. It takes a lot of skill to craft silly pop that’s this infectious, this much fun. For 35 blissful minutes, I’m unable to stop tapping my foot, and I can’t seem to wipe the goofy grin off my face. It’s everything a disposable pop record ought to be.

Still, it’s pretty short. If you’re looking for something else to lift your spirits, may I suggest Ray Guns are Not Just the Future, the second album from The Bird and the Bee?

This band with the funny name is a musical collaboration between singer Inara George (the bird) and multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurstin (the bee). How to describe what they do? Imagine if Portishead were a lounge act, kind of. Imagine ‘50s torch songs with modern production. Imagine quirky, almost European pop songs delivered with warmth and wonder. Imagine fun float music that lifts you up with it. Hell, I don’t know. I just really like it.

The immediate attraction is George’s voice, lighter than feathers, almost sultry, but not quite. You can picture a jazz-age crooner draped across a piano, but then envision this same girl working as a librarian by day. Kurstin paints delightfully cheesy keyboard landscapes for her to dance across, like the music you’d hear piped into the most fascinating elevator ever. He throws in samples and orchestral flourishes sparingly – the core remains the trippy beats and tonic water keyboards, and it’s enough.

The highlight comes early. “Diamond Dave” is, in fact, a love letter to David Lee Roth, delivered as seriously as anything here – that is to say, with a wink. “When you left the band, I couldn’t understand it,” George purrs, “but I’ve forgiven you now that you’ve recommitted.” It’s wonderful – when George tells Dave that “no one can hold a candle, nothing else is quite the same,” she could be talking about her own fantasies, or the Sammy Hagar years.

The record never quite hits those dizzy heights again, but it’s all smile-inducing stuff. “Ray Gun” sounds like it’ll be a spacey downer, until the delightful chorus kicks in. You’ve never heard anyone sing lines like “I’m stuck inside the walls of all this inner strife” with such bliss. And you have to hear “Love Letter to Japan,” an East-meets-West fantasia that bounces forward on a video game beat and a sprightly, infectious melody. I don’t know what kind of song this is, but I love it.

Ray Guns are Not Just the Future isn’t the immediate tab of ecstasy Tinted Windows is – for one thing, it’s much smarter – but it’s a bubbly joy nevertheless. It’s another one of those records I bought on a whim, and I’m so glad I did, if for no other reason than to hear Inara George coo her way through “You’re a Cad,” a jazzy late-album hunk of delicious. (And for “Diamond Dave,” of course.) It’s music with nothing on its mind except brightening your life, and at that, it succeeds marvelously.

And hey, if you still have a hankering for super-fun, super-silly music after all that, try this: the new Click Five song is called “I Quit! I Quit! I Quit!” and I can’t stop singing it. Enjoy.

This weekend, I’m headed to Burbank, California for a friend’s wedding. I’m still going to try to write a column up, but it will probably be a short one. Ah, but the week after that, I have something special in store, and I, for one, am really looking forward to it. Ooh! Suspenseful!

See you in line Tuesday morning.