Archive for the ‘john mayer’ tag
Revelations Rooted in Listening to Office Music
Some random revelations that came from listening to Internet radio stations at work (a work-in-progress, watch for sudden changes):
- Thom Yorke definitely seems to have gone through a “whiney, screamy acoustic version” period. Meh.
- After a long time, yes, it is possible to be sick of hearing the Beatles.
- Pandora can play long sets without repetition, but not that long. I’d say the euphoria dies around the 4-hour mark.
- John Mayer sounds like a rock and roll version of Dave Matthews.
- David Byrne struggles a bit to hit that high note in “Psycho Killer” when he sings it live, but he’s a badass for not lowering the key.
- In any group of people, young and old, there is always the “metal guy,” and he’s not who you think. Don’t let him control the station.
- Some ’70s group covered the Rolling Stones’ “19th Nervous Breakdown” and slopped it up, and I don’t know who they are. Must look into this further.
- New Order’s “Blue Monday” is catchy, but also long and redundant. I don’t know why so many bands have covered it. Note to self: If I start a band, don’t cover “Blue Monday.”
- God, the Strokes are undeniably awesome, and I’ll wall-slam anyone who disagrees. Try me.
- Also on the Strokes: Ignorant people sometimes bag on Fab’s drumming, but I believe simple and steady outperforms fancy and flamboyant any day.
- The Killers line “I got soul, but I’m not a soldier” is like a grotesque mustard stain on an otherwise halfway decent song. Must write band and complain.
- Someone somewhere started a “sad, high-pitched girl singer/pianist” trend, and then everybody started copying it. Boo, hiss.
When Acoustic Covers Amount to Masturbation
As Einstein once said, the secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
In other words, if no one can figure out where your inspiration came from, then whatever masterpieces you’ve created are attributed directly to you, making you a creative genius.
Musically speaking, a band can take full advantage of this axiom, if they’re clever enough to weave together a collage of influences to create a sonic concoction to which no one can point and say “hey, that sounds just like that Black Rebel Motorcycle Club song.” If you can do that, then sweet, you’ve created an original piece of work.
Or this axiom can be the sword your unimaginative ass falls on after you plunk your way through some mainstream guitar ballad everybody has already heard, turning down-tuned F7 chords into open Es and ad-libbing from Internet-sourced lyrics before pressing it onto 40,000 silver discs and littering the sidewalks of Hollywood with hopeful, paper-wrapped debris.
When it comes to acoustic covers, it’s a tough call which side you’re going to fall on. It seems to come down to whether your aim is to discover a new aspect to someone else’s song that no one might have noticed yet, striving to capture it with only your burning, tortured soul, a minimal of instrumentation and countless nearly perfect takes. Or…whether your aim is to realize your teenage fantasy about banging out your favorite band’s song on a plastic-backed Ovation, hoping the girl you were crushing on in high school has a radio in her cold, lonely trailer park home and suddenly notices you after all these years, and finally contacts you through your Myspace account. On which you’ve had said song posted in hopeful anticipation for the last eight months.
Thus, there are good acoustic covers and bad ones. The line is thin, it doesn’t take much to cross it, and once you have, you’re either a creative genius or Bright Eyes.
Some Music Fans May be Shallow
STP at the Hollywood Bowl
This is partially intended as an addendum to the recent rant on bland retro-popheads, titled “When did the World Get So Unoriginal?” by esteemed [former] CinemaBlend music editor Mack Rawden. I’m wholeheartedly agreeing with his main thesis (albeit without judgment against J.K. Rowling, because I freaking like Harry Potter). But I’m adding one significant point.
And naturally, we will get to it via a quick story.
There I was, with my beautiful girlfriend, watching the Stone Temple Pilots’ June show at the Hollywood Bowl. We’re both into them, even the albums no one really likes (No. 4 and Shangri-La Dee Da). So we had at least a handful of songs we were waiting to hear.
About 10 minutes into the set, the obligatory wave of fashionably late bros and sorority chicks showed up. This element was expected, since due to some cosmic theorem they make up about 85% of the band’s following. But I was completely bewildered, and even disappointed, when during the ¾-set arrival of “Plush,” a group of sorority girls nearby suddenly got all antsy, huddling together in a secret conversation until one of them finally turned to the people next to them and said, “Oh my god, what’s this song called?” At first I thought I was hearing things. But then it happened again, during “Interstate Love Song.” My jaw was floored.
I get it: some people’s memories of these songs are a little dimmed by lite beer and accessory distraction (I might have heard someone singing the lyrics, “Driving on a Sunday afternoon / I swerve my Bug between the lines…”). But someone just spent $50 on tickets, fought traffic and crammed into a packed bleacher row without knowing the names of the band’s 16-year-old major radio hit singles. It seemed like a big monkey wrench just got tossed into the logical fandom gears somewhere. What was wrong here?
Then it occurred to me that the world’s sea of music fans might be a lot shallower than I had previously thought. Do some people pretend to be into bands? Do some even pretend to be into music? I decided this needs to be explored further.
