Much of the best new non-metal music that I heard in the past year came from Ben-mas 2012, a birthday mix that Kate sent me from England. Artists that I had never heard of or bothered to check out because they had names like Tinie Tempah, Mystery Jets or LCD Soundsystem have been getting stuck in my head and making their way onto my playlists. My response isn't quite as chic, but I'm giving it a shot.
Kate-mas 2013
Japandroids, "The Nights of Wine and Roses"
Andrew W.K., "It's Time to Party"
Dr. Octagon, "Earth People"
Janet Jackson, "Rhythm Nation"
Kavinsky feat. Lovefoxxx, "Nightcall"
The Zombies, "Care of Cell 44"
King's X, "It's Love"
The Roots, "The Seed (2.0)"
Fiona Apple, "Hot Knife"
Santo and Johnny, "Sleepwalk"
The Jackson 5, "The Love You Save"
Danny Brown, "Radio Song"
Lily Allen, "LDN"
David Bowie, "Sound and Vision"
The Knife, "Heartbeats"
Jimmy Cliff, "The Harder They Come"
Clipse feat. Slim Thug, "Wamp Wamp (What It Do)"
The Afghan Whigs, "Crazy"
Penguin Cafe Orchestra, "Telephone and Rubber Band"
The Giraffes, "Jr. at His Worst"
A semi-stylish mix, as imagined by someone who prefers Anthrax to Animal Collective.
Some of my favorite recent songs are here, via Fiona Apple, Japandroids, Danny Brown and the Drive soundtrack, plus a few tracks from the the mid-2000s, around the time I worked at Kim's Mediapolis and was momentarily hipper than I ever will be again. Thus, I'm offering the new Grimes song (from when it was called "Heartbeats" by the Knife) and Lily Allen's "LDN," which plays like a Kate e-mail set to music.
Otherwise, I've included a balance of yesteryear classics that I can't imagine anyone not liking. Only a sadist could resist the best of the Jackson 5, Bowie or Jimmy Cliff, and I still don't believe anyone who can't get down to "Earth People." Finally, headbanging biases appear in the presence of celebration icon Andrew W.K., Brooklyn surf-metal heroes the Giraffes and King's X, whom have now spent a quarter of a century as the world's most underrated hard rock band. The guitar and vocal harmonies in the outro to "It's Love" should be playing from stadiums, or at least from the listening devices of thoughtful English expats.
Even when considering Scott Ian's second career as a VH1 pundit, Anthrax's appearance on Married...with Children is baffling. What did Fox have to gain from a cameo by a thrash metal band with no radio exposure? How many people who bought Persistence of Time had any interest in the Bundy family? By 1992, when this episode aired, Anthrax were writing more challenging songs and had dropped the goofy lyrics that marked their early records. If they wanted to be taken more seriously, this wasn't a good way to go about it.
The jokes are predictable and the acting is cartoonish (save for Christina Applegate, who looks like she's watched a few episodes of Headbanger's Ball), yet I'm ready to watch it all over again. The band can't act well enough to disguise how much fun they're having. "In My World" has not softened with age, and it's still novel to see it "performed" on a major American sitcom. For possibly the only time in their career, Anthrax look like rock gods and not thrash metal underdogs.
Few things piss off metalheads like the idea that their favorite musicians are hopping trends. KISS fans pretend that their disco song doesn't exist, even though it's one of their biggest hits. Machine Head's nu-metal years, the Page-Coverdale album and "Turbo Lover" are derided by everyone who remembers them. Even when a band jumps between sub-mainstream genres, such as the metalcore incarnation of Cryptopsy or Morbid Angel's industrial album, one would think that they'd have teamed up with Justin Bieber for the amount of bile that gets thrown their way. In the eyes of some headbangers, they may never redeem themselves.
But what if the trend-hopping songs are really great?
By 1980, Alice Cooper had already spent a few years releasing rehab-inspired ballads and rehashes of his early '70s ragers. But he roared back to life with "We're All (Clones)," a shameless jump onto the new wave bandwagon. Alice gets right into character with a piping sythesizer and reserved delivery to match Gary Numan's. Overzealous rock critics might point out that Alice was mocking the too-cool new wavers by aligning himself with clones. Maybe it was his chance to get back at Talking Heads, whose "Psycho Killer" was inspired by Billion Dollar Babies. More likely, he's just having fun being a robot.
A few weeks ago, I saw Titus Andronicus at Webster Hall. They put on a dynamic show, one that could make you believe that punk can survive in heartland rock, but every song was interrupted by attendees climbing onstage, most of whom would block the band, sing along or motion commands to the audience before diving back into the crowd. The musicians, visibly annoyed but surely aware of the communal, punk ethos of stage diving, tolerated the nuisance and carried on like the professionals that they clearly are.
There's an idea in punk rock that cool bands let their fans stage dive, since we're all really fans sharing the experience together. But if that experience includes some heavyweight whom I didn't pay to see blocking the band with his dance moves before crashing, boots first, onto the heads of the front row, I don't want to be a part of it. It's not communal if the act is fun for exactly one person in the venue. The rest of us will be united in exasperation at your jackassery, but I'd hardly call that community.
This February, Lamb of God's Randy Blythe is going to trial for involuntary manslaughter, after a stage diver whom he pushed off stage died from brain trauma weeks after the incident. My condolences to the late diver's family, but everything that I've read and seen about the case indicates that Blythe did nothing wrong. Maybe he was thinking of what a pain stage diving is for the band and the audience, or maybe he was thinking of metal's most famous stage-crashing, wherein Dimebag Darrell was killed by a mentally ill stalker whose mom had given him a gun. Whatever the case, stage divers should expect to be pushed back or kicked out. If things get too rough, it's perfectly acceptable for the band to stop playing.
The idea that we do this because it's a punk tradition is ridiculous. Punk rock supposedly eschews tradition, and it's gotten by fine without stage diving for decades. Can you imagine crashing a Sex Pistols performance? Johnny Rotten would eviscerate you. And no one would blame him.
Unless you're in a band, or if you're one of the rare, super-communal artists who invites people up en masse (meaning only Iggy Pop or Andrew W.K.), stage diving should be reserved for the comfort of your own home, where you're not in anyone's way and the only person you can hurt is yourself.
Like Randy Rhoads before him, lead guitarist Mike Scaccia was an expert musician who seemed destined to outlast his infamous, hard-living co-conspirator. But in an affirmation of life's unfairness and unpredictability, Ministry's lead guitarist died onstage this week of a heart attack.
Scaccia first found success Rigor Mortis, a pioneering thrash metal act that almost single-handedly represented the genre in Texas in the early '80s. Their song "Foaming at the Mouth" appeared on the Decline of the Western Civilization Part II soundtrack, where Rigor Mortis' speed and ferocity distanced them from songs like Faster Pussycat's "Bathroom Wall" or the Lizzy Borden version of "Born to Be Wild."
When Scaccia joined Ministry in 1989, he accelerated the band's jump into metal, a move move that divides Ministry fans to this day. Whatever your take is, Scaccia's riffage helped kick off Ministry's most popular and influential era, including their only gold album Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs. College-radio hits like "Just One Fix" and "N.W.O." turned synth-poppers, new wavers, and shoegazers onto metal, and humanized industrial music with guitars that sounded live instead of programmed. That influence can be heard in White Zombie, Nine Inch Nails, Fear Factory, Marilyn Manson and Chinese Democracy.
"Jesus Built My Hotrod," featuring Scaccia's primal riffage and guest star Gibby Haynes' "Surfin' Bird"-on-a-spit scatting, is one of rock music's greatest achievements. How many industrial guitar solos can you think of? How many of them are good?
Other than 666, no number is more metal than 13. Its bad luck powers are revealed in musical tributes from several respected metal bands, many of whom have stumbled in mediocre musical salutes to Jason Voorhees' signature number. Better to honor the new year with a drink at the Lucky 13 Saloon than a slog through Cruelty and the Beast.
Few songwriters have survived the 13 curse, and even fewer have done so with a reasonable amount of decibels. Here's a brief audio history of 13.
1. Anvil, "This is Thirteen"
Interestingly, this is where Anvil's luck started to change--thirteen albums into their career, when a coinciding documentary gave them by far the biggest success of their lives. All their talk of wizardry and superstition couldn't hold a candle to watching them get lost and broke in Europe.
2. Anthrax, "13"
What the hell is this? Basically a short exercise for Anthrax's rhythm section, and a reminder that Anthrax were the first good thrash metal band to be intentionally silly on record.
3. Black Flag, "Room 13"
"Keep me alive!" screams 20-year-old Henry Rollins, making that effort sound like a struggle for the last time in his career. "I need to hang on!" is the part that everyone remembers.
4. Cradle of Filth, "Thirteen Autumns and a Widow"
Cruelty and the Beast is often regarded as COF's peak, but even Cradle's best songs are better remembered than reheard. Throw it in the mix for the 13-year-old in all of us.
5. Danizg, "Thirteen"
Written by Danzig originally for Johnny Cash's best studio album, American Recordings. He didn't release his own version until years later on 6:66 Satan's Child. Cash's folky reading and Danzig's goth-blues version both hold up, although it's abundantly clear whom was doing the other one a favor.
6. Megadeth, "Thirteen"
By album number 13, there was no defense of Dave Mustaine's political or social positions, but also no doubt of his chops or longevity.
7. Mercyful Fate, "Thirteen Invitations"
Mercyful Fate's influence on metal was flourishing when they reunited for 1993's In the Shadows. The result suggested that they'd ignored the last ten years of black metal.
8. Motörhead, "Cat Scratch Fever"
"First time that I got it I was thirteen years old," Lemmy amends the lyric in Motörhead's take on Nugent's staple. "Ours knocked his out of the fucking loop--of course, nobody remembers ours," wrote Lemmy in his autobiography. He's half-right.
9. Pantera, "13 Steps to Nowhere"
Anselmo was a good sport to sacrifice his lyrics to a song where all anyone can pay attention to is the drumming. A lesser guitarist than Dimebag would be trampled, but even he knows better than to stand in the way of one of Vinnie Paul's greatest intros.
10. The Pixies, "No. 13 Baby"
Frank Black honors a girl with a special tattoo, who at least had the sense to get it somewhere she can cover up for job interviews.
11. Social Distortion, "Bad Luck"
"Thirteen's my lucky number," laments cowpunk hero Mike Ness in this gem from Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell, years before another country crossover would make the same claim. Hey Taylor, is it too late for your to pick a tourmate for next year?
12. Suicidal Tendencies, "Emotion No. 13"
Lights...Camera...Revolution! completed ST's first transition from hardcore to metal, with hits like "You Can't Bring Me Down" and "Send Me Your Money," plus thrashing deep cuts like this one. If "Emotion No. 13" had been released today, it would have taken the e-word back from Chris Carrabba.
13. Venom, "13"
Not bad, actually, out of context with the 300 other Venom songs that sound exactly like it.
Not enough classroom teachers play music for their students. When they do, it's nearly always the Beatles, Michael Jackson or sometimes Bob Marley. Maybe One Direction these days, if we're counting fake music. Why is it never the Beastie Boys?
Christine used to teach elementary schoolers with me, and currently runs
a kindergarten class that addresses her with a prefix. During our time teaching together, she was always patient with my need to drop a few
verses of "Sure Shot" or "So What'cha Want" into the lesson plans, so I'm thanking her and acknowledging her birthday in one swoop.
Beasties for Kindergarten
"Fight For Your Right to Party"
"No Sleep Till Brooklyn"
"Paul Revere"
"Brass Monkey"
"Shake Your Rump"
"Hey Ladies"
"Shadrach"
"Pass the Mic"
"So What'cha Want"
"Sure Shot"
"Root Down"
"Sabotage"
"Intergalactic"
"Body Movin'"
"3 MC's & 1 DJ"
Children deserve better than to have Kidz Bop or Glee inflicted on them.
I can almost understand some authority figures never getting over their initial, Licensed to Ill-era
taste of the Beasties, but in 2012 it's hard to hear them as the
menaces that they used to play on TV. Even the most tasteless lyrics and
heaviest loops sound playful. Of course, not all of it is for children.
No kindergartener has the attention span for Ill Communication or the maturity for To the 5 Boroughs, hence a simple mix tape of hits instead of a more thorough sample from one of the most impeccable discographies in music history. But can anyone with a pulse resist the beat and rhymes of songs like "Hey Ladies," "Intergalactic" or "Brass Monkey?" Maybe the kids could have a dance off to "Shake Your Rump" or "Body Movin'," or a party to--never mind.
Why would anyone pay attention to the Mayan calendar when they could be listening to Goatwhore?
The biggest problem with most death metal, particularly American death metal, is its lack of melody. No such charges can be brought against Goatwhore, who kicked off 2009's excellent Carving Out the Eyes of God with "Apocalyptic Havoc," one of the catchiest songs to ever carry blast beats. Motörhead's rhythmic gallop and Testament's thrash brutality meet in a death metal hoedown. In other words, an apocalypse.
Robert Bork, who passed away this week, once cited Nine Inch Nails' "Big Man With a Gun" as part of "Modern Liberalism and American Decline" in his book Slouching Towards Gomorrah.
"The obscenity of thought and word is staggering, but also notable is the deliberate rejection of any attempt to artistic distinction or even mediocrity," wrote Bork, adding, "It is difficult to convey just how debased rap is."
I'd never thought of Nine Inch Nails as "rap" before, but Bork may have actually found what Trent Reznor was getting out. His spat-out rhymes and electronic beats are delivered in a rap-like performance, and Reznor even told Spin magazine that "Big Man With a Gun" was written as a skewer of violence and misogyny in hip-hop. What is that satire is doing on The Downward Spiral, a labyrinthian concept album from metal's Stanley Kubrick, is puzzling. Orchestrated loops, off-meter melodies, self-hating lyrics, Nietzsche quotes and one minute-and-a-half long swipe at self-aggrandizing gangbangers?
Reznor allegedly regrets putting "Big Man With a Gun" on The Downward Spiral, and it still sounds a little out of place, hundreds of listens later. But I'm glad that it's there, throwing a left-field rant into Spiral's density and meticulousness. As a boy reading the liner notes along with every lyric (and still unable to grasp what some of them meant,) "Big Man With a Gun" left a stronger first impression on me than any of the other tracks on The Downward Spiral. It is still the first piece of art that I think of when I whenever I hear anybody associating guns with their freedom or manhood. "Big Man With a Gun" may not be representative of the album, or of NIN over all, but it defines Ted Nugent more thoroughly than "Cat Scratch Fever."
Just like that, the guest host of Chelsea Lately goes back to being punk. Here's Dave Grohl joining Bob Mould for Hüsker Dü's "Ice Cold Ice," in a clip from a Mould concert film that's currently taking donations on Kickstarter.
Mould is usually pigeonholed as Hüsker Dü's "difficult" songwriter, as opposed to the poppier Grant Hart, but he wrote a perfectly dour pop-rock song here. Had R.E.M. recorded it, or maybe even if Hüsker Dü had not split up before the year that punk broke, it would be played on FM radio today.
Instead, "Ice Cold Ice" was Hüsker Dü's last single before breaking up. How many other bands have ever blitzed out so forcefully?
"Indeed, it was (Daniel) Inouye who encouraged his son Kenny — who played in
Marginal Man, one of DC’s most influential golden era hardcore punk
bands — to take up music.
Punk may not have been the elder
Inouye's speed, but in 1984 he went to the legendary 930 club on F St NW
to watch Marginal Man perform with a line up of other hardcore bands.
Inouye, ever the defender of fairness and equality, refused to cut the
line, opting to stand in the cold with the assorted skinheads, dreds and
other punk rock kids until the doors of the club opened.
Inouye
was even a part owner of a record label that was set up produce Marginal
Man’s records, making him by far the most punk rock senator in American
history."
Five minutes from Sylosis' Monolith. 67 more to go.
Every year, my admiration for artists who pour themselves into creating and sequencing a full-length work of art swells. In the face of YouTube, iTunes, American attention spans and singles acts, a select few still care about making a great album. Imagine if most popular books only had two good chapters, or if most movies had a couple of good scenes. That's the state of albums today. Dependably creative artists like Converge are both rare and crucial to modern music, just as someone like Jonathan Franzen is to literature.
However, if we are going to keep putting great artists on a pedestal, we still need to hold them to high standards. There are many reasons why music isn't selling as well as it did in decades past. I'll argue that one reason is that in general, most new albums and artists, metal included, aren't as great as their predecessors. With music sales bringing in less revenue than ever for record labels, artists have enough creative control to indulge their best impulses more than ever, but also their worst. Bands as varied as Rush, Gojira and Baroness released good, even great albums this year, but with minimal effort they could have been much better. Here's how.
1. Keep it short.
This seems like the biggest problem for many of today's metal bands. A CD can contain up to 80 minutes of music, but that's no reason for your band to use all 80. If you're lucky enough to find an audience, you should leave them wanting more, not less. To paraphrase Lou Reed, 30 minutes is fine, 40 is pushing it, 50 and you're into jazz.
This isn't a recent phenomenon. Some of the world's finest metal bands have run out of steam over hour-plus long players. Guns N' Roses were the best band in the world when they recorded Use Your Illusion I and II, and even they couldn't get through two-and-a-half hours without "So Fine." But let's look at the good. Slayer's Reign in Blood, one of metal's only indisputable classics, doesn't make it to the half-hour mark. At the Gates reshaped death metal in 34 minutes on Slaughter of the Soul. Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden, all legendary for their epic compositions, found ways to end their best albums in under 45 minutes. Don't point out that you love all 65 minutes of Metallica's ...And Justice for All until you remind yourself that your band isn't Metallica.
2. Cut the interludes.
Hip-hop is the worst at this. Intro skits, outro skits, intermission skits, phone call skits--these are among the reasons why anyone with a considerable hip-hop collection dreads the shuffle option on their preferred listening device. Metal is also culpable, but instead of skits, they use musical interludes. This year, Veil of Maya, Between the Buried and Me and the Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza littered their records with tossed-off, minute-long pieces that went from being entertaining to skipable over a few listens. Elmore Leonard once said of writing, "I try to leave out the parts that people skip." The best musicians record albums the same way.
3. Save some of the best for last.
Nearly every metal album I've heard in the past several years, even the great ones, are unarguably front-loaded. You don't play all your best songs in the first half of the show, and you also shouldn't play all your best songs in the first half of your album. Slayer ended records with "Raining Blood" and "Seasons in the Abyss." The Number of the Beast closes out with "Hallowed Be Thy Name." How many people who buy Lamb of God records can name a song on the second half of Sacrament or Ashes of the Wake? Those are both great records, but will anyone ever put either of them on a countdown near Rust in Peace? "Tornado of Souls" and "Lucretia" are on side two.
With most listeners sequencing their own playlists these days, some will contend that these gripes don't matter. But maybe listeners would be less inclined mess around with bands' intended tracklists if more artists proved that they knew how to make an album.
Dave Grohl has turned into alternative music's Snoop Dogg, seemingly able to publicly align himself with any sort of dorkiness and keep credibility intact. Chelsea Lately sounds like something that I'd rather claw my eyes out than watch, yet the former drummer from Scream looked great in his guest-host opening skit a few days ago. Could you imagine Billy Corgan, Trent Reznor or Eddie Vedder surviving this?
Yes, that's Dave Grohl unloading the riff to "Let There Be Rock" on E!. I hope he gets to host the Oscars next.
A friend stated yesterday (coincidentally or not, on the 8th anniversary of Dimebag Darrell's murder) that glam-era Pantera was better than the Cowboys in Hell (sic) years. With the band's '80s embarrassments still safely out of print, I'm sure that it's hip to say that they're Pantera's best records. But it's also completely wrong.
The "Cowboys from Hell" title is almost ubiquitous with Pantera now, for good reason. How many modern musicians get honorific nicknames? There isn't anything quite up to the Killer, the Boss or the Hardest Working Man in Show Business. The Cowboys from Hell might be as close as we've gotten. A lesser band wouldn't be able to make that title stick, or even sound cool, but Pantera were experts at the implausible.
22 years on, Cowboys from Hell still gives a charge. It's not nearly Pantera's best record, and it's distractingly frontloaded when it plays out. But in some ways Cowboys captures them at their peak. Phil Anselmo delivers some of the most versatile metal vocals in recorded history here, hitting the high notes like the scion of Rob Halford. He's worlds away for the self-consciously macho growler he'd become. Hearing Vinnie Paul's drumming in 1990 must have been like hearing Eddie Van Halen in 1978--his musicianship would reshape metal, if enough folks could figure out what he was doing, learn it and put their own variation on it. Groove metal has been run into the ground in 2012, with Paul's current band at fault in part, but still no one employs a bass drum and a crash cymbal quite like him. That's why some folks can still sit through 30 seconds of a Hellyeah song.
Every metalhead knows at least two songs from Cowboys from Hell--the title track and "Cemetery Gates." The latter gets played at Dimebag tributes every year, especially on December 8, but even without the boneyard-inspired lyrics it serves as arguably Dime's best memorial. If anyone has an isolated guitar track, please post it in the comments section.
I was surprised to find out today that it's Pantera's longest song, at a short seven minutes (how many Led Zeppelin and Metallica songs are longer than seven minutes? I can't keep track.) If another band has stumbled upon that chorus riff, they probably would have drawn it out for the entire song.
Still, my favorite song from Cowboys from Hell is "Primal Concrete Sledge." Outside of a sole Poison Idea cover, Pantera's punk influences are nearly inaudible. More likely, they raised themselves to the Skynyrd and KISS records that hardcore kids turned up their noses at. Yet some of those faster and shorter concepts seeped through to Pantera, or at least enough for them to unleash blistering songs like this one. Phil Anselmo even calls it "a song of unity" in the video here, thousands of miles away (both musically and graphically) from Operation Ivy. Here's Pantera in 1991 at Monsters of Rock in Moscow, possibly hastening the crumble of the Soviet Union.
Indie-rock critics fawned over Harvey Milk, while most of the public ignored them. Their records struck me as more interesting than good, and I actually like this interview wherein the band members trash their entire discography more than most of their actual music. However, their songs were always worth a few listens. With the band casually announcing their indefinite hiatus this week, I'm giving them another spin.
"Motown," from 2008's Life...The Best Game in Town sounds great on a mix tape. Music appropriation has been run into the ground by the G. Loves of the world, then parodied to death by its Daniel Clowes' and Jon Spencers. But Harvey Milk did something bolder--they parodied the actual source. The stoned melody and harmonies sound like they're skewering classic Motown here, taking on something universally revered and hammering it with a deranged, Melvins-worthy sludge. Whoever is playing that solo sounds like he learned everything he knows from KISS' Alive II. Glorious.
On The Great Southern Trendkill, Pantera's Phil Anselmo and Dimebag Darrell were fighting too much to record in the same studio. Darrell was taking out his aggression with alcohol and cars, Anselmo was months away from a heroin overdose. Yet, like the great artists that they were, the band channeled that tension into their most extreme record to date, taking the "experimental fourth album" idea further than nearly any of their metal forefathers.
"Suicide Note, Part 1" starts with effects, over-dubbing and balladry--nothing that one normally associates with Pantera--and wordlessly references Zeppelin in away that reminds me of Neil Young's shout out to the Stones in "Borrowed Tune". But then the sequel abruptly kicks the first one out, as if to remind you that Darrell and Anselmo were not just holding on to life, they were throttling it. Heard together, "Suicide Note, Part 1 & 2" documents a band fighting itself off the edge. But they also depict a light that not enough people get to.
When Das Racist, who just announced their break-up, first grabbed my attention, one thing that impressed me was their tribute to Dio's "Rainbow in the Dark". It's not a well-known song among non-metalheads, and with many music fans still dismissing Ronnie James Dio as being Black Sabbath's Sammy Hagar, I was thrilled to hear the alternarap trio give the man his overdue props (this was before Dio's passing in summer 2010).
Almost 30 years later, that synth riff still grates. It sounds a little like Journey, and you can hear why Dio didn't want to include "Rainbow on the Dark" on Holy Diver, or why he delegated more attention to the guitars when he played "Rainbow in the Dark" live. But you can also hear exactly why he's Jack Black's favorite singer. That impassioned, slightly goofy fury is a line that few singers ever walked so well, and the combination of Dio's usual fantastical lyrics with his then-discouragement over leaving Black Sabbath treated the world to one of metal's best performances.
How did I never hear this song until this weekend?
On this week's Sound Opinions, Jim DeRogatis played this song to make a point that I disagree with (that the Grateful Dead suck) and to direct you to Nick Paumgarten's piece about Deadheads in The New Yorker. But with my Deadheadedness intact, I still get a huge kick out of "Pop Songs," a Suicidal Tendencies track from 2000.
"Pop Songs" takes swipes at the Dead, Britney Spears, Puff Daddy (rhymes with "and his friend the dead fatty") and more, but most of all the increasingly terrible bubblegum punk bands that have been on the airwaves in Dookie's wake. The lyrics are a scream ("If I hear another love ballad/I think I'm going to have to toss my salad,") and the music is even funnier, a formulaic, smoothed-out mall-punk jam that deserves the dance moves that Mike Muir gives it in the song's video. Satire a thin line, and it's hard to walk it without falling over (just ask the Offspring,) but "Pop Songs" is nasty and hilarious enough to keep itself from, as Kurt Cobain once put it, "choking on the ashes of her enemy." Not only that, it's one of ST's best moments.
Some of the best metal bloggers are freaking out this week over the image of Behemoth with producer Ross Robinson that's making it's way through the interwebs. Nothing has been officially announced yet, but of course people are assuming that this means one of the best black metal bands in the world is letting the guy who produced Korn, Limp Bizkit and Vanilla Ice's nu metal record take the reigns. But even if Robinson actually is producing the next Behemoth record, there's no need to raise a stink. Behemoth have been a great band for many years and they've earned your faith in them to make good music.
Not only that, Robinson has produced albums for more good music than you remember, including At the Drive-In, Blood Brothers and the Cure. But his best work is on Roots, Sepultura's last good album.
With every release, Sepultura gets more tribal and less metal, probably to distract listeners from the fact that they no longer have Max or Igor Cavalera. But Roots was a perfect blend of Sepultura's groove metal stomp and tropicália rhythms. I love the heavy percussion of "Ratamhatta," plus the call and response verses with Max Cavalera and Brazilian music hero (and future Oscar nominee, for Rio) Carlinhos Brown. Listen closely to also hear appearances from Mike Patton and a didgeridoo.
Artists like Paul Simon, David Byrne and Peter Gabriel get lauded for dressing rock music in worldbeat rhythms and for giving traditionally non-Western music an international audience. I'd argue that with Roots and "Ratamhatta," Sepultura and Ross Robinson deserve as much acclaim as any of them.
