|
 The
Major Lift
By
Erik Hage
I
often argue that pop music is the most influential mass medium,
particularly when it comes to role models. Consider the fact
that you can sometimes tell what kind of music a person listens
to simply by their appearance, whether they be an emo kid,
a heavy-metal head, or simply a middle-aged guy in a loud-print
Jimmy Buffett shirt. I don’t think there is a comparable phenomenon
in other media. Can you ever tell what kind of movies or TV
shows or video games a person consumes simply from the way
they present themselves? (Yes, this discussion of “role models”
is going somewhere; I realize we’re on shaky ground here.)
I think the influence also stems from pop music’s muddling
of fiction and reality. I know that Bruce Willis is not a
cop on the edge, and if I admire him it probably has little
to do with who he really is. But when Pete Townshend says
he “woke up in a Soho doorway,” I’m pretty sure it’s coming
from some deeply personal place. And when rappers tell listeners
to “Stop Snitchin’,” one can be sure that many are going to
take that imperative seriously. (Conversely, I know that when
Billy Joel sings about the life of a Long Island fisherman,
he probably doesn’t know the stern from . . . the other end.)
 Pop
stars slip in and out of reality and fiction, and it’s often
hard to find the line between them and the “roles” they play;
the line is clearer with actors. Along with all of this come
the personal mythologies: It’s hard to listen to Exile
on Main Street without thinking of whiskey and narcotics
and, by association, Keith Richards. I can’t listen to “Good
Vibrations” without thinking of the bad vibrations in Brian
Wilson’s psyche. And I can’t listen to Velvet Revolver’s
sophomore album, Libertad, without thinking of
Duff McKagan’s pancreas and the depths of alcohol and rock
& roll excess it must have taken for it to (as Duff will
tell any interviewer) “explode” back in 1994.
Guns N’ Roses, more than any other group, were able to take
the mythology and lessons of the hard-rock past and create
a compelling new chapter. But Velvet Revolver, more so than
Axl Rose’s current Guns N’ Roses (whose Chinese Democracy
LP has been hung up in creative limbo for over a decade),
are clearly the next—albeit more sober—chapter in GNR lore.
And if there’s a reason for their existence, it’s to bring
Slash’s dirty, guitar-boogie pummel back to the world. Scott
Weiland doesn’t have the constitution or distinct weirdness
to pit himself against Slash in equal measure, not the way
that Axl did with his rangy coven howl. So Slash becomes the
frontman, with Weiland essentially a texture deeper in the
mix (undoubtedly a decision of producer Brendan O’Brien, who
understands big guitars like few others).
 I
didn’t find the band’s debut striking at all, and I like Libertad
just a bit more simply because it’s a more apt showcase
for Slash’s guitar meat. Lyrically, everything is lost in
the mix or simply wasted on simplistic, L.A.-sleaze platitudes
(e.g., “Sister keep her motor clean”). Even “For a Brother,”
an ode to Weiland’s late sibling (who met the fate that many
had predicted for Scott) lapses into obtuseness. So we’re
left with Slash, and Sorum and McKagan—his Guns rhythm section—who
couch his ballsy scrum in their mighty artillery swing.
And Slash delivers: He revs it in a midrange wallop you can
feel in your chest on the opener “Let It Roll,” he follows
that up with the low monolithic clobber of “She Mine” and
“Get Out the Door,” he deals up those brief lashing leads
(often augmented by wah-wah) and peaks out with the fuzz-bomb
groove of the first single, “She Builds Quick Machines.” Surprisingly,
the group also earnestly covers ELO’s “Can’t Get It Out of
My Head,” which gets a bit overwhelmed by Slash’s big stormy
rolls of guitar. (You can sense cross-purposes here: Weiland
wants to play it sweeter, Slash wants to pummel and wail.)
This is not a bad album, but it only whets the appetite for
something else—perhaps a genuine GNR reunion. Who knows? Other
hopelessly bitter rock rifts have surmounted those walls of
attrition for a payday.
Sum
41 take an opposite tack on Underclass Hero: After
only seven years in the game, they shoot for relevancy and
maturity. Their rock vision is not the libidinous muscle of
Velvet Revolver; rather, they decide to push their pop-punk
toward “big statements,” and while they still sound like Blink-182,
they seem to be having a  whole
lot less fun than either band were having a few years back.
The title track holds out hope with its punk batteries, but
the passages of troubled romanticism and pensiveness in tracks
like “Walking Disaster,” “Count Your Last Blessings” and (yikes)
“Confusion and Frustration in Modern Times” undercut a lot
of what was bratty, playful and fun about this band.
Grace
Potter and the Nocturnals’ major-label debut This Is
Somewhere is another case of a not-so-jammy band from
the jam-band circuit building a grassroots fan base. (The
Vermont-based band started at St. Lawrence University in 2002.)
The group sound best when Potter’s vocals can settle in on
long, slow soulful stretches. She’s a classic, bluesy rock
crooner, and she settles perfectly against her Hammond organ
and the dogged soul arrangement of “Apologies.” “Big White
Gate” swings things in an Americana direction, coming off
like power-ballad country. This is a rock band in the truest,
most indefinable sense, pulling in strains of blues, country
and roots music, like the band in the bar who unexpectedly
creep into your consciousness in a good way.
Talib
Kweli’s Ear Drum is a powerful new addition to
the hip-hop canon. In a strikingly original move, “In the
Mood” blends cinematic, nearly Cole Porter-like flourishes
with Kanye West’s rapping. And that’s the hallmark of this
album: slamming hard-edged hip-hop against classy, nearly
symphonic, pseudo-jazzy strains. It’s a mind-boggling blend,
especially on the threatening, profanity-laced “Say Something.”
It’s like black-tie meets gangsta, and the album is compelling
listening. The track also features the striking homage “Kicking
niggas out the club like  Michael
Richards.”
The latest export from the bubbling Houston rap scene is UGK’s
Underground Kingz, which pales in comparison to Kweli
with uncreative, offensively lumpen tributes like “Two Type
[sic] of Bitches,” featuring Dizzee Rascal. (“You got bitches
that do and bitches that don’t.” Did you spend all night on
that, Shakespeare?) This group has actually been around for
a couple of decades and were put on ice for three years while
Pimp C did some time. So while they have street credibility,
they don’t have much artistic merit based on this album.
Luke
Bryan is the latest heartthrob country singer on Capitol
Records. There are a lot of “all hat, no cowboy” singers in
the genre, but Bryan comes off a bit more genuine on I’ll
Stay Me. He’s a true songwriter for one, having had songs
cut by Travis Tritt, among others. “All My Friends Say” has
an appealingly good-time honky-tonk gallop and avoids the
attempts at cornpone humor or sentimental hogwash that define
the genre lately. Even the one song that skirts idealized
rural sentimentality, “We Rode in Trucks” (Luke’s “where I
grew up” song), is solid and well-arranged, if a bit lyrically
obvious. It’s like a nonliterary version of Gram Parson’s
“Hickory Wind.”
Since this is a column about the major labels, I’d like to
finish with a little food for thought: Warner Music now has
an arm called the Independent Label Group. This means that
numerous already successful indie labels will maintain their
name but use Warner’s promotion and distribution. (This, they
call “relative autonomy.”) Warner gets a percentage of sales
and can option an artist for their larger labels if the artist
does well on the charts. I cast no judgment, but that’s a
whole lot to  think
about, isn’t it? Could this be a case of the Leviathan becoming
the parasite?
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