An addendum to my review of Baby Ghosts

As I was driving to Scouts last night with Dave and Caleb, we listened to Baby Ghosts again and I had some more thoughts about the album, some of which have been bouncing around in my head over the last week, but didn't end up in the review. I dictated as I drove, Dave wrote, and here is an edited transcript. 

(1) There is a horn on Oil/Sunshine that blares somewhere in the second verse which screws me up every time I am driving. Every time the song starts, I remind myself, "There is a horn two minutes in that will make it sound like someone is honking at you. Don't freak out. You're a great driver that never deserves to get honked at." Doesn't matter. I forget, the horn sounds, I whip my head around and start yelling, "What's your problem, you medieval..." and then I remember that I am a great driver and it's just a Baby Ghost.

(2) There are no (apparent) synths in the album and it just reminds me how synths now ride unchecked across the rock landscape, sucking the vitality out of bands and listeners alike. I think our generation failed in inoculating the millennials against synths and now they must suffer the same pains as the 80s teens. Bands like Baby Ghosts are the antidote. (OK, so on this one I really changed the transcript. As you can see, what I really said was: "Proves now better rock not use synths. Can't get energy." Doug speak like caveman.)

(3) Two female singers! How did I not notice that? 

(4) I am not convinced by your argument that sounding like Meg White is always a bad thing. Sure, she's awful in It's True We Love One Another, but she's really great in In the Cold Cold Night. Besides, the secondary female singer in Baby Ghosts sounds more like Fear of Men than Meg.

(5) The other day, one of my co-workers brought in some persimmons. One of the students claimed it tasted like a fruity pumpkin (good band name). I disagree. It tastes like sugary blandness.

(6) Don't write down everything I say, Dave! Just about the music.

(7) My greatest fear is that Baby Ghosts will lose their energy by adding synths and taking a long time to record more albums. They need to make an album a year like the White Stripes in their heyday. At some point, someone in the band is going to get it into their heads that they need to compose all their new songs on the marimba, and then it's all over.

(8) I can't listen to Cookies anymore. You mention it's the worst thing recorded. But could it be possibly worse than Beachball by REM? I don't think that's possible. I need you to explore this more.

(For the "primary source or it didn't happen!" crowd, here are the original transcripts)

I didn’t get into the details of this album as much as I have with other albums in the past—because I didn’t feel the album asked that of me.  I felt like the album was saying, “Kick back my friend and we will entertain you.  Don’t worry about the details.  Just have some fun.”  So that’s what I did.  And I can say that I do have a lot of fun listening to this album.  And, of course, I love that they’re from SLC. Baby Ghosts is a co-ed Oxford Collapse.  They remind me of each other so much.  The crunchy guitars, the all out thrill of the performance, the bombastic drums.  And I love it.  I love almost everything about this album.  However, after about three or four times through the album, I started to feel like maybe I was wrong; like I’d come in too hot—wanting to like it instead of actually liking it. 

I broke it down over the course of the next listen through.  I had no glaring problems with it.  Except I began to realize I didn’t like the one girl singer—the one with the softer voice.  I’ll just call her Meg (White) because she totally does add to the band but she shouldn’t be given the lead singer duties.  I basically skipped all her songs: “Crash,” “Hevy Hed,” “COOKIES”—which is probably the worst song in recorded history—“alien.edu,” and “Computers/Internets.” I don’t really like those songs.  But when I skipped those songs, or didn’t pay much attention to them, I was back to loving the album! 

I love “MSRPRSNTTN” a lot.  “Ghost Boyfriend.”  “Oh, A Surprise!” (I love the girl yelling “What a surprise!” and “Hiding in plain sight!”) and “Karen” (which, along with “Ghost Boyfriend” remind me most of Oxford Collapse.)

To me, staying power is the greatest test of an album.  And not only can I see myself listening to this album in the future, but this album made me go out and buy their first album and their EPs as well.  So…well done Baby Ghosts.  I almost lost you there at the beginning, but now we’re good.  We’re good.

Drums: 5

Voice(s): 4--keep Meg off the mic

Ghost themes: 2--lots of ghost references with these guys

Local Flavor: 5

High/Low (a statistic I just invented that measures the difference between the high points of the album in relation to the low points--the higher the number the better.  An album with a high High/Low shines in that the lows don't really bring the album down; an album with a low High/Low doesn't have the strength/creativity/energy to rise above it's own low points): 4.  Even though there are basically four or five songs on this album I'd skip right away, the other stuff totally makes up for it.

How quickly it made me want to purchase their other work: 5--immediately

Final note: Coincidentally, you recommend Oxford Collapse AND Baby Ghosts to me and they remind me so much of each other.  Props to DMC.

Album Review: Maybe Ghosts by Baby Ghosts

As Elf Power never said, "Context is king."*

After the Dissolution of Grantland (or The Day the Internet Died), I consoled myself by listening to downbeat French and Spanish-language bands. (My torpor could not be adequately expressed in English, apparently.)

Also, I had been listening to a podcast recommended by my brother-in-law called Song Exploder where bands break down one song layer by layer. And what surprised me is how the process of making many of these songs seemed so cold. Someone playing some beat on a drum machine, running it through some processor, listening to it on a loop for 5 hours, and then piecing it together with other samples and loops they have gathered from various musical charnel houses. All processed in white sterile laboratories while wearing white perfectly tailored labwaistcoats. 

One day, I happened to glance at my Spotify feed and saw that a friend of mine who has musical taste that I respect was listening to Baby Ghosts. Baby Ghosts! No one's afraid of a baby ghost! A baby ghost just mournfully cries and, if you have enough children, you always feel like you are hearing mournful crying from somewhere around the house. You can sleep through a baby ghost. You can't sleep through a toddler ghost that gets right in your face while you are sleeping and then whispers: "Daaaaaad! Daaaaaaad! I have to peeeeeee!" So, with all of this carefully thought through before listening, I was expecting something more twee.

Baby Ghosts is not twee. Not that there is anything wrong with twee (although usually there is).

The energy and passion just flow out of the album right off the bat and never let up. It's probably a little sloppy and a little off-key but because it's done with such energy and life, it doesn't matter. It makes me feel ten years younger, makes me want to get on a plane and go see them live, to go stand in a crowd of Provo hipsters and jump up and down while they all fold their arms and barely nod their heads and give me dirty looks. 

Here are my top four songs with the reason why expressed in the form of a question.

Which song would Baby Ghosts play to defeat Scott Pilgrim and Sex Bob-Omb in a Battle of the Bands? Oh, A Surprise! 

This song rules. It feels like it is going to explode or fall off the rails at any moment. In the chorus, the lead singer is at the top of her range but she is really going for it regardless of if she might not make it but she does make it and it only works because she went for it. Scott Pilgrim wouldn't have a chance.

Which song's lyrics do I want to see scrawled on Megan and Colette's bedposts when they are teenagers? MSRPRSNTTN

My mind is in here/what can your airbrush do with that? 

If they don't scrawl it on the bedposts, maybe we can put it up in vinyl lettering around the living room.

Which song do I want Megan and Colette to quote when they are sitting at the table and letting out their frustrations about being nice to guys? Ghost Boyfriend

I never wanted commitment/I just wanted to visit/but I can't be nice/lest you think I'm a ghost in love

Which song seems like something that two hipsters who are falling in love sing together in the car and when they sing it and stare into each other's eyes while singing realize that the lyrics are the opposite of what they want to have expressed? Oil/Sunshine

Don't go taking all my light, my life, my sunshine.

I freaking love this chorus. And this song encapsulates how the lead girl singer ranges from Sleater-Kinneyeque yelping to Fear of Menesque singing.

I like almost all of the other songs on the album. The only one I am on the fence about is Cookies. The words "cookie" and "treat" shouldn't be sung at all unless by a toddler ghost that is singing a creepy nursery rhyme that portends someone's death.

Ratings:

Would I see them in concert? Yes

Would I wear a shirt of theirs? If it featured the crying cat, yes

Would I kill for them? No

Would I play them if the Three Mels (Blanc, Brooks, and Torme) asked me my opinion on what was hot on the music scene? No, it would be too dangerous to disappoint the three Mels.

Would I play them if the Baldwin Brothers (Alec, Stephen, and Daniel) asked me what was hot on the music scene? In a tiny ghost's heartbeat.

Grade: A

*I think the words Elf Power never said were "invisible men have beat me black and blue" but that's my interpretation of their meaning.

One of those flashback moments

Christina, the kids, and I were driving to Sonic on Monday and what should play on the radio but "Everything Falls Apart" by Dog's Eye View. I was immediately transported back to the summer of 1995 where I decided that I was going to get into music in preparation for high school. I was back on the old green recliner in my room in the basement, listening on my new JVC stereo, writing down all the names of bands and songs, flipping through my brother's BMG catalogs, and circling or putting question marks next to every album. After the song finished, the DJ freaking took a phone request that was dedicated to some girls that broke a dude's heart. I laughed, just like I would have laughed 20 years ago. If they had followed it up with some Better Than Ezra or Collective Soul, I don't know if I ever would have come back.

Appleseed Cast: Two conversations. Another late review

Cleaning up the last of the reviews I haven't finished:

I will not give this one much space.

Times I have started the album: At least 15.

Times I have finished the album: Never.

I am a sucker for an album that has a good beginning. Not just a good track that begins the album, but an actual album intro, that feels bigger than the first track. Like Sgt. Pepper's or Zooropa. Two Conversations has a great beginning. Really great. As in, I get a giddy rush every time I listen to it, which explains why I have started the album many times. In fact, I am starting it again right now and I am pumped. Oh man, here we go, the roller coaster is at the top. And here we gooooo...aaaaaaand, it's all about juvenile love. Again. Every freaking time. To quote Morrissey: "It says nothing to me about my life."

(Somewhere inside me, there's an emo kid yelling at me that I am a hypocrite. That emo kid gets smaller and smaller every year. I feel less sympathetic to the Cast with each passing month. Each listen is shorter. Sorry emo kid.)

Decemberists - The King is Dead: An everlastingly too late review

I think the reason why I have those dreams where I am in high school and it's two-thirds through the semester and I have only been to class once and I know there is a giant assignment due and I haven't done it yet and I wake up in a cold sweat and realize that I must not really have not gone to English class because I am thinking in run-on sentences and that the way I think is the way I am going to write...is because I never completed my assignment to review the Decemberists' The King is Dead.

I come at this album as a fan of the Decemberists, not some dispassionate outsider who sniffs and says things like: "I find them too fanciful" (i.e. Josh). In my early twenties, they represented what indie could be, a genre where intelligent people could write intelligent and witty songs about obscure and historical topics. There were times I would daydream in French class about being in a band that could write about ANYTHING and not be scorned by an audience of jocks, but celebrated by other nerds. (The end of every concert in this imaginary band would be to play The Phony King of England from Robin Hood and have a major ten minute hoedown. If I head that the Decemberists started doing this, I would not be surprised in the least.) I had no faith that such a band could exist because I didn't think there would be enough fans who would want something like this. This is why Picaresque and The Crane are such important albums to me. They are what I always wanted to hear, but never expected could happen. And when they played for something like 100K people in a Portland park during the run up to the 2008 election, it felt like the world had come around and decided to be a better place.

But, I don't like the King is Dead overall. I wish it didn't exist.

Colin Meloy doesn't traffic in American hominess, but in complicated words and complicated worlds. Americana evokes hominess. Too many of the songs are stuck in Meloy trying to shove too many complicated words into a tune that demands homespun plainness (like Don't Carry It All, This is Why We Fight) or trying to be too homespun and sounding completely artificial (Rise to Me, All Arise!, January Hymn, and the dreadful June Hymn).

To me, the successful songs are their attempts to sound like Fables-era REM (Calamity Song) or when they pull off something that sounds that whalers in New Bedford would have played in their bars during their last night in port (the unfortunately-titled Rox in the Box, Down by the Water).

I hate the "hymns" more than anything. The funny thing is that if I had come across January Hymn when the world was stuck in sludge rock in the early 2000s, I would have welcomed lines like "stuffed in strata of clothes" because it would have represented something different. But I am so spoiled now, that I look at that line and say: "He's singing a freaking James Taylor song and larding it up with fancy words." I don't like James Taylor, but if there's something worse than James Taylor, it's trying to sing laid back with fussy lyrics. June Hymn is the nadir of the album. This is one of those songs that works if you think that Colin Meloy has actually been outside in June and reveled in the bursting forth of nature which I just can't believe based on the man's track record. Reading a book inside in June, yes. Lazing outside and being in awe of ivy and the panoply of song? Yeah, that's Mercury Rev's bailiwick.

History is written by the winners and the winners are the Beatles

Stephen Hayden of Grantland had a really great series last summer where he talked about 7 bands who were popular but not critically popular. Because they were not critically popular, when people wrote about the history of rock and roll, they tended to ignore these bands that moved tons of records and sold out stadiums. All of the bands he talked about were bands I had heard of: Led Zepplin, KISS, the Black Keys, etc.

I think I have a pretty good idea about the relative popularity of bands. When I hear that James has sold 15 million albums in their lifetime I think, "Yeah, that sounds about right." If you told me that U2 had sold 75 million albums (I have no idea the number), I would believe it. 

This brings me to Saturday night when I watched a PBS documentary/propaganda piece about the Dave Clark Five. I have heard of the DC5 only because my dad would mention them every once in a while. I thought they were one of these run-of-the-mill bands from the 1960s with a couple of hits like the Animals or the Zombies. But, in this documentary, I am watching thousands of girls welcoming them at JFK, people fainting at their concerts, appearing on Ed Sullivan and being drowned out by the screaming, selling out venue after venue after venue. And then came the kicker. They released something like 15 albums between 1964 and 1970...and sold 100 million albums. 100 million!! In the 1960s, when the population of the world was only 3.6 billion, when the population of the US was something like 150 million, when there were so many fewer foreign markets with populations interested in their music. 

I would guess that roughly 0.5 percent of people born after 1970 have heard of them. 100 million albums and then suddenly they are gone off the face of the earth, scrubbed clean out of the history of rock by the critics. This has thrown my musical world off of its axis. Who else is out there in the annals of rock that was enormously popular and also completely ignored? The obvious 1990s equivalent is Stone Temple Pilots who sold 40 million albums and who are only referenced in rock critic circles as being completely derivative of Pearl Jam. And, yeah, I thought Plush was a Pearl Jam song for a long time because Weiland was trying to sound like Vedder. And yeah, I thought Do You Love Me? by the Dave Clark Five was a Beatles song for a long time because the lead singer sounded like Lennon on Twist and Shout.

But I just don't think that a band that wrote this song and caused this reaction should be forgotten. Let them be critically savaged for all time, but don't forget them.