Song, by Toad

I’m having a hightly schizophrenic time listening to this album.  In the manner of a strident PTA mother slightly out of her depth amongst intelligent people who have been thinking and talking about much bigger issues for years, I find myself struggling to form even the most rudimentary English sentence.  No wait, maybe that’s someone else I’m thinking of.  I’m just struggling to get my opinion straight.

I think my flip-flopping may be simply following the lead of the album itself, because it seems to be enormously variable.  There are times when it is painfully bad – cod soul-rock from another era, lamely pastiched in this one.  There are times when it’s bloody brilliant too – ballsy yet beautiful embodying that weird combination of spirited independence and girlish coquettishness that Lewis herself seems to exude.

She’s forsaken most of the gospel of Rabbit Fur Coat, and now explores a more rock ‘n’ roll direction, occasionally with real verve.  See Fernando is terrific, but Next Messiah has great moments and really cringeworthy ones, epitomising the dichotomy of the whole album.

Amongst the slower stuff, there’s a lovely, easy soul to some of it, lush, intimate aspects to other bits and then irritatingly banal Radio 2 leanings to others.  Godspeed is poor.  Sing a Song For Them is one of the worst songs I’ve heard in ages.  Imagine Michael Jackson’s worst Heal the World instincts dripping around a melody-free plod, with high school harmonies and power ballad guitar finishing off what little remains of your will to live – awful.  But then, Pretty Bird and Black Sand are just lovely and Jack Killed Mom is rollicking.

I hate to say it but you’re on your own with this one people.  Some of it’s great, some of it’s dreadful and I really don’t know what to make of it.  Playlists, I suspect.

Jenny Lewis – Pretty Bird
Jenny Lewis – See Fernando

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Right, disclaimers first. Apparently Sasha Frere-Jones is a respected music critic, so presumably this implies that he is not this bone-headed all the time. Also, given I’ve only read one of his articles I am in no position to judge his general output, but his recent excretion ‘A Paler Shade of White‘ is just bloody thick. He manages to shoehorn needless racist divisiveness, outdated stereotyping and a truly impressive ignorance of indie music into one article which is about… yes, the racial compartmentalisation of popular music.

Generally when people write nonsense like this they defend their idiotic statements by describing it as a ‘thought piece – intended to provoke reflection and debate’. The problem I have with this is that it is possible to justify pretty much any cretinous rubbish on this basis, no matter how infantile, shallow, facile or ignorant. This is not a thought piece, it is lazy and intellectually vacant, and were it not for the fact it happens to be in the New Yorker it would merit no more than a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, perhaps accompanied by a murmur of ‘fuckwit’ or some such similar response. Read the rest of this entry »

I often get the impression that Rilo Kiley generate a blinding fever of Indie Kid Panting Hots syndrome, simply due to the cocky foxiness of eye-candy-in-chief, Miss Jenny Lewis. She’s clearly decided in recent years that she is indeed a bit of a tasty morsel and that she shall be enjoying that for the foreseeable future, thank you very much. Indie kids have, in return for her kindness in parading about in a bunch of extremely short skirts and slightly mystifying leotard thingies, responded by elevating Rilo Kiley to the flagrantly undeserved status of indie heroes.

They’re not gods, they’re shit. Honestly, just not very good at all I’m afraid. I have fucking tried with this lot, honestly I have. Lewis’ collaboration with the Watson Twins on Rabbit Fur Coat produced a truly exceptional album and as such I convinced myself that there must be more merit in her other band than I had managed to notice thus far. I was wrong.

They have a couple of decent songs on More Adventurous – namely It’s a Hit and Science vs Romance – but that’s about it. Eventually I had to give in and admit they were crap, and I felt freer for doing so: liberated of the indie orthodoxy. None of the songs I have heard so far from their latest album persuade me that I am mistaken in discarding them either, and the excruciating video implies that the self-appreciative posturing is only going to increase.

Thing is, how did someone who produced something as lovely as Rabbit Fur Coat find herself unable to write a decent indie album? It’s clearly not just Joanna Newsom syndrome, whereby the highly unusual appearance of an extremely attractive woman in the indie sphere sends all the boys into a state of such frantic excitement that they blindly over-state her talents because they wish she was as talented as the girl in their heads. I mean, Lewis has at least written one blinding record, and having seen her live, she can really, really sing. But once she becomes a part of the band again it just doesn’t work and you get a mediocre album of unmemorable West Coast indie-pop-light. Don’t listen to your hormones boys, Rilo Kiley are the most overrated group in the world of indie at the moment.

Rilo Kiley – It’s a Hit
Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins – The Charging Sky
Rilo Kiley – Silver Lining

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