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Friday, May 15th, 2009

Chartburn: 5/15/09

by The Chartburn Panel

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Mainstream Rock: The Black Crowes, “Remedy” (1992)

David Lifton: It’s easy to mock them, but the Crowes were a good gateway drug if you didn’t know their influences. Those first couple of records had some good songs on them, regardless of how derivative they were. They were unabashed music fans, and had really good taste. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Beau Dure: Really a pretty song and not a bad band, even if Chris Robinson always looked like he’d blow away in a mild breeze. And Kate Hudson, for the record, could surely do better. How many years can you really stay in a serious relationship with a dude whose first love is always going to be herbal?

Scott Malchus: Great rock and roll song. Plenty of swagger and southern blues. Talk about a band that had a good thing and imploded. I wish this song got as much airplay as that damn remake of the Otis Redding song, I’m sure the Robinson brothers feel the same way.

David Medsker: When I first heard the riff to this song, I couldn’t believe that it hadn’t been written yet. It just sounded like something knocking around classic rock radio since 1972. I’ve still never heard a Crowes record in its entirety. I don’t hate them or anything. They just don’t excite me.

Will Harris: I listened to this album a thousand times upon its initial release if I listened to it once, thanks to working at a record store at the time, which would probably explain why I’ve still never gotten around to buying it. But that doesn’t explain why I’ve never bought any of their other albums. Listening to “Remedy” now, however, I think I’ve figured it out: I just don’t really like the Black Crowes very much. (more…)

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Friday, March 6th, 2009

New Radio Roundtable: 3/6/09

by The Chartburn Panel

newradioroundtable

Do not be alarmed! Do not adjust your set! Chartburn hasn’t gone away — it’s just sharing space with some more Friday features, including the the New Radio Roundtable, in which your intrepid Chartburn panel discusses some of the songs going for adds at various formats. And away we go!


Adult Contemporary: Airborne Toxic Event, “Sometime Around Midnight”

Zack Dennis: This song takes itself way too seriously. The band has some terrific buzz, and aside from an excess of gloss, they seem to be pushing the right buttons on the alternative pop machine. But after listening to it a couple of times the excess of emotion starts to wear thin for me.

Beau Dure: In the beginning, I figured this was a bad Explosions in the Sky impression. By the end, I thought it was a pretty good Joy Division impression. I’d tone down the chiming guitar at the beginning, but beyond that, it’s an impressive track. The jealousy builds over the course of the song and boils over at the end, and the singer handles the material far better than most of the fifth-rate Eddie Vedder clones in rock these days.

Dw. Dunphy: I wouldn’t turn this off if I heard it on the radio. It’s equal parts Explosions In The Sky and Arcade Fire, but I kept waiting for the sky to open up on this and only got shouting. Still, with a name like Airborne Toxic Event, I was expecting something much…crappier. We’ll call this a pleasant surprise, if nothing more.

David Medsker: You could usually tell the crappy bands from the good ones by their names alone, but the line is getting blurrier by the day. I wrote off ATE by their name too, and then I heard the album and thought, “Shit, these guys are good.” What am I going to use as a benchmark now? Does this mean I actually have to listen to everyone first before making a judgment on their talent? Fuck.

Jeff Giles: Californian singers who try to sound like they’re British always piss me off; in fact, I still haven’t forgiven Billie Joe of Green Day. But I’ve always been a sucker for rock ‘n’ roll that at least makes the effort to try and sound majestic, and this track gets pretty huge (definitely in an Explosions in the Sky-type way — good call, Beau). Also, Pitchfork gave their album 1.6 out of 10, so I’m inclined to give the band the benefit of the doubt.

Zack: I take umbrage to this song being compared to anything Explosions in the Sky. Their songs go through a variety of changes (tempo, volume, chord structure, atmosphere) while all the Airborne Toxic Event song does is build some tension and get a bit louder. (more…)

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Friday, February 20th, 2009

Freshly Unwrapped: 2/20/09

by The Chartburn Panel

Do not be alarmed! Do not adjust your set! Chartburn hasn’t gone away — it’s just sharing space with some more Friday features, including the new and improved Freshly Unwrapped, in which your intrepid Chartburn panel discusses some of next week’s biggest releases today. And away we go!

David Medsker: Yuck. The singer can’t sing, and the band has no identity.

Beau Dure: After the first song, I was prepared to write a defense of R.E.M.-style jangle rock by another Georgia band. After the second song, I decided it wasn’t worth it. They veered into Nick Cave “We hate the audience — please follow us around blindly and buy shit” territory.

Dw. Dunphy: The initial word on this album seemed to be centralized on the vocals, as in, “Ugh, the vocals…” But I’m a tolerant guy and can take all sorts of musical eccentricity. Plus, the indie sites are falling all over themselves to praise Black Lips. They can’t all be wrong, can they? Hmm, maybe they can. Or maybe I’m just getting too old. I distinctly remember the stuff I listened to in high school and how all the adults branded ‘em “atonal hollering.” Now that I’ve fully confessed that I find these songs nothing more than atonal hollering, I can start boiling all my meals into easily digested soups, rewash and reuse my Baggies and go to bed at 7:00pm every night.

Black Lips, curse you. You’ve made me my grandfather.

Ted Asregadoo: Man, these songs are horrible. Under “Influences” on their MySpace page, I wonder why they didn’t list “Drunk guy singing unintelligible songs while laying in the gutter outside a dive bar”?

Jeff Giles: So this is what “flower punk” sounds like. It’s funny — without looking at a list of their influences, I’m pretty sure I’d dig whatever’s on any of the band members’ iPods, but the Black Lips themselves are close to unbearable. It’s got a slight “Velvets on meth” vibe to it, which means nine out of ten music bloggers will be typing up their reviews one-handed. “Starting Over” could be a great song if a talented band recorded it. (more…)

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Friday, February 6th, 2009

Chartburn: 2/6/09

by The Chartburn Panel

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Mainstream Rock: Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, “I Love Rock & Roll” (1982)

Zack: The only way this song to could get worse would be to have some pigtailed, bubble-gum chewing pop star perform a cover of it. Oh, wait. The rhythm guitar part is so incredibly simple it could have been played by an elementary school band, the guitar solo is laughable, and given the opportunity to choose between listening to Joan Jett’s screech or the sound my own screaming as a fingernail was pulled out, I’d ask if anybody had some bandages and maybe some Aleve for when the throbbing set in.

Ken: Not a favorite, really. Oh sure, if I’ve had enough to drink, and this comes on the jukebox very loud, I might get up, but on any other occasion, it just bores me to tears. It’s one of those songs that people use to define rock ‘n roll, and it just isn’t defining. It’s just mainstream crap really.

Dunphy: Complaining about this song is like complaining about pork rinds. It’s not good for you, and the taste of them kind of turns your stomach, but every so often you can handle it. This is the perfect illustration of lunkhead rock, but it’s not so awful that you’d do something drastic, like change channels or anything.

Jon: Top 40 radio playlist for a typical hour, spring 1982: “I Love Rock & Roll,” “Centerfold,” “Ebony and Ivory,” commercial break, “I Love Rock & Roll,” “Centerfold”… That year had the tightest Top 40 playlists of any in the pre-Soundscan era. Only 15 songs reached Number One all year, mostly because those three songs combined for 20 weeks. Those playlists also were practically lily-white; there’s a reason Columbia had to threaten MTV over Michael Jackson in early ‘83.

I still haven’t commented on the song. That’s because I’m ambivalent about it, and always have been. (more…)

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Friday, January 23rd, 2009

Chartburn: 1/23/09

by The Chartburn Panel

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Mainstream Rock: Blue Oyster Cult, “Burnin’ for You” (1981)

Mike: One of exactly two Blue Oyster Cult songs I’m familiar with (I’m sure we can all guess what the other one is). It’s the kind of meathead early Eighties rock I dig. Whenever I hear the intro I envision a laser-light show.

Dunphy: Otherwise known as “the other good Blue Oyster Cult song,” “Burnin’ For You” is just a nice old slice of hard rock. Buck Dharma’s thick harmony “aaaah aaaahs” lean more toward The Cars than the macabre graveyard imagery the band ordinarily toyed with, but that’s where music was going in 1981. I like it.

Taylor: I wrote a Lost MP3 on this song awhile back. I have the return of KROCK to thank for reminding me how awesome it is. It’s pretty much flawless from the start – the exultant opening riff, the more subtle guitar that sort of tick-tocks, the beefy chorus. I have the ask, though, what the hell are they wearing in the video?

David: I will be the first to admit that my knowledge of Blue Oyster Cult boils down to four songs: the cowbell song, “Godzilla,” “Shooting Shark,” and this. So here’s my question: are these guys really a hard rock band, or just a rock band that occasionally kicked out the jams? I’ve always had the impression that these guys didn’t deserve the title of hard rockers, and this song – along with “Shooting Shark,” which I actually really like – are my evidence. Am I standing on faulty ground?

Zack: Not at all – while this song and “Reaper” rock incredibly hard, I wouldn’t describe either one as hard rock. (more…)

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Friday, November 14th, 2008

Chartburn: 11/14/08

by The Chartburn Panel


Mainstream Rock: Bryan Adams, “Run to You” (1984)

Darren Robbins: This song was the exact turning point for Adams. Up until then, his music has a certain us-against-them quality. While “Run To You” is not a bad song per se, it and the entirety of Reckless (the album on which it appears) is much too polished for my taste.

I like to think that if time travel really were possible, the first thing I’d do is travel back in time and tell Bryan Adams 1984 that I have two songs I’d like to play for him: “All For Love” & “I Wanna Be Your Underwear”. Why, you ask? Because I wanna see Bryan 1984 wrinkle his nose and shout profanities and struggle to find the “off” button before being subjected to another note, all the while trying to keep his lunch down. By doing so, I think I could make the world a better place for everyone.

Dw. Dunphy: About a year ago I got the Live Aid DVD set. I was flipping through chapters and somehow landed on Bryan Adams. Not literally, of course, ’cause I’d have killed him. (Ba-doo-sha! Try the brisket!) At any rate, my brother John walked into the room intrigued. Then he noticed what he was hearing and said, “Oh, I forgot Bryan Adams used to be a rock guy.” And with that one statement the entirety of the Reckless album was put into perspective.

Beau Dure: The first Bryan Adams song I heard was “Cuts Like a Knife.” Good solid rock song. He has spent the rest of his life slowly and painfully sliding into uselessness.

Maybe not that slowly — “Summer of ‘69″ makes me wish the electric guitar had never been invented. (more…)

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Friday, October 24th, 2008

Chartburn: 10/24/08

by The Chartburn Panel


Mainstream Rock: The Who, “You Better You Bet” (1981)

Zack Dennis: Every time I get hooked in by Pete Townsend’s synthesizers, I feel kind of silly. And yet it always happens. While I’d rather listen to the entirety of Quadrophenia rather than any particular single by the Who, the singles almost universally have the capacity to cheer me up and this one is no exception.

Jason Hare: I’m on a lot of Who discussion groups, and Face Dances is generally regarded at the band’s worst studio album — ranked worse than ’82’s It’s Hard — but I quite like it. Perhaps Bill Szymczyk (you know how hard it is to Google that name when you don’t know how to spell it?) wasn’t the best producer for The Who (just as Kenney Jones wasn’t the best choice of drummer), but he helped them create a sound that accurately heralded in The Who 2.0, post Keith Moon. “You Better You Bet” is a ridiculously stupid song but I love it anyway. I love how Pete’s vocals are omnipresent, and Roger sings with fantastic attitude that, for one of the first times, just doesn’t translate to “I’m angry.” (See just about any track from Who Are You).

Ted Asregadoo: Man, I loved this song when it came out — and then I bought the cassette and wanted to return it because I thought someone was playing a joke on me. I mean, yeah, there was this gem and “Another Tricky Day,” but what about everything in between? I thought some smelly socks idiot at the mastering lab dubbed in a bunch of songs from … well, I had no idea where because, to me, it wasn’t the Who singing “Cache Cache” and the other forgettable songs, it was some group who sounded like the Who trying to foist dung on me while calling it prime rib. But hey, who doesn’t love Townshend missing his vocal cue and smiling at his mistake?

Dw. Dunphy: I was as surprised as anyone when longtime Eagles producer Bill Szymczk ended up as the Who’s choice for Face Dances. Yet when you backtrack, it actually makes a little sense. Leaving their comfy home of MCA Records, this was their first Warners release, all old-timers were feeling pinched to prove they still could turn the charts their way and they had the huge hurdle of overcoming Keith Moon’s death. Of course a “hitmaker” was called in, and this is exactly what was expected. “You Better You Bet” is bouncy, snarly, a little dirty and has major hookitude. Townshend employed most of those same hooks on the superior “Let My Love Open The Door.” (more…)

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Friday, October 10th, 2008

Chartburn: 10/10/08

by The Chartburn Panel


Mainstream Rock: The Rolling Stones, “Mixed Emotions” (1989)

Scott Malchus: This was the album when Keith and Mick supposedly started liking each other again. In truth, I think Mick suddenly realized the money-making potential of a group of ’60s and ’70s icons touring endlessly. “Mixed Emotions” began the endless cycle of soulless Stones albums put out for the sole purpose of trying to make them seem relevant. I have never found much of the current music remotely interesting. However, since Rolling Stone gives every Rolling Stones record five stars, I must be in the minority.

Darren Robbins: Is this a Stones or Fabulous Thunderbirds video? I must say, it is difficult to differentiate between the two, but if the singer is shown in full-on Olivia Newton-John aerobics attire (circa Perfect), it’s a Stones video.

Beau Dure: You’re not the only one with mixed emotions, but you’re the only one who listened to this song more than once. The Stones have some solid material in the MTV era, and this isn’t horrid, but it’s not particularly memorable except that I kept thinking “suction my lips” instead of “button your lip” would be a funny opening line.

Dw. Dunphy: I’d imagine longtime Stones fan breathed a sigh of relief when they first heard “Mixed Emotions.” I’d imagine, just the same, that they had their own on the second listen. Why? Because they realized that from here on out, they weren’t getting anything new from the boys (giggle, tee hee, snort.) Don’t get me wrong, if this or any other song from Steel Wheels comes on the radio, I don’t mind. But this was the clear proof that they were only going to recycle the sights, sounds and smells of Some Girls and Tattoo You from then on.

David Lifton: Everything decent the Stones have put out since, say, Tattoo You is basically a recycling of things that they did better years earlier. We get it by now: Keef with the I-IV on an open-tuned Telecaster, Charlie playing that drum pattern that says that he can’t be bothered to come up with anything interesting. The other single, “Rock And A Hard Place,” was basically “Brown Sugar.” But it works on this song because, well, it’s the Stones, dammit. It’s the musical equivalent of when James Bond says, “Shaken, not stirred,” and you still love it no matter which Bond says it. It helps that it’s got a fantastic chorus.

(more…)

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Friday, September 26th, 2008

Chartburn: 9/26/08

by The Chartburn Panel


Mainstream Rock: Metallica, “The Day That Never Comes” (2008) (download)

Robert Cass: It’s time for me to come clean with all of you — I’m from the future. Though I’ve been living among you for some time now, I was born in a more technologically advanced age in which time travel is possible. Unfortunately, they don’t make ‘em like they used to, so my time machine broke once I arrived here. While I wait for repairs to be made and tricked-out accessories to be added by a man named Robert Zemeckis, who I was told could help, I’m basking in the awesomeness that is 2008.

You people really don’t know how good you’ve got it. For instance, did you know that the music of this decade is the best music of all time? It’s true! Those of you who think the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, or ’90s produced the best pop music are hopelessly stuck in the past, whereas I’m literally stuck in the past, but at least I know for a fact that music peaked in the “aughts,” so I actually have something to get misty-eyed about.

Ah, 2008. It was the last time Metallica would put out an album. In 2010 they broke up after Kirk Hammett’s hair plugs gained artificial intelligence and strangled him in his sleep. He was the buffer between James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, who couldn’t get along without him there to block their punches. Hetfield retreated to a cabin in the Ozarks, where his homemade brand of “light” moonshine made him a billionaire, and Ulrich retreated to Middle-Earth, where he became a wizard.

In the future there is no war. But there are still anti-war videos. It gives liberals something to do on their down time at the re-education camps.

Beau Dure: Re-education? Does that mean in the future Americans are educated in the first place? That’s an improvement.

As for me, my nightmares about the “One” video will be replaced by nightmares that we get to the future by listening to this dull remake of it over and over, eight grueling minutes at a time. (more…)

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Friday, September 12th, 2008

Chartburn: 9/12/08

by The Chartburn Panel


Mainstream Rock: Robert Palmer, “Simply Irresistible” (1988)

Dw. Dunphy: Simply inescapable. It’s a big old, synth-laden AOR kind of rocker that does what it has to do. I can’t say that I either like or hate the song — it just is. It’s just a shame that for all the music Palmer made in his life, he’ll be remembered primarily for this and “Addicted To Love.”

Will Harris: I can’t believe we live in a world where Heavy Nova is currently unavailable on iTunes, but such is the case. This song suffered a major blow to its credibility upon its initial release because of its association with a Pepsi commercial, but it’s aged really well, I think. I have a suspicion that some of the women in the video still consider this video to be the highlight of their career, however, and that makes me a little sad.

Zack Dennis: I think it’s pretty amusing that only the models in the back row are allowed to dance. The frantic efforts of the girls in black dresses just simply draw attention to the sense that everything in both the video and the song itself really feel like they’ve been phoned in. With the recycled chords and styles, this song basically feels like “Addicted to Love,” except it comes with a new hat!

David Lifton: Ah, the old industry standby, the follow-up single that sounds like the first hit, but piles it on a little bit more. It’s usually a big commercial success, but as Wayne’s World 2 and the New Testament prove, the sequel is rarely as good as the original.

David Medsker: Quoth the poet laureates the Pussycat Dolls, be careful what you wish for ‘coz you just might get it. Palmer was making the last album in his deal with Island, and needed a hit. Boom, “Addicted to Love,” which he parlayed into a fat contract with EMI. What did EMI want from Palmer? Another “Addicted to Love.” And there you are. Wasn’t terribly fond of it at the time, but as Will said, the song’s held up rather well. (more…)

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