Stultitia Delenda Est

Artist: The Decemberists
Album: The King is Dead
Label: Rough Trade Records
Release Date: 2011.1.17
Score: 10/10

Say what one will about the Decemberists, they’re certainly a unique band. Their fantastic themes and skillfully crafted, folksy rock have made them an important (and popular) part of the modern Indie scene. They’re also a band that manages to extract a lot of diversity out of a unique musical voice.

After their last album, 2009′s The Hazards of Love, I was a little afraid that they’d gone off the rails. Don’t get me wrong, I actually really like the album, but album-length Fantasy rock operas are typically a late-stage stunt for a band. So I was really not sure what to expect from a new release with the typically Decemberists-like (Decemberesque?) title of The King is Dead. What I got was a well-crafted folk-rock album with just enough fantasy to make it interesting. It was, in short, everything I had hoped for.

The whimsical, fantastic touch that Colin Meloy and co. bring to their work is much lighter in this album than in previous ones. It’s almost as if, having overdosed on whimsy a few years ago, they felt the need to tone it down a bit and focus on the important things: solid rock grooves, engaging lyrics, and sweeping, folky melodies. And that focus definitely pays off.

And it does so right from the off. The lead track, “Don’t Carry It All” marries stomping percussion with bright melodies, shimmering guitars, and anthemic vocals. It’s a fun tune and it sets a great and gutsy tone for the rest of the album.

Another great tune is the single from the album, “Down by the Water”. Here, Colin Meloy is at his lyrical and vocal best. There are so many perfect lines in this song (“I was just some towhead teen/lookin’ ’round for fingers to get in between”), and each one is backed by tight, carefully crafted noise and clatter. Rock solid drums are covered over in a wash of cymbals, harmonica, accordion, and fuzzy guitars. It’s noisy and gorgeous and I absolutely love it.

While it is much toned down here, the Decemberists’ whimsy isn’t entirely missing from The King is Dead. “Calamity Song” is rollicking tune about a dream of the apocalypse. (Its chorus also features the most striking vocal melody I’ve heard in a long time.) “Rox in the Box” is mining song with a feel of mythic dread about it. It’s dark and fantastic in all the right ways, with warbling strings and fatalistic prognostications of dreariness and death. And yet it still manages to bring a smile to my face with jangly guitars and playful alliteration (“you won’t make a dime on this gray granite mountain mine”).

The King is Dead is my favorite Decemberists album since Her Majesty…. It’s also definitely the most accessible Decemberists album to date. If you like good folk music or good rock music or especially if, like me, you’re a sucker for the blend of the two, then you definitely need to grab a copy. It’s a unique, well-executed record from one of the most interesting bands in the business.

Postscript: You’ll notice that this record was put out by the venerable Rough Trade Records. May I just say: God damn but it’s good to find a veteran record label that’s still vibrant. Rough Trade Records has been around for over 30 years, and I never thought they’d put out anything this far away from their punk roots. That sort of adaptability is, methinks, why Rough Trade is still around and, e.g., Factory Records (formed in the same year) is not. It’s also why I hope to still be listening to Rough Trade imprints 30 years from now, and I don’t think the Big Four can die quick enough for my tastes.

Sorry content’s been so light the past few days. I’m just finishing up putting in >40 hours of work in just three days. Content later, sleep now.

While you’re waiting on me, you should definitely check out Merlin Mann’s new joint. It’s a good time, and helpful to boot.

Bad grammar convicts Ambassador of war crimes.

The quote from the article:

The officials, Pierre-Richard Prosper, a former United States ambassador at large for war crimes [Ed.—you can't make this shit up], and Michael Shanklin, a former Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Mogadishu, are both serving as advisers to the Somali government, according to people involved in the project. Both Mr. Prosper and Mr. Shanklin are apparently being paid by the United Arab Emirates.

From Mssr. Prosper’s wikipedia page:

Pierre-Richard Prosper (born 1963 in Denver, Colorado, USA) is an American lawyer, prosecutor and former government official. He served as the second United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005.

Sometimes hyphens make all the difference.

Please marry me, you sexy, sexy beast.

Love,
AMB

A large part of it, anyway.

Damon Root, over at Reason’s LiveBlog of the SotU, wins this one, I think:

Instead of corporate welfare for yesterday’s firms, corporate welfare for tomorrow’s.

EDIT: Root will actually be splitting the prize with Brian Doherty for this gem of a summary:

Smoked Salmon, drilling a 2,000 foot hole to our future.

It just so happens that, in the past couple days, I’ve stumbled across several utterly charming videos of people with their kids. Being a music geek, here are my two favorites.

First up, this kid lays down the wicked grooves:

Baby’s First Audition from alex on Vimeo.

Secondly, Jorge and Alexa Narvaez cover “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros:

Back in late 1999, I was a Sophomore in high school and, like most Sophomores in High School, I was convinced that the world was some kind of terrible. So when I started to hear talk of this dreaded “Y2k” bug, my general response was one of “of course, that makes perfect sense, now the world’s gonna suck in one more way.”

But the more I read about it, the more I realized that the people talking about Y2k fell into two broad categories:

1.) Those who knew a lot about Y2k.
2.) Those who could make money off of Y2k

Unsurprisingly, the people in category 1.) weren’t very worried. The people in category 2.) couldn’t stop talking about how worried everyone should be (oh and by the way buy our product.)

So I formed a hunch that maybe, just maybe, Y2k wasn’t that big a deal. Uncharacteristically for a teenager, I assumed a stance of cautious optimism.

And then, when Jan. 1st, 2000 CE rolled around, something funny happened.

Nothing at all.

Not a single glitch that I can recall. Pretty much all the computers seemed to work more or less as they had the previous day. Y2k was, essentially, an over-hyped myth that was all fear.

And it was hardly an isolated incident. Over the intervening decade, I started seeing an amazing and heartening trend: doomsayers were almost always wrong, and the rare optimists among us were usually right. What’s more, the closer I looked at the world around me and the more I learned about history, economics, and the world at large, the more I realized that it wasn’t just the doomsayers that were wrong. It was pretty much everyone who, like me, thought the world was a shitty place to begin with.

Simply put, the more I learned, the more awesome the world turned out to be. Almost everywhere I looked, I found that things were better than I’d expected.

Now that’s not to say that there isn’t real horror in suffering in the world, as there certainly is. But for a large part, I consistently found things to be better off than I initially expected them to be. And I don’t think that I’m alone in my misguided pessimism.

What got me thinking about this today was reading this Op Ed in the Washington Examiner, and the article (PDF warning) to which it links. The punch line? People (even students of Economics) are unduly pessimistic about the state of the economy.

I think that the phenomenon is more general than that. Furthermore, I think that the source of this pessimism is the structure and incentives of the modern media, combined with modern democracy’s obsession with security and centrism.

My thesis can be broken down into the following three points:

1. Things are better than you think.
2. You think things are bad because the media tells you they are. The media does this because fear and horror sell.
3. Politicians exploit this fear by telling you they can and will fix these problems, even though they can’t and won’t.

I intend to try and prove my case by examining several common areas of pessimism, including but not limited to Crime, Terrorism, the Economy, Disease and Healthcare, Technology, War, and Trade. I, of course, won’t be tackling these all at once, rather I’ll do this as an occasional series.

So stay tuned for the first installment coming . . ., uh, at some point, when I have time to research it properly.

“Gee, You’re so Beautiful That It’s Starting to Rain”
By Richard Brautigan

Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsicord.
I want high school report cards
to look like this:

Playing with Gentle Glass Things
A

Computer Magic
A

Writing Letters to Those You Love
A

Finding out about Fish
A

Marcia’s Long Blonde Beauty
A+!

Artist: Cake
Album: Showroom of Compassion
Label: Upbeat Records
Release Date: 2011.1.11
Score: 8.5/10

Long hiatuses are always scary for the fans. Typically, the longer a band goes without recording, the further away that new record will be from their older material. Definitely in style and all too often in quality.

So when I heard that Cake was releasing a new album seven years, I met the news with both a smile and a cringe. (A “sminge”, I shall call it.) I mean, after seven years, would the old magic still be there? Would they still be able to create that perfect mix of sweet horn lines, catchy pop riffs, and sardonic lyrics?

Turns out I needn’t have worried. Showroom of Compassion is easily as good as some of Cake’s earlier work. Is it different? Sure, but only in the fact that it feels a lot more mature than their earlier works. The horns don’t have the gimmicky feel that they occasionally had on earlier records, instead being limited to tasteful blares and well-crafted melodies. The guitar and bass riffs are more subdued, but no less fun or recognizable. (Cf. “Got to Move” which is built on a guitar that alternates between chunky, staccato hooks and long, descending lines, both of which perfectly fit the lyrics and the feel of the tune.)

Stylistically, the album isn’t too much of a shift. If you liked the sweeping, poppy grooves of Cake circa Comfort Eagle you’ll find a lot here to like. “Sick of You”, for instance, takes classic Cake themes of anti-consumerism and interpersonal emptiness and wraps it in fuzzy guitars and tasteful, horn-led counter-melodies. It’s got the classic Cake feel from the plodding drums, to the shouted backup vocals, to the filtered, sung-spoken vocal interlude.

Which isn’t to say that the album isn’t without its departures from form. “Easy to Crash” is a meandering-synth heavy track, with a ballad-y feel and some wicked heavy drum fills. And yet, for having several atypical elements, it still manages to feel like a Cake track. This, I think, might be one of the hallmarks of a great band: even when they change their style, they’re still instantly recognizable.

But one of the most notable tracks on the album is the opener. To any Cake fan hearing the album for the first time, “Federal Funding” will set aside any worries they may have had re: album quality. It’s sarcastic, cynical, and fun, with layered horn lines, clattery drums, and some truly slick guitar hooks. In short, it’s everything you might love about Cake in one lovely little package.

So for Cake fans, I have only to say that, yes, I was worried, too. But I needn’t have been. This is Cake almost as good as they get. (I think I might like Comfort Eagle and Fashion Nugget a bit more, but Showroom of Compassion is definitely up there in quality.) For everyone else, I say, this is as good a time as any to start loving Cake. So go, buy the record, and enjoy.

And by the time you’ve worked your way back through the rest of their albums, maybe they’ll be ready to release another one. Let’s hope it’s not another seven years.

Magic Blue Smoke believes Rejectamentalist Manifesto’s beliefs regarding the government’s habit of “believing” to be well-founded and believe we agree with RM’s belief that government beliefs should be held in suspicion.

Believe.