HATE TO ADMIT IT, BUT…
“Get the Party Started”
Pink
Missundaztood
2001 | Arista
A-

The litmus test for the average pop song’s crossover potential from annoying pop song to temporary soundtrack of everyone’s life is a tight-knit group of four bitchy, twentysomething rock chicks. Listen: Summer 2002, I’m enjoying my last few months of Midwestern purgatory, working triple shifts, saving money for the big move to New York, fresh-faced and newly graduated from my mediocre state school of choice. My life that summer consisted of time spent in exactly five places-my tire-changing job, my pizza job, my radio station job, bars I was playing shows at, and bars I was getting shitty at. It was in this latter place that I understood the true ubiquity of Pink’s “Get the Party Started” for the first time.
More on Pink | “Get the Party Started”

HATE TO ADMIT IT, BUT…
“Get the Party Started”
Pink
Missundaztood
2001 | Arista
A-

The litmus test for the average pop song’s crossover potential from annoying pop song to temporary soundtrack of everyone’s life is a tight-knit group of four bitchy, twentysomething rock chicks. Listen: Summer 2002, I’m enjoying my last few months of Midwestern purgatory, working triple shifts, saving money for the big move to New York, fresh-faced and newly graduated from my mediocre state school of choice. My life that summer consisted of time spent in exactly five places-my tire-changing job, my pizza job, my radio station job, bars I was playing shows at, and bars I was getting shitty at. It was in this latter place that I understood the true ubiquity of Pink’s “Get the Party Started” for the first time.
More on Pink | “Get the Party Started”

ORIGINALITY CORNER
There’s something to be said for the comfort of a tiny and dingy jazz club hiding beneath a New York City street, especially when it hosts a class act. Recently, Cynthia Sayer, a name that should be branded into every jazz fan’s repertoire, stands alone and strong in what she does. Beyond making beautiful music on her banjo, a set with Sayer is a set with heart.

Not too long ago at a gig at Smalls, Sayer commented on how she loves to play little places because of their intimacy level. She’s absolutely right, and they love her. Being up-close to her music is much like a family gathering in a cozy living room.  Clapping hands and singing along is perfectly acceptable. Her hybrid jazz presentation and theory is like no other incorporating bluegrass and folk, with ragtime and swing, while grounding structure in jazz. The consideration Sayer puts into every single note is apparent and appreciated; time shouldn’t be rushed.  Conceptually keeping with the twang, remarkable composition is what Sayer does best.
More on Pleasing Cacophonic Banjo

ART OF SONG
“Under The Bridge”
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
1991 | Warner Bros.

Some well-known bands stick around for decades because they luxuriate in their superior talent, consistently crafting classic albums, with perhaps the occasional miss, and sounding excellent live. Others manage to maintain their audience despite their minimal talent by relying on marketing shtick guided by the dictations of actuaries. And still others hang around by routinely creating decent, but forgettable music that hovers in a lasting homeostasis of earnest mediocrity. The Red Hot Chili Peppers generally find themselves in this final category, releasing with commendable regularity albums that carry on their identity, which, to their credit, they have never sold out on, but that fail to deliver any indelible mark. That said, in their career, they have once managed to push beyond their limitations and produce a truly memorable album: 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik. And since the album’s release, “Under The Bridge” has remained one of its best tracks, providing an example of the lyrical gloss that makes Blood Sugar Sex Magik shine.

With it, the band revels in a type of storytelling, discussing heroin addiction and its former control over the lives (and, in the case of founding member Hillel Slovak, death) of certain band members. Anthony Keidis abandons his usual frenetic masculinity in favor of a nuanced handling of the lyrics. The rest of the musicians follow suit, holding back from stepping too heavily on the Alpha pedal, and instead exploring the melancholic depth and tone that give the track resonance. While this song is certainly a rare gem for the Chili Peppers, it secures their position as a respect-worthy group. After all, what beautiful song, regardless of who has created it, isn’t a rare gem?

by Alicia Dreilinger

http://www.redhotchilipeppers.com/

ART OF SONG
“Under The Bridge”
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
1991 | Warner Bros.

Some well-known bands stick around for decades because they luxuriate in their superior talent, consistently crafting classic albums, with perhaps the occasional miss, and sounding excellent live. Others manage to maintain their audience despite their minimal talent by relying on marketing shtick guided by the dictations of actuaries. And still others hang around by routinely creating decent, but forgettable music that hovers in a lasting homeostasis of earnest mediocrity. The Red Hot Chili Peppers generally find themselves in this final category, releasing with commendable regularity albums that carry on their identity, which, to their credit, they have never sold out on, but that fail to deliver any indelible mark. That said, in their career, they have once managed to push beyond their limitations and produce a truly memorable album: 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik. And since the album’s release, “Under The Bridge” has remained one of its best tracks, providing an example of the lyrical gloss that makes Blood Sugar Sex Magik shine.

With it, the band revels in a type of storytelling, discussing heroin addiction and its former control over the lives (and, in the case of founding member Hillel Slovak, death) of certain band members. Anthony Keidis abandons his usual frenetic masculinity in favor of a nuanced handling of the lyrics. The rest of the musicians follow suit, holding back from stepping too heavily on the Alpha pedal, and instead exploring the melancholic depth and tone that give the track resonance. While this song is certainly a rare gem for the Chili Peppers, it secures their position as a respect-worthy group. After all, what beautiful song, regardless of who has created it, isn’t a rare gem?

by Alicia Dreilinger

http://www.redhotchilipeppers.com/

TOP DOG
Kanye West has gotten a jump on 2009 and already ingratiated himself to President Barack Obama, and has found time with Louis Vuitton designers Marc Jacobs and Paul Helbers to unroll a new line of sneakers that have recently shoed down a runway in Paris.

Asked about why he’s designing sneakers, West tells all: “For me, like, this is one of the biggest moments in my life, cause I was designing stuff since like fourth grade. I went to art school.” Breaking out into a new genre, sneakers, West elevates himself to the category of rappers designing kicks, shared by Eminem/Nike, Missy Elliot/Addidas, and Pharrell Williams/Ice Cream Shoes.

West, looking less shorn than usual, has also performed at an inaugural ball for President Obama. The blogosphere has been extremely chatty about West’s live performances since 808’s and Heartbreak was released, citing that his live use of Autotune is either annoying, dishonest, or totally non-functioning (a la his drowning in boos in front of a fiery video projection during a recent Saturday Night Live performance).

The execution of his inaugural performance seemed right on, though. Kanye West and company accelerated through a seven-minute medley of West’s catalog, including “Stronger,” a song he did with Daft Punk. At the end of “Heartless” he changed the accusatory lyric “how could you be so heartless?” to a supportive “Obama” and gave his mom a shout out: “my Mom would be so proud right now to see her baby boy performing the number one song in the country right for our new African American president… being that she got arrested in the sit-ins at age six.”

In two weeks we’ll return to review Kanye’s new hairdo: the afro-hawk.

by Thomas Wilk

http://www.kanyeuniversecity.com/

HATE TO ADMIT IT, BUT…
“What’s Up?”
4 Non Blondes
Bigger, Better, Faster, More!
1992 | Interscope
B+

You’re in a medium-sized town in the Midwest. Not a big enough town that you can reference it by saying the city’s name without also saying the state, but big enough that you aren’t met with blank faces. It’s a college town, but one that’s no more or less remarkable than any other college town. There’s no major sports team or teeming musical hotbed. For brevity’s sake, we’ll call this town…Urbana, IL. There’s stuff going on in Urbana, but not a lot of stuff. There’s kids there, but they’re largely inactive. If you find yourself in Urbana, IL, spend an hour standing on any street corner. During that hour, two hundred cars will drive past. One out of every seven of those cars will be stuffed with between two and four twenty-something girls, blasting the easy-to-dismiss 4 Non Blondes’ only single, 1993’s “What’s Up?”
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FRESH BAKED
Blitzen Trapper
Furr
2008 | Sub Pop
B+

Nothing about Blizten Trapper’s Furr surprises me. I’m not surprised that it’s tragically uneven, nor am I surprised that its gravest missteps are nearly un-listenable, nor am I surprised that its successes are revelatory and truly breathtaking. I’m not surprised because I’d spent time with Blitzen Trapper’s previous Wild Mountain Nation, which, I admit, I found so off-kilter and unbalanced that I could hardly give it a fair and thorough listen; I’m not surprised because I’ve read frustrating interviews with singer and primary songwriter Eric Earley which so effectively illustrate a unique and isolate songwriting voice, seemingly entirely disinterested in anything other than the expression of his own singular vision.
More on Blitzen Trapper | Furr