So what the hell. I was just going to stick to music, then I fell into video games like fucking every other nerd blog out there. So, this is just going to be a depository for all of my writing practice for a while. This in response to a topic on 3D graphics in one of the forums. I go to. Competely out of context, here goes:
I'm on it with Syd. Even back then, if you had an eye for it, you can tell it was shit. Nasty framerates, "realistic" graphics that just looked like a mesh of pixels, and poor direction (we have 3D graphics, now how the hell do we use them?) were easy to notice if you were used to smoother, fleshed out 2D graphics (early N64 PS1 pixel-messes gave-and still give me- nasty headaches). Look at games like FF7 and Symphony of the Night. The latter went adventure game route and added messy-looking characters to superior-looking, more artistically-driven backdrops, while the latter pushed 2D graphics to those rivaling the arcade games that always looked so much better than their home-version counterparts.
Both of those games realized limitations. They understood that they'd never get end-all super-realistic visuals out of the current hardware, so they found their own ways around using expressive animation, art that draws the eyes away from limitations that could not be curted, and other neat tricks. The appealing visual styles coupled with other positive features of the games led to them both being fun, memorable games that still hold up reasonably well by today's standards (while many games popular in those days have been doomed to obscurity, for good reason in most cases).
Everyone says graphics don't matter, and I'll agree to an extent. I don't give a damn about normal mapping if I don't even want to play the game. But the games that are typically held as among the best or more important typically had inspired visual design whether it was Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros., Super Metroid, Doom, Half Life 2, or Braid. The environments, animation, and character design all understood that visuals bring you in and immerse the player, creating atmosphere. Back to the whole early 3D thing, we were so obsessed in those days at trying to make something look realistic or ahead of its time, it ended up all looking ugly, and in unfortunate cases where gameplay took a back seat to graphics, games suffered even worse for it.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Saturday, April 10, 2010
So what is actually wrong with Modern Warfare 2?
So why am I doing this series? Well, after investing a lot of time in the multi-and-single player of Modern Warfare 2, I've come to realize that it's a good game with a lot of glaring flaws and mistakes that a lot of games make these days. I don't intend for this to be a hate article where I scream and bitch about a game being popular when it has a few drawbacks. I do intend for the series to be my soapbox to talk about what it takes to make a fun game with a good plot. That said, most of my criticism will probably be centered around the ridiculously awful plot (compared to the pretty good plot of the first MW game), with the rest mostly tying into that, so be warned that there will be spoilers. That said, to keep everything nice and neat, I will follow the game's plot level-by-level and assess the problems one-by-one as they appear in the game.
First level, S.S.D.D.:
Really, there's not a lot to say about the first few levels. In fact, up to about the end of level three I was ready to declare it to be my favorite modern warfare genre game to date. The first mission, like in Modern Warfare 1, pulls off a rare success in mixing tutorials with gameplay and plot to both be a fun introduction to game mechanics while also setting up a context for the story. In this case, you are a Ranger in Afghanistan tasked with helping to train Afghan Army recruits. The problem with many games these days is that while you're usually set up to be a total bad-ass conqueror, there's always someone in the game world that doesn't think you're quite up to the task of fighting your enemy without first learning that you need to press A to open a door. Here, there's an obstacle course where you get to shoot targets as you move and memorize basic gameplay features. Allowing a player to re-play this course as they please allows them to get used to the game mechanics at their own pace before heading into the fray. I have no real criticism for this level.
Second level, Team Player:
Again, there's not much to say. This level has some good, frantic firefights, broken up by a tense jeep ride where you have to keep your eye out for civilians and un-armed militia before you find yourself in the middle of a huge ambush. I don't have too much to complain about beyond the fact that General Sheperd is placed in a forward combat zone with absolutely no body armor, and supplied with a .44 magnum revolver, which he uses on enemies that are almost a hundred yards away.
Third level, Cliff Hanger:
This is where the game starts to get weird. Put in the boots of a British soldier of a joint US-UK task force, your job is to be part of a two-man team tasked with recovering a lost data module from a Russian airforce base in the middle of the Altai mountains. Nevermind the fact that airfields on top of mountains are almost impossible to fly to/from when you're an exceptional pilot with a small plane, but this game assumes that Russian Military pilots with powerful jets getting racked by the hideous weather can make it there without a problem. Again, this is another well-designed level that is fun and tense whether you're shooting something or not, but it makes the first mistake of creating a stealth level in an FPS. The only time I've ever seen these done well has been in MW1 and the Thief games. Granted MW1's "All Ghillied Up" stealth level was mostly a "follow the leader" affair, where you could only get busted if you were either stupid or trying to, but it realized its limits in that first-person perspectives in games (especially console FPS's) really limits stealth action gameplay. Unfortunately, this stealth level feels bland because you can feel the fourth wall-breaking mess that the developers had to throw on in order to make the section playable, including a blizzard, a heartbeat detector, and idiotic enemy AI among them. There's not much to complain about beyond that, except for one question: What the hell blows up that building at the very end of the snowmobile chase?
Fourth level, No Russian:
Now here's where things get weird, and the plot holes begin to pile up, so I'll just number the mistakes
1. You play as an American named Allen. Don't you think a group of ethnocentrist psychos would be able to spot a non-Russian who hadn't been speaking Russian his whole life? How much training did Allen have to go through in order to get into Makarov's group?
2. Why does Allen have to join in on the attack? Since Task Force 141 in this game is just intent on killing or capturing Makarov, why can't I just kill Makarov and the other attackers right there and save a whole lot of lives?
3. The double-cross at the end makes no sense. For one, there are tons of security cameras in an airport, so it would see Makarov and the other Russian terrorists, and telling from all of the newspaper clippings shown in loading screens, everybody knows Makarov's face and the fact that he's a murdering psychopath. Also, every time I've played through the game, one of the Russian terrorists dies on the tarmac, so what about him, as far as blaming the attack on the US? Weren't there any forensics experts who could also conclude that Allen was shot execution-style in the head, and that no police reported taking him down?
Fifth Level, Takedown:
This is where the game starts to reek of wish-list development without thinking ahead. In this case, we have Rio De Janeiro, a colorful and picturesque locale that has many real-world problems that would seem prime for some Soldier of Fortune reader's wet dreams. It's been featured in several recent military games (H.A.W.K.s is the most recent one I've played), so naturally Infinity Ward would want to take a crack at it. The problem i, that this is where the game starts to follow that weird military game habit of location-hopping to random world spots for no other reason than variety and spectacle. The Tom Clancy games get especially crazy with this. One minute you could be killing Russian terrorists in Russia, then you'll find out you need to kill Spanish terrorists in England, or in the case of some CoD games, you'll be a foot soldier conscript one day, and a tank commander the next, and eventually any plot that was there to begin with just becomes so thin and convoluted, that it breaks the narrative flow. If a respected author started doing this type of thing in his books, he'd either be homeless or Dan Brown.
Plot holes and weirdness:
4) What causes the destruction in the streets near the beginning of the level? There are flaming cars and aftermath explosions, but there's no hint of any major firefights beyond the first few seconds going on at that time.
5) It's odd that instead of taking preventive measures such as using their mole to kill or capture Makarov, Task Force 141 waits until Makarov commits a travesty (without being caught on camera, somehow), then obtain bullet casings from the scene(however they were obtained) that can somehow be traced back to a single man in Brazil, so they send fully armed, conspicuous operatives to chase down a man who might know the location of the person who sold the bullets to Makarov, and then just end up fighting militia in the streets without somehow causing yet another international incident.
Thus ends my analysis of Act 1. I'll be doing these in installments, and addressing multiplayer at the end. Thanks, and I hope you keep reading.
First level, S.S.D.D.:
Really, there's not a lot to say about the first few levels. In fact, up to about the end of level three I was ready to declare it to be my favorite modern warfare genre game to date. The first mission, like in Modern Warfare 1, pulls off a rare success in mixing tutorials with gameplay and plot to both be a fun introduction to game mechanics while also setting up a context for the story. In this case, you are a Ranger in Afghanistan tasked with helping to train Afghan Army recruits. The problem with many games these days is that while you're usually set up to be a total bad-ass conqueror, there's always someone in the game world that doesn't think you're quite up to the task of fighting your enemy without first learning that you need to press A to open a door. Here, there's an obstacle course where you get to shoot targets as you move and memorize basic gameplay features. Allowing a player to re-play this course as they please allows them to get used to the game mechanics at their own pace before heading into the fray. I have no real criticism for this level.
Second level, Team Player:
Again, there's not much to say. This level has some good, frantic firefights, broken up by a tense jeep ride where you have to keep your eye out for civilians and un-armed militia before you find yourself in the middle of a huge ambush. I don't have too much to complain about beyond the fact that General Sheperd is placed in a forward combat zone with absolutely no body armor, and supplied with a .44 magnum revolver, which he uses on enemies that are almost a hundred yards away.
Third level, Cliff Hanger:
This is where the game starts to get weird. Put in the boots of a British soldier of a joint US-UK task force, your job is to be part of a two-man team tasked with recovering a lost data module from a Russian airforce base in the middle of the Altai mountains. Nevermind the fact that airfields on top of mountains are almost impossible to fly to/from when you're an exceptional pilot with a small plane, but this game assumes that Russian Military pilots with powerful jets getting racked by the hideous weather can make it there without a problem. Again, this is another well-designed level that is fun and tense whether you're shooting something or not, but it makes the first mistake of creating a stealth level in an FPS. The only time I've ever seen these done well has been in MW1 and the Thief games. Granted MW1's "All Ghillied Up" stealth level was mostly a "follow the leader" affair, where you could only get busted if you were either stupid or trying to, but it realized its limits in that first-person perspectives in games (especially console FPS's) really limits stealth action gameplay. Unfortunately, this stealth level feels bland because you can feel the fourth wall-breaking mess that the developers had to throw on in order to make the section playable, including a blizzard, a heartbeat detector, and idiotic enemy AI among them. There's not much to complain about beyond that, except for one question: What the hell blows up that building at the very end of the snowmobile chase?
Fourth level, No Russian:
Now here's where things get weird, and the plot holes begin to pile up, so I'll just number the mistakes
1. You play as an American named Allen. Don't you think a group of ethnocentrist psychos would be able to spot a non-Russian who hadn't been speaking Russian his whole life? How much training did Allen have to go through in order to get into Makarov's group?
2. Why does Allen have to join in on the attack? Since Task Force 141 in this game is just intent on killing or capturing Makarov, why can't I just kill Makarov and the other attackers right there and save a whole lot of lives?
3. The double-cross at the end makes no sense. For one, there are tons of security cameras in an airport, so it would see Makarov and the other Russian terrorists, and telling from all of the newspaper clippings shown in loading screens, everybody knows Makarov's face and the fact that he's a murdering psychopath. Also, every time I've played through the game, one of the Russian terrorists dies on the tarmac, so what about him, as far as blaming the attack on the US? Weren't there any forensics experts who could also conclude that Allen was shot execution-style in the head, and that no police reported taking him down?
Fifth Level, Takedown:
This is where the game starts to reek of wish-list development without thinking ahead. In this case, we have Rio De Janeiro, a colorful and picturesque locale that has many real-world problems that would seem prime for some Soldier of Fortune reader's wet dreams. It's been featured in several recent military games (H.A.W.K.s is the most recent one I've played), so naturally Infinity Ward would want to take a crack at it. The problem i, that this is where the game starts to follow that weird military game habit of location-hopping to random world spots for no other reason than variety and spectacle. The Tom Clancy games get especially crazy with this. One minute you could be killing Russian terrorists in Russia, then you'll find out you need to kill Spanish terrorists in England, or in the case of some CoD games, you'll be a foot soldier conscript one day, and a tank commander the next, and eventually any plot that was there to begin with just becomes so thin and convoluted, that it breaks the narrative flow. If a respected author started doing this type of thing in his books, he'd either be homeless or Dan Brown.
Plot holes and weirdness:
4) What causes the destruction in the streets near the beginning of the level? There are flaming cars and aftermath explosions, but there's no hint of any major firefights beyond the first few seconds going on at that time.
5) It's odd that instead of taking preventive measures such as using their mole to kill or capture Makarov, Task Force 141 waits until Makarov commits a travesty (without being caught on camera, somehow), then obtain bullet casings from the scene(however they were obtained) that can somehow be traced back to a single man in Brazil, so they send fully armed, conspicuous operatives to chase down a man who might know the location of the person who sold the bullets to Makarov, and then just end up fighting militia in the streets without somehow causing yet another international incident.
Thus ends my analysis of Act 1. I'll be doing these in installments, and addressing multiplayer at the end. Thanks, and I hope you keep reading.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Back
So, I'm back. I plan on updates these days, with one minor caveat: not all reviews will be new music. I don't have a terrible amount of money to spend outside of my usual bourbon and pistachio budget, so I can't go out and risk $12-$18 on every new indie release, so blog posts will include things I've found, already have, and a few essays as well.
That said, I'm going to dump off something that I've been wanting to say for a long time: Emo doesn't exist. This has been swarming in my head like a pack of drunken hornets for a few years now. A while ago, the term "emo" didn't bother me as much, because it was a quasi-pejorative term of endearment to describe certain bands that typically wrote songs that made mountains out of emotional molehills, but nowadays the term "emo" is pretty much a fully-pejorative term that macho pricks like to use to describe anything that doesn't appeal to their desired self-image of badass masculine bullshit.
To disprove the existence of emo, the first step would be to find its origins. Emo as a musical descriptor first found use during the early-'80s hardcore boom, the pioneer group being Rites of Spring. On paper, Rites of Spring was similar to any other hardcore punk band with the added distinction of lyrical content that mostly focused on emotional anguish revolving around any real topic. This caught on with a lot of bands, inspiring groups like Embrace and Beefeater to try their hands at a similar sound.
It all seems innocent enough, right? Lots of sub-genres are born not only of unique musical traits, but also of unique lyrical traits. The odd thing is that no other main genre of music did this. Simon and Garfunkel and Bob Dylan touched on emotional issues, but they weren't dubbed or dismissed as "emofolk." And if you told a Led Zeppelin fan that Zep was "emo-rock" because they wrote some angsty lyrics, you'd get punched in the head, so why modern music wait so long in order to "create" emo?
The thing is, in hardcore, a sub-genre of music that seems almost hell-bent on tough-guy singers trying their best to look as powerful as they possibly can, a skinny kid screaming about how sad he is sticks out like a sore thumb. So in an effort to keep their desired masculine images going, hardcore kids were all too happy to throw around terms such as "emo-core" to seperate their scene from these groups of kids that were openly weeping in public while Guy Piciotto screamed his head off.
Looking back, "emo" has been applied to bands all over the spectrum, the following being the most mainstream of those who have earned the title of an "emo" band over the past twenty years:
Rites of Spring
Embrace
Beefeater
The Cure
Bauhaus
The Smiths
The Mountain Goats
Jawbreaker (See also: Jets to Brazil)
Neutral Milk Hotel
Sunny Day Real Estate
Jimmy Eat World
Saves the Day
Dashboard Confessional
Weezer
My Chemical Romance
Fallout Boy
Panic! at the Disco
...and so on. Now look at that list, and find a solid, concrete similarity between every single one of them. You'll find pockets of them, easily picking out the confessional, Screeching Weasel-esque pop-punk bands like Fallout Boy and Panic!, or the tormented-poet-with-a-dirty-Takamine acts like Neutral and Mountain Goats showing their Bob Dylan love, but beyond those few substantial conclaves of similar styles there is no major all-encompassing similarity that you can use to dump them all in the same box, save for the tenuous accusation that they all occasionally write emotionally confessional lyrics.
So why go through all of this just to rag on a single word? Because the term "emo" is nowadays used to discredit anything not appealing to one's worldview that all men must be strong, and emotional confession are for women, which doesn't matter, because even when women do it, it should be shunned. So in order to stop a trend that could ruin the introduction of great new music and musical ideas, the word must be made to seem even more meaningless than it is, and to remove its sting so that we can get more great bands like Neutral Milk Hotel and Jawbreaker.
That said, I'm going to dump off something that I've been wanting to say for a long time: Emo doesn't exist. This has been swarming in my head like a pack of drunken hornets for a few years now. A while ago, the term "emo" didn't bother me as much, because it was a quasi-pejorative term of endearment to describe certain bands that typically wrote songs that made mountains out of emotional molehills, but nowadays the term "emo" is pretty much a fully-pejorative term that macho pricks like to use to describe anything that doesn't appeal to their desired self-image of badass masculine bullshit.
To disprove the existence of emo, the first step would be to find its origins. Emo as a musical descriptor first found use during the early-'80s hardcore boom, the pioneer group being Rites of Spring. On paper, Rites of Spring was similar to any other hardcore punk band with the added distinction of lyrical content that mostly focused on emotional anguish revolving around any real topic. This caught on with a lot of bands, inspiring groups like Embrace and Beefeater to try their hands at a similar sound.
It all seems innocent enough, right? Lots of sub-genres are born not only of unique musical traits, but also of unique lyrical traits. The odd thing is that no other main genre of music did this. Simon and Garfunkel and Bob Dylan touched on emotional issues, but they weren't dubbed or dismissed as "emofolk." And if you told a Led Zeppelin fan that Zep was "emo-rock" because they wrote some angsty lyrics, you'd get punched in the head, so why modern music wait so long in order to "create" emo?
The thing is, in hardcore, a sub-genre of music that seems almost hell-bent on tough-guy singers trying their best to look as powerful as they possibly can, a skinny kid screaming about how sad he is sticks out like a sore thumb. So in an effort to keep their desired masculine images going, hardcore kids were all too happy to throw around terms such as "emo-core" to seperate their scene from these groups of kids that were openly weeping in public while Guy Piciotto screamed his head off.
Looking back, "emo" has been applied to bands all over the spectrum, the following being the most mainstream of those who have earned the title of an "emo" band over the past twenty years:
Rites of Spring
Embrace
Beefeater
The Cure
Bauhaus
The Smiths
The Mountain Goats
Jawbreaker (See also: Jets to Brazil)
Neutral Milk Hotel
Sunny Day Real Estate
Jimmy Eat World
Saves the Day
Dashboard Confessional
Weezer
My Chemical Romance
Fallout Boy
Panic! at the Disco
...and so on. Now look at that list, and find a solid, concrete similarity between every single one of them. You'll find pockets of them, easily picking out the confessional, Screeching Weasel-esque pop-punk bands like Fallout Boy and Panic!, or the tormented-poet-with-a-dirty-Takamine acts like Neutral and Mountain Goats showing their Bob Dylan love, but beyond those few substantial conclaves of similar styles there is no major all-encompassing similarity that you can use to dump them all in the same box, save for the tenuous accusation that they all occasionally write emotionally confessional lyrics.
So why go through all of this just to rag on a single word? Because the term "emo" is nowadays used to discredit anything not appealing to one's worldview that all men must be strong, and emotional confession are for women, which doesn't matter, because even when women do it, it should be shunned. So in order to stop a trend that could ruin the introduction of great new music and musical ideas, the word must be made to seem even more meaningless than it is, and to remove its sting so that we can get more great bands like Neutral Milk Hotel and Jawbreaker.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Vinyl Collective/Suburban Home UTI Series Volume 9: Two Cow Garage/Jr. Juggernaut
(Click picture for complete series album listing, and sample tracks)
As the last record in an impressive series, Volume 9, featuring garage rock acts Two Cow Garage and Jr. Juggernaut has a lot to live up to. For the most part, they do well, especially considering that each chose to cover classic songs by some of rock's most celebrated writers. After hearing all of the modern rock and punk, and classic folk and country, Juggernaut and Two Cow emulate a classic rock style that fills a nice empty niche in the series, and their sounds are both unique and welcome to the series.
Jr. Juggernaut aims high to start by covering Cat Steven's "Trouble." The first thing to notice is the band's sound- they seem to epitomize the term "garage band." The guitars are beautifully sloppy, the drum's cymbals are over-represented, each part seems to struggle to be the loudest track, and everything sounds like it's bouncing off of a cracked concrete wall. This is in no way an insult. Nowadays, there seems to be a fine line between crappy-sounding garage recordings and over-produced, more radio-friendly styles, and all I want is a nice middle ground where I can hear something clearly, yet create a more intimate sound, like I have the band right next to me. Jr. Juggernaut's "Trouble" is in that comfortable space, sounding like that one good local band playing their hearts out in their friend's garage or local pub. You get the feeling that they'd rather perform and play their guts out for that one night at the local bar than try to get their songs on the radio. They play "Trouble" in a sloppy, beautiful style, from the wailing guitar to the raspy vocals and pounding drum set, and each second is just that pure, soulful old rock sound, like if Cat Stevens had formed a hard-rock jam band.
The second track by Juggernaut, Neil Young's "From Hank to Hendrix" is a bit less impressive. It's done well in the same style as the Cat Stevens tribute, but it's more of a jam piece, and I'm not particularly fond of the style, especially the slower, sleepier rock styles of it. The beginning between the sung parts is great, but that second that the massive solo at the second half of the song begins, there's a noticeable drop in energy. There's not much I can say here, other than that the sung parts are good, but the instrumentals (easily the bulk of the track) are boring and over-long.
Before being put to sleep at the end of "From Hank to Hendrix", I can switch back to Two Cow Garage's cover of "No Surrender" to rock me back awake. Two Cow Garage sounds like what Springsteen feels like it should sound like- dirty and powerful, sung with a blue collar and a red face. The first note is just this outward blast of raspiness and pounded instruments that immediately gets my blood flowing. One of the things I always enjoyed about Springsteen's earlier work was that it felt completely ego-less; his earlier performances of "Born in the USA" didn't have him humping air, closed-eye pounding single notes on his guitar, and sliding on his knees just to get a bunch of cougars to toss their bras onto the stage. He sang with conviction and soul, yelling almost every note and furiously strumming on his acoustic, sounding more like he was just saying everything off the top of his head, rather than just reciting lyrics. Two Cow Garage plays in much the same fashion. It's pure, loud, rural rock with soulful singing and powerful instruments. It's played right, and played well, and serves as a better tribute than any American Idol contestant wailing out "Born to Run" in their tortured, cliche vocal styles.
It's a pretty good testament to the talent of two bands who decided to cover three great artists, and the worst thing I can say about any of the recordings is that at the end, the worst thing is that one of them has too many guitar solos. It's also a pretty good sign that out of 17 artists from a single label covering 19 songs by rock's most celebrated acts, is that at worst there are maybe three or four boring covers. The series has put Suburban Home at the top of my favorite labels these days, and most of their artists are at the top of my current favorite acts by introducing their acts in such a fun and creative way. I enjoyed the series greatly, and it's helped my writing progress from the disjointed mess of my first few entries into a much more cohesive mess now., and the worst thing I can say to either Suburban Home or Vinyl Collective is that I will not be happy until they release that Cobra Skulls album cover as a poster.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Vinyl Collective/Suburban Home UTI Series Volume 8: Austin Lucas/Frank Turner
(Click picture for complete series album listing, and sample tracks)
Ah, the home stretch. With only two more records in the series, looking back, there's been a pretty good selection. We've had punk, rock, folk, alt, and ska. Now it's time to toss some country in there. The eighth entry into the series features Austin Lucas covering Dolly Parton's "To Daddy" and Frank Turner covering the Springsteen classic "Thunder Road." I'll toss out the mystery right away and say that this is a very good record by two surprisingly good artists.
Austin Lucas begins with "To Daddy." I never really liked Dolly Parton, be it her music or legacy. I dislike her glitzy, sugary take on country music, and dislike how it transformed the top Nashville acts to follow suit with mostly soulless, mindless drivel. Still, her earlier, simpler-sounding tracks are at least tolerable to my ears, and "To Daddy" is among the handful of songs of hers that I can get some sort of enjoyment out of. Up until now, though, I've preferred the Emmylou Harris version. It's a little less poppy and glitzy, embracing the simplicity of country music that I enjoy. I guess it only makes sense that a metal singer from Czech now does my favorite rendition of the song.
Austin Lucas does an amazing job with this song. Over the past several years, I've grown very weary of the coffeehouse acoustic acts. If you've seen one hipster torturing Bob Dylan on his Takamine, barely holding onto the key with each passing wail, you've seen most of the scene. With such a simple act, featuring one person playing two parts, it's important to play each to the best of one's ability. Each note, each strum, and every beat needs to be considered if a solo acoustic act wishes to stand out. This not only applies to straight musical theory, but also in presentation. A vocalist/musician needs to invest themselves emotionally into every second of a song. Hearing someone sing each note right versus hearing that person sing the right notes with the best of their emotional conviction is the difference between night and day, or the difference between Neutral Milk Hotel and Andrew Jackson Jihad (sorry, but it's true and a comparison that anyone who's read my blog up until now can get). Unfortunately, most acts I've heard, whether local or radio-played, don't really do it for me. It makes you forget how powerful a talented singer with an acoustic guitar can be.
Lucas has a beautiful voice, doing everything right and beyond to make his version of "To Daddy" to be, in my eyes, the definitive recording of the track. There's no glitz, yet no crust in this cover, just Austin and his guitar. He intertwines the vocals and instrumentals wonderfully, and if you listen just enough, you get the impression that he considers the balance between his voice and his guitar down to the very second, because each swell and each drawing back of either of the dual tracks seems perfectly timed and performed, creating a great synergy between the two that really makes Lucas' version of "To Daddy" to be not just one of my favorite versions of the song, but one of my favorite country songs, period. It's a wonderful, relaxed track that makes me wish that I could just go campfire jam with the man on my banjo.
Lucas' first track set the bar pretty damned high, but Frank Turner seems to jump over it with an impressive ease and grace. Another example of me disliking the original source material pretty much from the get-go, I've never been a large fan of Bruce Springsteen, or his song "Thunder Road" though I certainly like it more. Bruce and E-Street are talented, but I could never get over the corniness of their music, cringing at each obnoxious recording trick like the bells during volume swells or Bruce's self-pleasing, close-eyed, housewife-fainting, air-humped vocal blast, which is a shame because everything else about the band is pretty great. Frank Turner tosses out any complaint I've ever had about Bruce's work and just plays the goddamned song, and Jesus does he play it well.
Featuring nothing but acoustic guitar strums and Frank's impressive, English-inflected vocals, the cover of "Thunder Road" retains Springsteen's soulfulness and rock roots and drops the corny arena rock, and the results are awesome. I kind of get a chill every time Frank Turner busts his voice out and slams on his guitar at the start of each chorus and verse. It's fun to hear a genuinely talented vocalist these days that doesn't try to emulate Whitney Houston or Marvin Gaye (See about 90% of contestants on American Idol), and just sing in their own unique way, unaided by any voice synthesizers or pitch correctors. It helps create an imagery that somebody is creating an art through sound, and makes a much more pleasing experience than hearing another lame modern soul singer try to do the Aretha Franklin pitch bend every few seconds just as a way to impress the average non-musical fan.
This is a great album with two great songs that can appeal to most anyone, including fans of Dolly and Springsteen fans. It's also the most parent-friendly album, helping prove to your folks once and for all that there are artists today that can top out the most cherished acts of their day, while still giving enjoyment to any listener. I really do recommend it to anyone growing weary of acoustic acts these days, because if it doesn't alleviate your boredom of the medium, then there's a problem with you. It also makes me wonder why, between Whiskey & Co., Drag the River, and Austin Lucas, a traditionally punk label can put out better country artists than anything Nashville's smeared all over Wal-Mart discount stands for the past 20 years.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Vinyl Collective/Suburban Home UTI Series Volume 7: Lemuria/Off With Their Heads
(Click picture for complete series album listing, and sample tracks)
Alright, I'm getting a little tired of this series (don't get me wrong, I love listening to it, it's just getting boring to write about it when so much good stuff is coming out), so I'm going to just fire out reviews of the next three records today and tomorrow so I can get on to some more juicy stuff.
With that out of the way, I'd like to go into what's probably my favorite of any album in the series. The album starts out with Lemuria covering "Alec Eiffel", originally by alternative pioneers The Pixies. There's always been a connection between the two in my eyes, with The Pixies having developed a punk-influenced indie sound, and Lemuria having an indie-influenced punk sound. They both have a unique, interesting sound that are both great to listen to in many different situations.
That bit of badly-explained musical opinion aside, Lemuria's cover of "Alec Eiffel" is a great track to listen to. It's hard to find weird, quirky punk nowadays that can take itself seriously enough to not hate the stuff completely, but Lemuria has always been there to provide a fix to keep my shakes from getting too bad. If their previous work is a dose of drug for my addiction, then this song is a year's worth of methadone injected right into my brain, because their cover is a freaking awesome indie/punk cover of a somewhat poppy old song. Every part is played well, from the instruments to the synthed vocals. It's energetic, odd, and catchy as hell, and is definitely a great add to any fun playlist.
The cute pop-punk of Lemuria eventually leads to the dark bubblegum of Off With Their Heads and their cover of The Nobody's "Scarred by Love." This series is starting to make me mad, because between this track and JJ Nobody's involvement in Drag the River, Suburban Home seems dedicated to retroactively not hate The Nobodys as much as I normally do, because the song on this album is so god-damned good that I can't help but applaud anyone involved with writing, recording, or covering it. Off With Their Heads takes a somewhat formulaic suburban pop-punk song, removes the twangy treble and obnoxious nasally vocals, and replaces them with a faster tempo, crustier music, and Ryan Young's deep, raspy vocals to create the darkest bubblegum dance punk you'll ever hope to hear. The song is a great depressive listen due to its subject matter and dark sound, yet still fun to bop along to with its semi-upbeat style and catchiness. Just like Hospitals and From the Bottom, I'll never get tired of the latest offering from Off With Their Heads.
Overall, this record includes itself in a three-way tie with Drag the River and Teenage Bottlerocket/The Ergs' albums for my favorite in the series. It's a must-listen for modern punk enthusiasts, and may even get a listen out of people who aren't really into the type of music or scene of either band. Good stuff.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Come on Mom it's Only a Blog Post
I have (to my count three times) tossed out rips on The Nobodys on this blog, and I believe I owe an explanation for doing so. I can basically sum up my hatred of The Nobodys and similar artists in a single sentence:
I hate PC-baiting.
There are countless musical artists out there who work tirelessly to hone their craft, exploring metaphor and poetry in their lyrics, sound and composition to perfect their music, and learning and creating new recording techniques to perfect their creations. I commend these artists, good or bad, because they achieve their fame through tireless effort. They work. Then there are the PC-baiters in an entirely different boat. These are the kids who never decided that nurturing and developing creativity was worth their time, and just wanted instant fame. They found out that "ironically" playing on the stereotypes and stigmas that hold back oppressed people got a few gasps and knee-jerk angry responses to their great frat-wad crusade against progressing society eventually led to a controversy, ending in people forking over cash just to get in on the riff-raff.
Then there are the general white-trash deviants (never being above a twelve-year-old maturity level) who end up genuinely liking the bigoted lyrics, heralding it as a crusade against "PC fascists." Listen, I'm pretty much annoyed by a lot of modern political correctness. I say "secretary" instead of "administrative assistant", leave a "y" out of "women", and prefer the term "disabled" over "differently abled." However, is it really necessary to use racial slurs, assign stereotypes, and objectify women just for laughs? Could The Nobodys have at least tried to craft an opus for the progress of society in the same time it took them to write "Just Another Cunt"? Would it hurt to push the treadmill forward instead of dragging our knuckles in the ground?
The Nobodys and their fans will tell you that objectification of women is "just a joke" and will insist you "lighten up." But every time some idiot laughs at the constant barrage of misogynist slurs and insults, that's one more person starting on the road to holding back the progress of an oppressed group of people. They'll start laughing at terms like "bitch" and "cunt", then they'll start making their friends laugh at the terms. Then what's to stop him from ruining female self-esteem by using the terms to refer to specific women? Jokes can harm, no matter what the intention. I'm not telling people what to think or say, but just to think about such things before spouting it out. The fact that this type of music gets popular over genuinely inspired and artistic music is just something that bothers me.
Still, bonus points to Drag the River, their music is fucking sweet.
I hate PC-baiting.
There are countless musical artists out there who work tirelessly to hone their craft, exploring metaphor and poetry in their lyrics, sound and composition to perfect their music, and learning and creating new recording techniques to perfect their creations. I commend these artists, good or bad, because they achieve their fame through tireless effort. They work. Then there are the PC-baiters in an entirely different boat. These are the kids who never decided that nurturing and developing creativity was worth their time, and just wanted instant fame. They found out that "ironically" playing on the stereotypes and stigmas that hold back oppressed people got a few gasps and knee-jerk angry responses to their great frat-wad crusade against progressing society eventually led to a controversy, ending in people forking over cash just to get in on the riff-raff.
Then there are the general white-trash deviants (never being above a twelve-year-old maturity level) who end up genuinely liking the bigoted lyrics, heralding it as a crusade against "PC fascists." Listen, I'm pretty much annoyed by a lot of modern political correctness. I say "secretary" instead of "administrative assistant", leave a "y" out of "women", and prefer the term "disabled" over "differently abled." However, is it really necessary to use racial slurs, assign stereotypes, and objectify women just for laughs? Could The Nobodys have at least tried to craft an opus for the progress of society in the same time it took them to write "Just Another Cunt"? Would it hurt to push the treadmill forward instead of dragging our knuckles in the ground?
The Nobodys and their fans will tell you that objectification of women is "just a joke" and will insist you "lighten up." But every time some idiot laughs at the constant barrage of misogynist slurs and insults, that's one more person starting on the road to holding back the progress of an oppressed group of people. They'll start laughing at terms like "bitch" and "cunt", then they'll start making their friends laugh at the terms. Then what's to stop him from ruining female self-esteem by using the terms to refer to specific women? Jokes can harm, no matter what the intention. I'm not telling people what to think or say, but just to think about such things before spouting it out. The fact that this type of music gets popular over genuinely inspired and artistic music is just something that bothers me.
Still, bonus points to Drag the River, their music is fucking sweet.
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