I think this will be the first time that I review straight up albums on this blog. Kind of funny to me that I don’t do it more often because some of the first really good writing I did were the weekly album reviews I used to do for the teen page at The Santa Fe New Mexican. And I, for one, am still a big album listener. I know that kids these days only listen to music by watching Twerk Team videos on Youtube or downloading free ringtones to their Zunephone or whatever, but I actually do still listen to 10-15 songs by one artist in a row, maybe even 10-15 songs that share some common themes and have a nice natural progression.
It’s a rare art in the age of iTunes, putting together a decent album. I get bored to death by the vast majority of albums I see getting raves on Pitchfork (which now occuppies the same headspace that Rolling Stone did in 1997 or Spin did in 2001 — not really a big trendsetter and really inconsistent editorially but a fairly entertaining read and still my most regular source of music industry news. And they put on a very good musical festival, whatever else you have to say about them). Hip-hop albums are even worse than all that gauzy indie belly-gazing crap. The internet has forced rap artists to be incredibly prolific, in many cases much too prolific, and the result is that every mixtape or official album is bloated with tons of lame material in the service of maybe two tracks that are worthy of repeat listens.
So far I haven’t flagged any 2013 releases as definite Year’s Best material (Parquet Courts could get on there, I haven’t heard the My Bloody Valentine thing yet). I’m hoping one of two big new releases will give me something to cheer about. Both Justin Timberlake and David Bowie have just put out new albums after long hiatuses (six years in Timberlake’s case, over a decade in Bowie’s). I have loved every Timberlake solo effort so far, and the singles leading up to the 20/20 Experience are very promising. David Bowie is one of my top ten favorite artists of all time, but he has not put out a bonafide classic record since before I was born. Can either of them deliver a blockbuster and become my first Must Listen album of 2013? Read on to find out.
The 20/20 Experience by Justin Timberlake
Earnestness. That’s why people love them some Timberlake. When he hosts SNL and he cracks up at his own jokes, man, people love that. When he was on Punk’d, and he almost cried because he thought they were repossessing his dogs? OH MY GOD, SO ADORABLE. It’s just impossible to not like the guy.
So, if he wants to put out a soft and soulful album that’s basically a long “hey, I think you’re swell” directed at his wife Jessica Biel, just a few months after the wedding, isn’t that just adorable? His last album, Futuresexlovesounds, was all about being a bachelor. The slickest, most rain-making, model-pulling, rotating-heart-shaped-bed-owning bachelor there is. I liked that. It was kind of edgy. But after six years, I guess Justin is settling down.
The thing is, I like this too. Not every song. Most of them are too long. Most of them are pretty shallow. He still talks about dancing a lot. He compares his girlfriend to his drug pusher (as if JT has ever used any drug harder than Pixie Sticks). But there are some astonishingly good bits here. Most noticeably, the eight minute epic “Mirror.” It opens with a really big arena rock guitar, before going into some signature Justin+Timbaland beatbox and string section vamping. There are no less than three MASSIVE hooks stacked all right on top of each other. And the lyrics are kind of, I don’t know, devastating? It’s really hard for a man to come off convincing when he’s publicly declaring his love. “I couldn’t get any bigger/with any one else beside me”? Color me convinced. Jessica Biel better never let my boy go.
And that’s just like, the first part of the song. Before the first chorus, even. It gets way better. There is a handclap section. They bring back the guitars from the beginning. And the last three minutes are a breakdown that picks up one tiny little fragment of the rest of the song and turns it into a whole new song that is just as good as the original song! This is insanely good pop songwriting.
“Mirror” is unquestionably my single of the year for 2013 so far. I have no trouble putting The 20/20 Experience on the shelf next to Justified and Futuresexlovesounds, two albums I absolutely love and still spin regularly years after the fact. I probably won’t listen to this new one nearly as often, but it’s solid and it’s pretty unique and just the production alone is worth dissecting for hours. In my opinion, this one was worth waiting for.
The Next Day by David Bowie
I’m pretty glad I listened to this album for the first time before I looked at the cover. Because if I had looked at the cover first I might have picked up my laptop and thrown it into a wall after a few songs. Because this album is not “Heroes”. I can see where it sounds a bit like “Heroes”. A lot like it at times. “Joe the Lion”, the second track on “Heroes” could maybe be track on The Next Day. Except that “Joe the Lion” has a sense of urgency. All of “Heroes” felt urgent, and real, and cutting edge, even when I was listening to it twenty years after it was recorded. It’s a genuinely surprising album, the way it starts out with a song that might be a joke, “Beauty and the Beast,” and the way the title track combines a Broadway-esque chug with a ridiculous triple-tracked space guitar melody, and the way the second side is full of weird Kraftwerk-y instrumental pieces that don’t feature Bowie’s voice at all. It’s not perfect and not the best Bowie album but “Heroes” is really interesting, and it adds a lot to the Bowie mythos.
The Next Day is not urgent, not surprising, not interesting. It is just really slick sounding. On “Heroes” Tony Visconti was using a metal ashtray and a broken tape deck to get something like a cowbell sound; on The Next Day, Visconti is using Pro Tools. Which would you rather listen to? Bowie’s band for the Next Day sessions were mostly old foggies — Visconti, Gerry Leonard, Sterling Campbell, Steve Elson (Steve Elson is a sax beast though, seriously, respect). I just don’t want to listen to a bunch of 60 year old guys play rock music, really. I will listen to them play jazz, or weirdo shit, or country, but straight ahead rock needs to get the blood pumping; you can’t have a rhythm section with a collective age over 100. I’m no great fan of Paul McCartney, but the dude made a pretty smart move by teaming up lately with the Foo Fighters for some live performances that are quite loud and exciting (not that the Foo Fighters are young men anymore, themselves, but they are at least of a more recent vintage). I think David Bowie would be wise to team up with some more vital musicians. There are probably young producers and bands lined up around the block who would give their Marshall stacks to record one track with the Thin White Duke. He’s such a versatile vocalist I would love it if Bowie just put out tons of collaborations and duets — that’s a good mode for a musician in his twilight years to take.
Now, stepping back a moment and getting away from the (inevitable, self-inflicted) “Heroes” comparisons, and taking The Next Day on its own merits, its not a terrible album. There are standouts, like the racy “If You Can See Me”, the rollicking opening title track, and the moody single “The Stars Are Out Tonight.” Bowie really gives ‘er on the vocal deliveries, often straining a bit as he reaches the hooks, but in a really engaging, I’ve-just-got-to-get-this-out kind of way. But the reality is that, try as he might, Bowie and his longtime producer Visconti won’t be able to recapture the magic of the Berlin era. And I wish they had tried to do something new, rather than falling so short of recreating something old.
Thank you for adding my favorite picture of JT, but for the record, it’s Mirrors, plural, not Mirror, singular. Just sayin’. With your hand in my hand and a pocket full of soul I can tell you there’s no place we couldn’t go.