Never Let You Go

When I was your age, kids, the radio played stuff that was worth listening to.  It was actually a regular part of my day and I heard a lot of it between 4:00 and 7:00 during my first wave of homework.  There were actual bands and they got actual airtime.  Some of this music could even be described as rock or alternative.  This is shocking, I know, and I'm showing my age.

Around the year 2000, there was one station in the Boston market that did a phenomenal job of playing these bands.  Tune into Mix 98.5 (WBMX) and you could hear (with some regularity) the Barenaked Ladies, Vertical Horizon, Third Eye Blind, Sister Hazel, and Matchbox Twenty.

Though the suits in the biz would clinically describe this music as "Modern Rock" and eventually "Modern Adult Contemporary", these bands were rock bands.  Sure, songs like "If You're Gone" and the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris" would end up becoming shopping mall music staples--loved by moms everywhere--but the vast majority of singles and radio hits from these bands were enjoyable and made life a whole lot better in middle school.

Then something terrible happened.  Suddenly, radio stations were all up and changing their formats and crap (because, really, who listens to the radio anymore?) and Top 40 was everywhere.  The niche for a station that played rock songs with thoughtful lyrics and jangly guitars evaporated. Mix 98.5 went with this wave and a small part of me was lost on the day the music died (I believe the exact moment was the day that they played Madonna's "American Pie").

I decided, ten years on, to make a mix CD compiling my favorite songs from back in the day (8th grade, 9th grade, and 10th grade), and my track list is contained here.  I bypassed the obvious title choice ("The Mix Mix") as well as more accurate ones ("Buzz Ballads 3") for the blandest one imaginable ("The Mix 98.5 Throwback CD").

Behold:

Everything You Want - Vertical Horizon

Slide - The Goo Goo Dolls

She's So High - Tal Bachman

Last Beautiful Girl - Matchbox Twenty

Change Your Mind - Sister Hazel

Absolutely (Story of a Girl) - Nine Days

You're a God - Vertical Horizon

Pinch Me - Barenaked Ladies

The Space Between - Dave Matthews Band

Bent - Matchbox Twenty

Broadway - The Goo Goo Dolls

If I Had $1,000,000 (live) - Barenaked Ladies

Never Let You Go - Third Eye Blind

Desert Rose - Sting

Sweetest Thing - U2

Drive - Incubus

Hanging by a Moment - Lifehouse

Save Me From Myself - Vertical Horizon

Ghost in the Crowd - Sister Hazel

NOTES:
- I had been mulling over this CD for some time, and repeatedly told my friend (a fellow listener and fan from back in the day) that I was about to make one.  We listened to this on the way into Boston last night and it was fantastic to hear these tracks again.  These songs were there and played loudly when I was finding myself, falling for the girl, getting over the girl, and discovering singing and writing.  They mean a lot to me.

- This is not a comprehensive cover of this period in music, but rather a conscious effort to compile my favorite songs from then (minus the extra slow or sad ones--"Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)" for example).  I didn't listen to Radiohead or the Foo Fighters then so they aren't there.  Also, after this phase, I more or less stopped listening to the radio and got a little too into classic rock.

- Considering that most of the tracks here have a "pop" vibe, I was surprised to recall the quality of the lyrics.  It was especially interesting to hear VH's "I've been unable to put you down/I'm still learning things I oughta know by now" and realize that, a decade later, I still feel that way.

- As a tenth grader, I was certain that if you sang "Slide" to any one girl, she'd have to fall in love with you and be yours forever. "Put your arms around me/What you feel is what you are and what you are is beautiful".  I'm still about 45% sure that this would work.

- "Never Let You Go" has appeared on pretty much every other mix CD I've ever made, and I can play a serviceable version on guitar at college parties when people have been drinking.  It's a dark horse for "Favorite Song from the Last 12 or 13 Years" (a category I just made up now).

- Except it might actually be "Falling For the First Time" from the Barenaked Ladies, which I cannot believe was left off.  Other notable omissions include "Semi-Charmed Life" (overexposure), "Mad Season" (forgot), "Kryptonite" (also forgot), and "All For You" (reminds me of my college a cappella group).  I think I would swap out "Desert Rose" and "Sweetest Thing" for "Kryptonite" and "Mad Season" because they better fit the vibe.

- I still love Matchbox Twenty.  Those songs hold up.

- The last two songs actually came out in 2009, and to my knowledge, have not been played on WBMX (which was coined to be the Black Music EXperience according to Wikipedia--surprise racism!).  I included these songs because both of those bands are still making great music, even if radio isn't listening.

- Also in the Where Are They Now category, Matchbox Twenty put out six new songs on 2007's retrospective Exile on Mainstream and they are pleasantly excellent.  I haven't heard BNL's latest album so I can't vouch for it, but Third Eye Blind still enjoys strong, sustained support from Providence, RI, among other places. It goes without saying that Sting, U2, and DMB are still active.

- I have no idea where Tal Bachman is, but I'm guessing his one hit got him the girl.  It had to.  She couldn't walk away from that.

- I like a lot of The Goo Goo Dolls' mainstream grab Dizzy Up The Girl, but hardly anything else they've done before or since.  I think this is strange and alarmingly conformist of me. Also, for the record, "Slide" blows "Iris" right out of the water. 

- Vertical Horizon's Matthew Scannell is a fantastic and underrated songwriter.

- "Change Your Mind" is definitely a song I need to hear more often.  Noted.

- Don't do a Google Image search for "Barenaked Ladies Pinch Me" if the filter isn't turned on.  Nothing good coming from that. Lesson learned.

I wish these bands got the airplay now that they did then, because there is something unifying about liking music that other people like, too.  Until then, I will refuse to listen to the "new" Mix 104.1 and work on "The Mix Mix Strikes Back" (or "Buzz Ballads 4").  Or maybe I'll just buy "NOW 2".

PS - If Nick Hornby and Stephen Chbosky co-wrote an article about music, it would sound exactly like this one.  If you understood that, color me impressed.

U2 - The Best of 2000-2010 (Another Dorky Post)

Although I'm pretty sure U2's renegotiated record deal precludes any possibility of the third volume in their "Best Of" series, I thought it might be fun to try to sketch out a preliminary track listing for "The Best Of 2000-2010".

For starters, I included all major singles from each of the last three albums, save "Beautiful Day" and "Stuck In A Moment" (which both appeared on 1990-2000). Additionally, the band released "Window in the Skies" and "The Saints Are Coming" without accompanying albums, but I only included "Window" because "Saints" was a cover, not an original. I added additional tracks from All That You Can't Leave Behind and No Line On The Horizon as they only had 2 and 3 singles included each. How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb had 5 singles so I left that one alone, though "Mircale Drug" would have been a nice inclusion. Finally, when U2 released the deluxe remastered versions of 1987's The Joshua Tree and 1983's War, they completed two unfinished songs called "Wave of Sorrow" and "Angels Too Tied To The Ground". Since these songs feature new instrumentation and vocals, and were released in 2007 and 2008, I included those as well. I'm assuming U2 won't record one or two new tracks for this, though they probably would. I then spent less than five minutes designing the not-entirely-terrible-looking album cover you see above. As far as track order, I used the Vertigo Tour's opener and then just guessed.

I'm such a loser. Anyway, someone burn this CD and let me know if it is any good.

1) City of Blinding Lights
2) Elevation
3) Window in the Skies
4) I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
5) Moment of Surrender
6) Vertigo
7) Breathe
8) Walk On
9) Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
10) Get On Your Boots
11) All Because of You
12) Wave of Sorrow (Birdland)
13) In A Little While
14) Angels Too Tied to the Ground
15) Stand Up Comedy
16) Kite
17) Magnificent
18) Original of the Species

Comments, complaints, and tangents are more than welcome.

New Music Wednesday!

Each Wednesday, I will (attempt) to review two or three songs that I am hearing for the first time and review them, in an effort to both broaden my own musical tastes and perhaps inspire you to do the same. This week, however, I will be reviewing a new album instead.

Album Review
U2, No Line on the Horizon, 2009

Depending on whom you ask, you could conceivably get any number of opinions about U2. They're the biggest band in the world. They're grandiose and way over the top. Bono is one of the great human rights advocates of our time. Bono thinks he's Jesus. U2's catalogue is more diverse than most major artists could dream of. All U2 songs sound the same.

I suppose, then, that like all music, theirs is a matter of taste. Having sold about 150 million records in their still active career, the band probably doesn't need to worry about pleasing Rolling Stone (they gushed through a five star review anyway) or TIME Magazine (the magazine that gave them the cover in 1987 found it uninteresting and insist the band's best days are behind them; two stars). Having read both reviews, I'd say both are just a bit off the mark in one key area.

As an English lit student, one of the things drilled into our heads is the idea of separating the narrator from the author. Unreliable narrators in works by such authors as Edgar Allan Poe and William Faulkner drive home the disconnect that must exist between art and the artist. To read every novel, poem, or even song as completely autobiographical is to misread it. I'm not entirely sure why Bono's lyrics get a far more literal reading than, say, Paul Simon's or Sting's. Most reviewers, it would seem, cannot hear Bono singing without envisioning Bono the person directly addressing them, whether he is lifting them up or talking down to them. While I think much of his personality runs through his lyrics (really, how could it not?), I am fairly confident listening to a line like "I was born to sing for you/ I didn't have a choice but to lift you up/ And sing whatever song you wanted me to" that he isn't singing to me or Josh Tyrangiel from TIME, but a higher power. That higher power. The song is called "Magnificent", after all... doesn't seem to take much extrapolation to figure out who the singer "will magnify" with "a joyful noise".

So, tangents aside, where does that leave us?

No Line on the Horizon stacks up very well to U2's prior catalogue, though not because it is the next Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby. It's not. In fact, the closest comparison I have is actually 1984's The Unforgettable Fire. The ambient production and atmosphere (hallmarks of Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois's work with U2) weaves through songs that sound both familiar and yet surprisingly fresh and unpredictable. This last quality is perhaps my favorite; Horizon is an album from a band that has not lost its vitality and is still evolving.

Certainly, many songs retain certain U2 hallmarks. "Moment of Surrender" might stand in for "Stuck in a Moment" and "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" as the radio ballad (all three occupy the third track on their respective albums), but the song brings in a deftly used cello and is more introspective than bombastic. It's also seven minutes long, but you'll barely notice that due to the song's paradoxical restraint. The song is already receiving early praise.

There are few rockers here ("Stand Up Comedy","Get On Your Boots", and "Breathe" are the only real uptempo numbers to speak of) but Horizon doesn't drag or bore. The title track, which is also the album opener, is the first to open the album's theme: that of moving forward--not so much moving on from anything, in the vein of "Walk On", but rather taking in the view of the uncertain future that lays ahead, steeling ourselves to it, and going right at it with an open mind and a hopeful heart. As much as it tried to be, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb was too heavy at parts to be uplifting as a whole. Horizon is far more successful in that sense.

The songs pull the listener in, but are densely layered in sound. "FEZ-Being Born", while not quite art-rock, has atmosphere we have not heard from U2 since the aforementioned Unforgettable Fire. The comparison between the two albums is apt in that both tried to push the boundaries of what was expected of the band at the time, without sacrificing all of what brought fans in in the first place. Both albums take chances, and as a part of that, not everything works. Horizon is not a perfect album, but I don't think it's meant to be. The new sonic directions the band explores (owing as much to the producers as to Edge, I would guess) are refreshing even when they aren't up to par with Achtung Baby. I prefer ambition--with all the implicit flaws--over playing it safe.

Tracks like "Breathe" and "Get On Your Boots" sound fresh and vital. Larry's drumming, in particular, shines throughout. Bono's lyrics seem to have come miles from the last album, which spoke directly but often rather mundanely. Songs such as "Being Born", "Moment of Surrender", and "Breathe" shine lyrically, and "White as Snow" reads like the finer moments of The Joshua Tree. Even the goofiness of some of the lyrics in "Unknown Caller" (urging you, the listener, to "reboot yourself") meshes with the album's theme so well that you forgive its corniness. Speaking of occasionally corny lyrics, memo to Bono: "ATM machine" is redundant. I'll forgive you though because the rest of the lyrics are killer.

"Moment of Surrender" will get all the praise in the ballad department, but "White As Snow" and "Cedars of Lebanon" are both beautiful and haunting. The former features brilliant use of French horn as a role-playing instrument, playing off the bass in an unexpected but gorgeous moment of transition within the piece. Song structures vary and the functions of the guitars and keyboards keep things varied. With all due respect to "The Wanderer" from Zooropa, which I absolutely adore, "Cedars" might be their most compelling album closer since "Love Is Blindness" in 1991. This song ends quietly, but in such a fashion that you will be forced to stop what you are doing to pay attention to it.

No Line on the Horizon will probably not convert any new U2 fans who were not already on board, but those with even a cursory interest in the band will find it to be a pretty great listen. "Breathe", in particular, is worthy of an important place on the probably not forthcoming "Best of 2000-2010". While the album is certainly a grower, and not all of the songs make an immediate impression, I found it to be a refreshing and invigorating listen. It's enjoyable to see a band of their stature continue to grow, and my fears that their career had come full circle were apparently unfounded. This is the sound of a band that has far too much vitality to succumb to a greatest hits tour. There are further chapters ahead, and I'm certainly enjoying the current one.

GRADE: I'm probably too biased to give one. I'll say B+.

U2 Week - Tuesday Update

U2's 12th studio album, No Line on the Horizon, is officially out today. I picked up my copy at Newbury Comics (a store totally worth supporting if you're in the Metro Boston area) and have played it through once. I'll go over my impressions of it in more detail tomorrow but so far I'm liking what I'm hearing. A few of the tracks are immediate, but it strikes me as the type of album that will grow on the listener over time. It seems like a lot of time and care went into this CD.

You might ask, is it imperative to get a CD on the day it comes out? No, but if you don't know me, one rather odd habit of mine is treating CD release dates of my favorite artists like the opening night of certain movies. I want to get it as soon as possible. I usually even bypass amazon.com and get a copy in person instead so I can have it in my hands. If this makes me strange, I'm okay with it. I rarely buy DVDs, I might go to the movies three times in a calendar year, and I haven't bought a video game since junior high school, so I feel like my generally obsessive desire to have a bitchin' CD collection is somewhat justified. Yes, I actually pay money for music by artists I care about. Shocking, I know.

U2 was on Letterman last night, as they are every night this week, and after shoveling out the sidewalk in front of the Ed Sullivan Theater (it's always fun to see rich people do mundane things in public), they performed "Breathe" from the new CD. Call me biased, but it was one of the more exciting late night performances I've seen in a while. Then again, talk show TV gigs are generally pretty bland. Bono got that audience pretty worked up, though. The man can work a room. Video below!



I apologize to all non-U2 fans for my blog posts this week. But not really. Album review tomorrow! Goodnight, y'all.

U2 Week (A Dorky Music Post)

I generally lack the willpower to pick a theme and stick with it for any length of time. Dozens of girls could attest to my fear of commitment. Just kidding. Girls wouldn't date me unless their first choice fell through. My own finicky habits aside, I decided that this will be U2 week on this blog, as I can conceive of at least two more posts happening with regards to them.

For those of you who don't pay attention to such things as the music industry (half of you? two-thirds?), U2 is dropping a new album tomorrow--or by the time most of you read this, today. Their 12th studio album, No Line on the Horizon, will undoubtedly be the talk of many news and media outlets. The band's status as the vanguard of rock and the champion of world poverty relief basically guarantees this. Plus, they're a big hit with the 40-something white male crowd, which always helps (at least financially). Their last two albums cleaned up at the Grammy Awards, and basically every world tour the band has done since 1985 has become a major event. Regardless of whether you're a fan or a hater (and there are plenty of both), a U2 album release is big news.

We've already heard the first single, "Get On Your Boots", which follows in the tradition of singles such as "The Fly" and "Discotheque" in that it exhibits a dramatic musical departure from previous material and polarizes the fan base. Considering that most people could identify a definite "U2 sound" (echo-laden guitar, pulsing eighth notes on bass, militant drums, huge choruses), it is somewhat surprising to take a look back and note how many times the band has deviated from expectations. After War, the world was ready for one of the quintessential rock album of the 1980s, and while they'd eventually get it in The Joshua Tree, there was first the art-rock sidestep The Unforgettable Fire. After the Joshua Tree and its cousin, Rattle and Hum, U2 risked their claim on the biggest band in the world by releasing the totally different Achtung Baby in 1991. Had the songs (especially "One") not been up to par, it would have been career suicide (the band almost broke up during the sessions). 1997's Pop saw the band embracing all that was trashy about popular music for the masses, another risky move. This is not to mention 1995's side project, Original Soundtracks 1 by Passengers (a pseudonym for U2, Brian Eno, and Luciano Pavarotti), which featured experimental pieces from movies that did not exist.

With a history of reinventing themselves more often than not, it's not surprising that the first single points to a different record than the previous two. Where the band goes from here is anybody's guess. I'll be picking up the CD tomorrow and may even have a review for New Music Wednesday, though that may be slightly optomistic.

So why else is it U2 week? The band has taken up a five-night residency as the house band for The Late Show with David Letterman (which is a first). On Friday, they will be playing a not-so-secret gig on campus at Fordham University for Good Morning America. West 53rd Street is being renamed U2 Way for the day by mayor Michael Bloomberg. No stranger to playing secret shows (the previous album was kicked off by a free surprise concert under the Brooklyn Bridge), U2 is also rumored to be playing a club gig in Boston on March 11. That gig is only confirmed insomuch as six Boston radio stations, including those with close ties to the band members like WBCN and WZLX, are holding ticket contests for the show. While the smart money is on the Paradise, given the widely bootlegged gig there in 1981, the Wailers are currently booked for that night. The new House of Blues is also a possibility.

U2's very real world tour will be announced on Monday, and will feature outdoor venues in the US for the first time in ten years. Gillette Stadium is expected to host the band in September. I will be among the thousands trying to get tickets, although I do not know if I will even be in Massachusetts come the fall.

This is probably a good spot to mention that I was front row at their May 26, 2005 concert in Boston. You weren't, because I didn't see you there. Nor did the Edge. He saw me, though.

In conclusion: album, TV, not-so-secret shows, tour announcements, all blogged by a front row veteran. U2 week. No one read this post cause it was too long. Here we go.