December 23, 2008

Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out

Probably the best two guitars and drums album.  Sleater-Kinney deserves respect as a band which masters a certain set of possibilities.  Each of the three plays a real part at all times, which is harder than it sounds.  Bands are often tempted simply to “play at” the song, learn the chords, the basic rhythm, and apply some basic strummy noodly plucking or smacking, varying the dynamics along with the singer.  Here Janet Weiss, Carrie Brownstein, and Corin Tucker instead develop a listenable piece of music for each instrument at every section of every song.  As a result, you can hook your ears into all sorts of little places in the music, well after the words are memorized or ignored and you have developed a tolerance against the feeling of the swells of loud and soft.

The overwhelming density of information leaves me wondering, as the last track groans away, where the rest of the album went.  Mania feels like it’s always changing, always new, but in fact it’s a black puddle of goo as thick as a car crash.  If S-K gave us a little more river, the rock would be that much tougher to climb.

Maybe I should just listen to it again, though.  It’s not that I’m used up.  It’s like they turned on a faucet, and after I filled up a cup, a certain amount of water went down the drain before I could stick a new cup under.

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Tags: consistency density janet weiss mania micro-detail structure 33 1/3
November 9, 2008
Madonna - Madonna

Amazingly consistent production from track to track on this album.  Reggie Lucas found a sound he liked, and that’s not easy.  “Everybody”, the one track produced by Mark Kamins sounds drastically different.  It being the track which earned her a record deal, the difference is particularly striking.  The record label must have felt they dodged a bullet when she came back with songs like “Borderline” and “Physical Attraction”.

In this day, it seems pop albums specifically pursue sonic diversity.  It’s common to see five or six featured artists on a hip-hop album, or even on a pop album, to the extent there’s a difference any more.  At least two or three producers have generally worked on a given collection, often on each song so that you might have twelve different spoons in the sonic pot.  Mixing is always handled by yet more people.

I’ve always loved the guitar playing on this music, beyond the obviously awesome bass and drums.  I see Lucas is credited as guitarist as well as producer.  I will have to look further into his work.

Madonna’s ascent and the men she was involved with on the way up makes an interesting history.  Look at this picture. She completely owns the situation - she may as well be standing in front of the picture.

Look at the lucky kid who just won a meet-Madonna contest.  But in fact, it’s John Benitez, aka “Jellybean”, who mixed and co-produced her breakthrough album, and not-so-incidentally was her boyfriend.

I hope she at least sends him a Christmas card every year.

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Tags: guitar madonna production consistency diversity boyfriend/girlfriend