Music Munitions

MILLIONAIRES

Our society has changed in the blink of an eye. Fifty years ago, such vulgar language coming from teenage women would have been seen as a travesty. Senator Joseph McCarthy would have us up in arms against the dirty Reds who corrupted our youth. Nowadays, we don’t even bother to take notice (well, most of us anyway). It’s progressive thinking, and I for one am all for it. We can continue to define what does and does not corrupt our youth, or we can learn to accept it. I mean, is it really that bad? Most people accept the idea that most kids start drinking and smoking illegal substances around the end of high school, despite the fact that it’s not allowed until well into their college years. The conservative crowd (and I don’t mean that to point fingers at any political party, fuck politics, keep that shit out of music) refuses to allow this to happen, but it’s still the honest to goodness truth. If we could just accept this progressive thinking and realize such vulgarities actually do occur, I think the world would be a better, more understanding place. Sure, we can yell at Millionaires for corrupting our youth without doing anything about it, or we can say “Alright, I accept the fact that these girls drink and do “naughty” things. That said, I do not wish my children to follow in the same path, but since they are a fan of their music I choose to stay out of their business. Really, the only reason I’m taking notice of this is because I don’t want anything bad to happen to my children because I love them. If we could all band together and find a way to help them stay safe, then the non-fans of Millionaires can leave them alone. That way, we’d all be happy.” Progressive thinking, people. Don’t try to keep things the way they are. Learn to accept that the world will always be changing, and come to an understanding with each new generation. That way, we can all leave each other the hell alone, which is really all we wanted anyway.

OMAR RODRIGUEZ-LOPEZ (of MARS VOLTA fame)

Here’s another “…Really?” request. I’ll try to avoid these more often and get to more of the untouchables we’ve all come to know and love in the next few installments.

Going over every band in his career seems moot. Omar’s biggest band The Mars Volta has a fair following, so defending that seems kind of moot too. I’ll admit, I’m not a huge fan and considering how long it will take to go through all of his stuff to become familiar with it, I’m going to stick with the Mars Volta song “L’Via L’Viaquez” off their album Frances the Mute. Now the solos on this song are out of this world, but it’s Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s singing that I immediately noticed as…kind of annoying. It’s not that it’s necessarily “bad,” per se; you either like it or you don’t. It’s that simple. Hell, I even used to be somewhat of a Coheed nut, and I still can’t get past this high-pitched voice. But I listen to him anyway, and there’s a very important reason as to why.

It’s a proven fact that Mexico is going to seize total control of the United States at some point in time through crazy tactics we cannot even begin to comprehend. Instead of taking the logical route by discovering a way to fight them off, we should instead realize it is already too late and accept our fates.

Those who speak English as a first language often speak that as their only language, making themselves look bad when the rest of the world is fluent in at least two. What The Mars Volta should be accredited for is teaching the native English-speakers Spanish. If the listeners hear a repeated phrase they can’t understand but personally find totally kickass, they won’t be able to help looking up the translation. Before you know it, all of his fans will be fluent. By the time the Mexican Uprising occurs, the band will have used every word in the Spanish language. The only reason no one else has realized this is because they’re trying to keep this all a big secret so the Mexican government doesn’t find out about it. They’re trying to help you, and you just spit at their feet. Once the Mexicans arrive and take power as our emperors, I for one will be ready. I will have suffered through the music of The Mars Volta and its many spin-offs in order to gain acceptance with my Mexican overlords. You, on the other hand, will be shunned from them. You shall be treated as a slave, forced into landscaping their lawns and doing other remedial tasks for little to no pay. Or worse. You may end up moderating a community of people on a website for absolutely no pay whatsoever.

It’s like that whole religion thing where they tell you to suffer now to receive never-ending grace above all of you unholy bigots. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is our Messiah.

And as for the rest of you outside of North America, take heed of my warning. You’re next.

PRIT STIK

Is that me? It’s not me, but I can hear myself in that song. I used to chill in my friend’s basement as a kid. Freezepops were our food of choice. We often got bored and went to whatever was closest at hand for something to bide our times. So what did we do? We booted up his parents’ computer and started playing with the word-to-speech program on Windows 95, making it say “butt poop pee” as many times as our little fingers could type because we hadn’t discovered “ctrl + c, ctrl + v” yet. Then I’d grab the mic and start singing whatever came to mind. My friend would hit record and start wailing on the junky kid keyboard he had. I wouldn’t know what else to sing so I’d start pounding my fingers on the desk and, in my mind, I was suddenly the greatest, fastest, most rhythmic drummer in the world. We’d save it to the desktop where it wouldn’t get touched for years, and then went off to play Sega Genesis. By next week, the song was completely out of our minds. This song, ladies and gentlemen, is my childhood displayed for the entire world to see. It may not be me, personally, but it may as well be. I am not ashamed of this. I bask in the glory of my youthful innocence. That dank basement was our headquarters. Okay, maybe it smelled too, but damn it, that was OUR basement. And I, for one, am sure many of you have similar stories where you made songs just like this one that were deleted and lost forever. This song, which someone “mistakenly” deemed worthy of uploading to the internet, has brought back that nostalgia of being young again. If it didn’t do that for you, it at least did it for me. I consider music “worthy” when it serves a purpose, and I feel this song does itself justice if only to remind one man of those sometimes forgettable Basement Years that should never, ever be forgotten.

RADIOHEAD

Someone actually requested Radiohead. Fine. Let’s fucking do this.

When people think “Radiohead,” what is always the first thing that immediately comes to everyone’s mind? That’s right, Thom Yorke’s lazy eye. I mean, seriously, what is up with that thing? It is, far and away, the single characteristic of Radiohead that sets them apart from all other bands. When you’re listening to “Creep” or “Fake Plastic Trees,” you can’t help but think about the hidden connotations to this very feature as Thom sullenly pulls the audience in to his ever-present plight. It’s no wonder Thom is the most famous of the bunch.

But don’t let this feature bring you down. On the contrary, the band uses it to their advantage. Thom’s left eye is, in essence, the very same as Freddie Mercury’s buckteeth. Both draw so much attention and aid in their music that “fixing” them would have only hindered their progress.

Some fans argue their seminal album “OK Computer” is actually a concept album with a full, continuous story ala David Bowie’s “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust” or Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” to which Radiohead replied it was all completely unintentional. Riiiiight. Look, if you made an album that was that popular, would you come out to the world and proclaim that the entire thing was dedicated to that eye that has given you the secret inspiration you needed to write such beautifully unsophisticated melancholy lyrics? I didn’t think so. Let’s take a closer look. The following is something I just made up for fun and is entirely factual in every way.

“Airbag” – The droning guitar sweeps in out of nowhere as the “fast German car” crashes into a “jackknifed juggernaut” of a truck. Sleigh bells appear as the ash from the car fire drifts down like snow over the dazed victim. He is rushed to the hospital, as onlookers…look on. They, as is he, are amazed that he survived.

“Paranoid Android” – The doctor begins the operation, causing a loud stir. Just before the car crash victim (who I will from now on refer to as Thom) finally falls asleep from the anesthetic, he wishes the whirring of the strange operating machines would stop as he becomes more and more drowsy. After the operation, one of the egotistic surgeons checks in on him. He was able to fix most of his body save for one minor detail. Holding up a mirror, the surgeon reveals to Thom his new face.

“What’s this?! What’s this?!” he exclaims, aghast at the image in the mirror. It appears the ambitious surgeon, trying to set a new record for the speediest skin-repair operation, has caused Thom’s eye to become misaligned. Being the bad guy archetype he is, the doctor proceeds to act as if nothing is wrong, handing Thom an expensive bill without ever even saying his name.

“You don’t remember…You don’t remember! WHY DON’T YOU REMEMBER MY NAME?!” Thom angrily shouts at the surgeon, who then points at the top of the bill Thom must now pay which reads THOM YORKE.

“I guess he does…”

Frustrated about this encounter and without enough money to pay for the operation, Thom proceeds to the roof of the hospital building. It begins to rain as he steps up to the edge. Just before taking his final, fateful step off, he hears a preacher through the open window in the room directly below talking to a dying cancer patient.

“God loves his children.”

Just hearing this is enough for Thom to take a step back and come down from the roof.

“Subterranean Homesick Alien” – It is the start of a new day for Thom and the first day of the rest of his life! With a newfound optimism toward the upcoming summer weather, he leaves the hospital and walks back home. Keeping his head down in deep thought, watching the cracks in the pavement as they go by his feet, Thom realizes something. This newborn hopefulness is making him see the world in an entirely different way, all thanks to his changed eye. His imagination runs wild as he pretends to see aliens and angels up in the sky on his walk, to which his “friends” (i.e. – people walking by) “never believe him.” To Thom, they’re all just too uptight.

“Exit Music (For a Film)” –This song was made for a movie and has nothing to do with this album.

“Let Down” – Thom decides to leave this small, bland town and head to The Big City. He takes many different modes of transportation to get there and feels as insignificant as a bug by all the crowds pushing him along this way and that.

“Karma Police” – After finally getting to The Big City, Thom begins preaching about the things your imagination can do if you only look up at the beautiful sky. The Big City people, too busy to be bothered with such drivel, continue on, ignoring what would appear to be yet another crazy bum getting in their way. One businessman bumps into Thom and accuses him of attacking him. The Karma Police arrive and, choosing to believe the businessman’s story over the crazy bum’s, proceed to arrest poor Thom and his mystical eye that no one understands.

“Fitter, Happier” – Arriving in his cell at The Big City’s Panic Office for the Deranged (POD), Thom is disturbed, annoyed by, and eventually grows weary of the message being played over the loudspeakers 24/7 to keep the prisoners in check. Finally, he can’t take it and comes up with a scheme to bust out. With the help of his trusty eye that sees cracks in the walls which would normally be missed by the average eye, Thom eventually escapes after digging through the walls enough with a spork. As he runs off into the darkness, he can faintly hear the beginning of something over the annoying loudspeaker from POD before distance causes the message to fade.

“This is the Panic Office, section nine-seventeen may have been hit. Activate the following procedure…”

“Electioneering” – Back in The Big City, Thom finds himself at a loss. With the Karma Police out looking for him, he’s now stuck in hiding until all of this blows over. He decides it’s safe enough to sleep on a park bench for the time being and dozes off for the night. Suddenly, he wakes up with a start as a man shouts through a megaphone to a crowd of people. It’s someone running for office! Thom grows bored of watching and goes back to sleep.

(Note: Radiohead have always felt this track never really fit in with the rest of the album. Looking at it story-wise, I have to agree.)

“Climbing Up the Walls” – This is one of those dream sequences that all psychedelic concept albums have. Thom, afraid for his life and asleep on a park bench, dreams of sleeping comfortably back at home until the Karma Police break in, beat him, and take him away.

“No Surprises” – Waking up from the nightmare, Thom realizes it was all just a dream and there are no surprises awaiting him once he can get back home, as the Karma Police cannot leave The Big City limits. If only he can get back home without being caught along the way…

“Lucky” – In a fit of despair, Thom thinks back to what got him in this mess. Remembering the speech and the eye that saved his life, he finds himself renewed with confidence. He meets a pilot named Sarah at a bar and tells her his story thus far. She feels sorry for Thom (especially after seeing his eye) and agrees to fly him back home. Later, as her plane begins to take off, the head of the state Karma Police arrives with a squad at the airstrip and shouts after them. They ignore them and proceed to take off, causing the squad to open fire. One of the engines gets shot and Sarah is forced to crash the plane into the sea a few miles away from Thom’s town. Sarah escapes, but Thom is trapped in the wreckage. She decides to sacrifice her own life to save his.

“The Tourist” – Thom swims to shore and proceeds to tell all of the boring people in his town of his adventure, but they find it too fast-paced and struggle to relate. Years later, Thom grows weary of the boring town and seeks to regain his optimism and confidence by reliving his adventure. He hops into his fast new German car and begins speeding down the interstate…

This, of course, leads to that whole looping thing Pink Floyd would always do with their concept albums. You know what I’m talking about, with the whole “Isn’t this where…we came in?” thing.

ROUND WAVE CRUSHER

First off, I had never even heard of Extratone or Speedcore before hearing this, so thank you for introducing me to something new, Internet People. I’ll admit I was a little put off by it at first as I’m sure many other people will be too, but it’s this immediate dislike on untrained ears that persists as a problem to the music world today.

Let me be clear to those who listen to this and instantly despise it: this really is a song. It’s got a break in the middle that I picked up on after a few listens (Yes, I did in fact listen to this track multiple times), so there is definitely some form and shape to it; it’s not “just noise.”

The song plays at 1600 BPM (beats per minute), which is really what makes the whole thing so off-putting in the first place, but it actually works. The fact that people are still, to this day, making tracks that break and bend all the established rules of a pop mentality proves that music is still fresh and interesting. I used to think music and media in general (film, tv, etc.) were starting to lose their charm simply because there is nothing left to conquer, no new Lewis and Clark explorations into unknown territory. It’s stuff like this that makes me proud of humanity as a whole. We’re always trying to create something new. Who cares if no one else likes it? If you and your fanbase enjoy it, then by all means, be happy! Love your dedication! Be proud of your work!

SCHOOL OF LANGUAGE

I don’t really know the band too well, so I’ll just stick with this song mostly. The first thing I noticed about this track was the thumping background spoken-beat instantly reminded me of Battles, which is a good thing. Battles are great for using very pulsating beats through the use of peculiar sounds. So if the immediate intention of getting me to hate this was just that, I can honestly say I was not at all annoyed by it. In fact, School of Language manage to set themselves apart through the use of this spoken intangible-syllable beat while having an otherwise fairly forgettable overall sound. That’s not to say the sound is in any way, shape, or form bad. On the contrary, the group can obviously play quite well. The riff has a nice staccato, foot-tapping bounce to it, and the vocal melody is simple enough to bring out happy feelings without being too mushy or over-the-top. That extra beat only manages to help set them apart and give them some attention, and it’s rightfully deserved for at least attempting something out of the ordinary.

This is kind of off-topic, but the “duh-DAH” guitar part sort of reminded me of Brad Barr’s “Sarah Through the Wall.” This just so happens to be my current favorite instrumental song ever from who I believe is the most talented guitarist on the planet. But that may be just a little biased. Anyway, here’s the song (first track) on his myspace page.

THE SPICE GIRLS

The Spice Girls were always about the image. Yes, they had music, but they were always meant to be more of a 90s feminine version of The Monkees. Better yet, they were basically a real-life version of Josie and the Pussycats; a personification of the “average” hugely successful all-female band. For a fleeting moment, the many Hanna-Barbera cartoon bands had all become reality with the intended audience being the pre-teen crowd. Little girls could look up to them without parents fearing drug-use or demeaning subliminal messaging. Little boys could swoon over them (Guilty). It was all fun and, most importantly, harmless innocence.

Like the Monkees and Josie’s gang, they even got their own movie in 1997, which effectively embodies what they were really all about. “Spice World” is not meant to be taken seriously, and kids everywhere loved its goofy and stylish humor. According to IMDb, the movie currently has a score of 2.9 out of 10 based on around 20,000 user votes. I’m going to make an assumption and say most IMDb users aren’t the little kids the Spice Girls were intending to bank on. In fact, the IMDb forums seem to point toward many of its users being creepy celebrity fan-fiction authors, but that’s a whole ‘nother story…

These British teenybopper-gatherers weren’t trying to make sexy videos for the perverted adults. They were just trying to spice up the youthful life!

VANILLA ICE

We all make mistakes. Robert Matthew Van Winkle’s (Yes, that’s his name. Why yes, names with “Van” in them are, in fact, always kickass.) biggest and most famous single happened to be his biggest and most famous mistake. Sampling Queen + David Bowie’s bass riff from the hit “Under Pressure,” Ice managed to get away with skipping out on royalties altogether for a short time on his biggest hit to date “Ice Ice Baby” before getting caught and penalized. That was 20 years ago, and the dude is still truckin’. Twenty years is a very long time, and I feel Vanilla Ice has learned his mistake and will never try it again. And yet, there are others who sample works more than he does who haven’t even been sued yet. Girl Talk even has his own movie dedicated to him called RiP: A Remix Manifesto that focuses on getting his fans to bring down music copyrights. Bands have been recycling old ideas for decades, and I think the film’s best scene sums all of this up perfectly.

So why does he still get so much hate for this one song? For Christ’s sake, over ten years ago, MTV retired the video and allowed him to smash the master tape. Out of pure rage of the song, he ended up smashing the rest of the MTV show’s stage with a bat, but the song still lives on. To this day, he continues to make records, having just released a new one this past year. The last three have all been independent releases due to being dropped from his record label, but he just doesn’t quit.

In 1998, Vanilla Ice released the album “Hard to Swallow” after surviving a suicide attempt. The album shows a change in music style that paralleled a change in his lifestyle after realizing how low he’d sunk. He had just come off of singing with a grunge band and decided to continue to follow with a similar grunge-like sound under the Vanilla Ice name. “People kept saying to me, ‘It might hurt your name, it might hurt your reputation,” he was quoted as saying. “I said, ‘Then I’m doing it.’ It’s the most punk-rock thing you could do.”

I think he summed himself up extremely well when he said, “If you released ‘Ice Ice Baby’ today, it would fit in today’s lyrical respect among peers […] My lyrics aren’t, ‘Pump it up, go! Go!’ At least I’m sayin’ somethin’.” Whether you like his music or not, the man knows how to write pleasing lyrics. He doesn’t focus his rap on just partying; there is always an actual underlying message to what he’s trying to say, and for that, I can respect the guy.

THE WOMBATS

With head-bobbing rhythms and an upbeat sound reminiscent of a cross between The Fratellis and Vampire Weekend, these guys obviously know how to have fun. I literally just listened to this song “Kill the Director” for the first time today and let me say, it is fucking catchy as hell. While the rest of the band is pumping you up with that back and forth bouncing guitar riff, singer Matthew Murphy grabs you from the very first line with his ridiculously over-the-top Liverpool accent. Yeah, sure, he could sing about whiny pop shit between an awkward boy and a girl that may or may not hook up with him because Teenage Emotions. YAWN! Instead, Murphy comes out of nowhere and is all like, “I JUST MET A GIRL THAT MAKES ME FEEL LIKE VOMITING ON THIS GUY’S FRUIT CART CAUSE SHE’S A PERFECT TEN.” He drills into your head the absurdity of romantic comedy love stories and repeatedly requests the audience rise up against the directors of such drivel. Ladies and gentlemen, this story is no Bridget Jones. This story…is your life.

Plus, did you even watch that video? Giant explosions worthy of Michael Bay go off in the background before a hawk shows up, bringing with it a fucking rainstorm. Next thing you know, Andy Kaufman has glowing red eyes whose only purpose appears to be to have the crew of the video shot by a sniper from off-screen. I don’t know about you, but I am having a good time.