OK Go – Oh No

This album is a lot of fun. It fits pretty comfortably into the New New Wave, skinny-tie, modern dance-rock genre that’s become common recently, but the music doesn’t sound hackneyed and familiar. Unlike, say, the Killers, there’s a sense of playfulness here. The members of OK Go genuinely seem to be having a fucking blast playing the music on this record.

There are plenty of good songs. Most people are familiar with “Here It Goes Again” because of the now-famous choreographed treadmill dancing video. “Invincible” and “A Million Ways” are the most obvious nods to today’s popular dance-rock. “A Million Ways,” in particular, borrows the bouncy energy and angular basslines of Franz Ferdinand. The rhythmic sway of “Oh Lately It’s So Quiet” seems tailor-made for the ending montage of a network TV drama, but the song is so catchy that its overuse on television will be easy to excuse.

The real stunner, however, is “No Sign of Life”, an anthem carved from a solid block of awesome. This song is bigger than anything else on the album, and it practically begs for a pyrotechnic display (I think there might actually be PT stage direction in the liner notes). Following a simple, repeated riff and an enthusiastic yelp from some computerized background singers, this song lumbers to life. It’s not in any hurry, because it wants to rock you thoroughly and the faster it goes, the sooner it’s all over. God knows what this song is about, but when he sings that he could “hear his heart beat / and beat and beat and beat and beat” I can no longer keep from singing along.

Buy this record.

***FULL DISCLOSURE: I didn’t actually buy this album. I borrowed it from my friend Dan, who liked it but didn’t love it. His complaint was with the lyrics. I think he meant that they were trying to be too clever. Which might be true. Singer (and presumably lyricist) Damian Kulash uses words like “politesse” and “urbanity”. But for me, that doesn’t distract from the fun.

Ghostface Killah – Fishscale

Blew my mind. I had read about how good this album is, but the 30-second samples I’d heard hadn’t convinced me. Good thing I bought the album anyway. It’s tremendous. There’s an awesome soul feel to the album, but at no point does the production sound like Kanye West. Don’t get me wrong—I like Kanye. But his work always sounds shiny and polished. This album does not. It’s got a gutty, gritty soul feel that’s perfect for Ghostface’s raspy delivery. The first two songs (after the intro) are my favorites. “Shakey Dog” sets the tone for the album with some awesome horn hits and a lurid tale of ghetto thievery. “Kilo” is more of a sing-along, with the backup singers delivering the memorable couplet “All around the world today / the kilo is a measure / a kilo is 1,000 grams / that’s easy to remember.” Nuff said.

Sweet – Desolation Boulevard

Terrific classic rock. Until a few weeks ago, I knew only a little about the band Sweet. I knew (and loved) their song “Fox on the Run” from Dazed and Confused. In Wayne’s World, Tia Carrere’s Cassandra performs the Sweet song “Ballroom Blitz” with her band Crucial Taunt at the Gas Works. And Bjorn Turoque (google it), the American air guitar champion, performs his routine to Sweet’s “Set Me Free”. Conveniently, all three songs appear on this album. That was good enough for me. I was pleasantly surprised, then, to discover the song “The Six Teens”. Apparently “Six Teens” was a single in the 70’s, but I’d certainly never heard it before. It’s an epic proto-power ballad. I found myself humming it all day. The rest of the album is filler, but none of it is bad and it doesn’t matter anyway. In my world, 4 great songs on one album is a no-brainer.

Beck – The Information

First of all, this album came with an awesome sheet of stickers, so you can design your own album cover art. There’s horses having sex, rainbows, robots, you name it. Evidently, this album is disqualified from the pop charts in England because the stickers constitute a competitive advantage over everyone else’s albums. Totally justified. It sounds ludicrous, but I would have paid $15 for the stickers alone. That said, I have yet to remove a sticker from the sheet and apply it to the cover. That says a lot about me, I think. Once I decorate the cover, I’ll be disappointed that I can’t redo it a different way. Trying to keep all my options open, I wind up choosing nothing.
The music is considerably less awesome. Don’t get me wrong. I really like Beck, and there is nothing wrong with this record. There isn’t a bad song. It just isn’t all that interesting. It doesn’t jump at me and demand attention. It’s background music. Very hip, esoteric background music. Maybe the problem is that Beck has made such good albums in the past, and it’s unfair to compare every album he makes to Midnite Vultures (my fave). But I got this album at the same time as Air’s Moon Safari, and Air just blew Beck away. No contest.

Average White Band – Cut the Cake

Before this album, I knew 2 AWB songs: “Pick Up the Pieces” (because of its involvement in Swingers) and “Cut the Cake” (because it was on a 2-disc album called 70’s Dance Machine that I got for subscribing to Entertainment Weekly when I was 16). I guess “School Boy Crush” was a single, but I’d never heard it. I knew it best as the source of the main sample from Eric B & Rakim’s “Microphone Fiend”. Now I’m actually disappointed I didn’t already know it. The bottom line: this album is rock-solid. Every song is funky, but it’s not hard funk (like Parliament). You can dance to this record, or you can get stoned and sit around to this record. It can be background music, or the beat of the party. It’s just really versatile. And to think these are a bunch of red-haired Scotsmen, rather than a team of Memphis session players. Boggles the mind.

Eric B & Rakim – Paid in Full

Like Follow the Leader, this record is regarded very highly in hip-hop circles, but it didn’t blow me away. It was a more complete record than Leader, though, with actual songs (choruses and everything!). I’d never really appreciated “I Know You Got Soul” before, and now it’s my favorite Eric B song. If he really started the trend of James Brown samples, he deserves a gold star. It’s kind of amazing to realize that no DJ had thought to do that earlier. And the drum track from “Paid in Full” is just sick.

Eric B & Rakim – Follow the Leader

This record is widely considered a classic, so I felt I should own it. And I LOVE Rakim. But this album was underwhelming to me. Aside from the terrific “Microphone Fiend” and “Follow the Leader”, there weren’t many real songs. The majority of the songs were 3 minutes of Eric B. mixing a respectable beat, punctuated by a 45-second Rakim verse. It felt thrown together, with no thought to song structure. Which may have been the point. But my take is this: when you have the greatest MC of all time (a contention I will defend some day) sitting in the studio next to you, why not use him as much as possible? It’s like resting Jordan for a game to let Pippen and Rodman take over. You’ll probably still win the game, but the fans who came to see Jordan would be pissed.

The Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldiers

This album was great from top to bottom, and it’s best to play it that way. But the songs hold up even outside the context of the album. (I put a few on a recent mix CD I made.) Yes, Jack White is in there somewhere, but it’s pretty easy to forget all about him. There’s very little blues-influenced material and the songs he sings are mercifully free of the crazy-eyed vocal style he sometimes puts on White Stripes songs. Some favorites might be “Levels” and “Steady As She Goes”, which deserved to be the single. The thing is, several songs here could/should be singles if anyone gave a damn. Sigh.

The Futureheads – The Futureheads

This is their debut album. They’re a British dance-rock band a la Bloc Party (although they may have predated Bloc Party). I already had their second album, News and Tributes. I didn’t love that album, but it’s starting to grow on me. I like this album less than I did that one, but it might grow on me also. But without one song I really like, I can’t see it spending my time in my CD player.