The Year In Bitch - 2017

I seriously only really took in about half a dozen records this year. Specifically, the new Nine Inch Nails EPs, the new Beck, Manson, St. Vincent, Gorillaz, and, most recently, the new They Might Be Giants*. Three of my five favorite artists had absolutely stellar releases this year (and one of my five favorite artists had a poppy, sweet-and-plasticky-like-a-strawberry-Twizzler release this year) and, in the dearth that is to come, I shall try and recall this shining plethora and hold the memory close as a spark with which to warm my soul...although I will fail and start complaining pretty soon, I am certain.

Along with that tight and isolated four plus hours of music that I obsessed over this year, I did take in a few other things...the pair of Reznor/Ross scores of Patriots Day and The Vietnam War, the excellent new New Pornographers, the new Tori Amos, the new and spectacularly non-Euclidean Drew McDowall, and Transparent by Coil and Zos Kia, a record which I feel ended up perfectly summarizing this year and all its occurrences. You should totally give it a listen, with headphones, while looking over a recap of the world events of 2017. I'm not kidding.

One life changing moment that occurred was when my wife and I (and a small handful of others) had tea with Tori Amos. I mean...it's something I could never fully put into words. She was graceful, attentive, gracious and the Summer Queen of the Sidhe. At one point, when she was chatting with my wife and I and hearing all about our non-fae lives, she took my hand in hers and I almost died. It was a legitimate brush with divinity and I shouldn't have even brought it up because it's like a blind man trying to describe how red her hair is.

Something far more mundane yet also worth nothing from this year...packaging. Starting in February with the physical component for Nine Inch Nails' Not The Actual Events and continuing with its vinyl release, then the physical component for Add Violence, the CD packaging for the new Manson, the deluxe versions of the new Beck and St. Vincent, and culminating with the "Super Deluxe" edition of Gorillaz' Humanz. I talked about a lot of it here, but I must harp on it.
While I don't think any packaging I've ever encountered competes with some of the stuff Coil and its associates have come up with over the years, specifically the insane presentation for Peter Christopherson's Time Machines II, I think it's fantastic, in this world of people blithely renting licenses for songs off of iTunes instead of purchasing hard copies of albums, to see artists putting effort not only into their music, but into the method in which their music is presented. While streaming is convenient as hell, there's something lacking...namely beautiful, full color, 12" by 12" artwork...or soot-covered cardstock, a quick reference guide to a machine that creates dystopian, pre-apocalyptic scenarios, or branded kaleidoscopes and prisms. The music should obviously stand on its own, but the artwork and packaging and all the weird trappings serve to add further depth to the release, expanding the world the artist is trying to create for the listener. That's "listener", not "consumer". All this is to say...I don't know...people still give a shit and will continue to as long as the artists do the same.
But not with cassettes.
Those are fully obsolete.
Beck. 

ONTOTHEMOTHERFUCKINGSUPERLATIVES!!!

Best Song of the Year
This is a tie for me between St. Vincent's "Slow Disco" and Nine Inch Nails' "The Lovers". Here's the former with a string octet and the latter live in rehearsal which won't sound any different unless you're a fan so...yeah.

Worst Song of the Year
"Despacito".
If this song were a person I would hire an assassin to kill it.

BEST! LIVE! NOODS!
I wanted Gorillaz to be epic, but between the ocean of goddamn people (Christ I fucking hate people) and the fact that they were supporting an album I'm 17% into, that didn't happen. Seeing Nine Inch Nails two nights in a row was pretty epic (Panorama and Webster Hall), and certainly better than the last time I fucking did that but it comes down to Mother Feather at the Knitting Factory and St. Vincent at Kings Theater. One was perfectly sculpted and executed like a theatrical performance, and the other was sloppy, wet chaos. On one hand, you have Annie Clark, standing on a stage alone and delivering the same set of songs over three months, never varying, just a series of musical monologues and soliloquies, then you have Mother Feather's unending, goddess-gleaned energy repeatedly driving red hot pop cock rock into the audience's collective face like a dong made of sincerity, lady parts, and power...plus they have a new bassist!

Biggest Surprise
Oh my goodness there was no contest. I was absolutely thrilled by Marilyn Manson's Heaven Upside Down. Despite not being a perfect return to the truly unsettling Manson I fell in fearful love with over 20 years ago, this is the closest thing we've gotten since the ebon opus that was Antichrist Superstar and the best Manson album he's created since 2003. Even if the man backslides, there will always be this album to let us know that Marilyn Manson was back...even if only for a short time.

Biggest Disappointment
This might have been a tie between Beck's exquisitely crafted and glimmeringly hollow pop swamp Colors and Gorillaz' Humanz but, after those three singles Beck released, I should have expected something like this, whereas Humanz was such a letdown. I know it's good, but I don't like it. As of right now, about nine months after its release, I only enjoy two and a half songs ("Charger" and "Hallelujah Money") and one chorus ("Saturnz Barz")**.

Best Album of the Year
Yeah, I know Nine Inch Nails put out a new EP in 2017, but HA, I'm picking one of the other six releases I listened to this year! It's got to be Masseduction. It's like Annie Clark was possessed by Beck and Prince and then did her thing. Tracks like "Hang On Me", "Los Ageless", "Savior", "Slow Disco", the title track...come on asshole, fuck you it's the best. Asshole.
fuck you.

Best Album of Next Year
Um...is it cheating if I give this to the new They Might Be Giants? I mean...Beck certainly isn't putting anything new out next year. Neither is St. Vincent***. The members of Cake are dead and E is working on learning to love himself. So unless something astonishing happens and Reznor actually puts out a new LP in 2018, yeah, the Best Album of 2018 is I Like Fun by They Might Be Giants.
You've got 365 days to change my mind world, step t'me.


Most Anticipated Release of 2018
Well, the third Nine Inch Nails EP obviously, the one that ties everything ever together and brings meaning to my life: artistically, spiritually, and sexually. Duh.
Or is it the new Mother Feather, Constellation Baby? Starring tracks like "I.C.U.", "Shake Your Magic 8-Ball", "Totally Awesome", and the absolutely stellar title track...**** Thing is, no matter how good it is, the new NIN is only an EP, five or six tracks, probably clocking in at less than a half hour...so...oooooch...this is going to be a tie...for now.

Hopes for 2018
A fucking new Nine Inch Nails album! Of course! What do you fucking think?! But I have a feeling that these EPs are going to serve as the only new real NIN for a while. Damn it. So...I suppose...nothing. I have no hopes for 2018. That way, I can't be disappointed! I BEAT THE FUCKING SYSTEM!

* Which isn't actually out until 1/19/18.

** Four and a half if you throw in "Out of Body" and "The Apprentice" from the 2-CD version.

*** Except for a small handful of tracks left off Masseduction, like "Sexclusive", a track featuring Jehnny Beth from Savages on guest vocals.

**** Get it? Stellar? Constellation Baby? STILL GOT IT!

A review of Gorillaz' "Humanz" (Super Deluxe)

Why do people purchase "deluxe" or "super deluxe" or "bonus" or other such named "enhanced" versions of albums? For extra artwork? Unique packaging? More songs? For the sheer exclusivity of it? For me, depending on the band, it's for unreleased/extra music first, then artwork, and only if I really dig said artwork. So when Gorillaz, a band for which the artwork is as important as the music, maybe moreso, announced their new album Humanz a mere month before its release, I went all out; I purchased the two-CD version which featured six tracks not on the standard CD and pre-ordered the "Super Deluxe" version which boasted fourteen new tracks. Between that bonus CD and the SD version, that doubled the tracks on the standard album. After months of delay, I received my SD package earlier this month and sat down with it over the weekend.

Included in the Super Deluxe edition of Humanz is an art book featuring the Instagram posts from earlier this year which detailed the Gorillaz' path from Plastic Beach to Humanz, some scribbled-on lyric sheets, and unseen art from Jamie Hewlett, and fourteen separate records, each a unique color, each in its own sleeve, the a-side containing the album's twenty tracks and the b-side sporting a new, unreleased track. The book and records all come in a huge, faux leather case adorned with lightning bolts. I'll get right to it: while a handful of the bonus tracks are interesting (namely "Colombians" which sounds like something from Goat Simulator, "Midnite Float", and an alternate, D.R.A.M.-centric version of "Andromeda") most are forgettable instrumentals and foreign language versions of LP tracks. 

Now the question: was it worth it? The package was over $350 with shipping and took eight months to arrive. Everything in it is beautiful and well-crafted, although the tracks are mostly Gorillaz-official-website-background-music quality. Would I have been happy with just the standard LP? I'm not a theoretical physicist so I really can't answer that. I'm going to say no though, as I am a completionist and when it comes to Gorillaz, the narrative is important to me, so any new music/images could mean more insight into this non-existent band. For a normal person though? They probably don't even know about this, and is that a bad thing? Digital vs vinyl. Collecting vs minimalism. Each record has only two songs. Arguably, the only less practical way to present this album would be to have twenty-eight one-sided records. Is it necessary. Ooh. There's a phrase you don't hear a lot in conjunction with these special releases. But, then again, it's "super deluxe", what's "necessary" about something labeled as "super deluxe"?

Oy. 

Did you know there's a Grammy award for packaging? Look it up. Nine Inch Nails was nominated in 2008 for Ghosts I-IV and Reznor, Ross, and Rob Sheridan in 2012 for their The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo score packaging. They were nominated for "Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition". THERE'S A GRAMMY AWARD FOR PACKAGING.

A review of St. Vincent's "Fear The Future" tour at Kings Theater on 12/2/17

Annie Clark is a human. I can now say this with complete certainty. The last time I saw her perform, in 2014 at Terminal 5, I wasn't sure; she was too cold and calculating, like some multi-function automaton that had yet to truly master a mimicry of human behavior. Even when she was vulnerable and confiding, there seemed to be a barely audible click behind each teardrop and sigh. This time however, Saturday at the Kings Theater in Brooklyn, she was just a human. A guitar-murdering pocket apocalypse of a human, but a human nonetheless.

The evening started with an hour long Q&A and two-song acoustic performance*, both of which went a long way towards humanizing Clark. Then there was the very start of her first set, which featured Clark almost ridiculously overdressed in a matching pink, vinyl teddy and high-heeled boots**. As the set unfolded, so did the stage, mirroring Clark's confidence and command of the space. For the majority of the second set, Clark merely stood and sang and killed a score of guitars and utterly dominated the theater.

The first third of the show was an almost chronological tour of her past work, starting with "Marry Me" and ending with "Birth In Reverse", while the back two thirds focused on her latest. As much as I enjoy a well-varied and structured set list, hearing the whole of Msseduction from front to back was fantastic as every track had additional depth and highlights not found on the album. One downside to the performance was the overabundance of the not-so-stellar visuals, which consisted solely of extra footage from the albums' two videos and press material. Occasionally they added but more often than not they distracted.

Highlights included a reworked and almost industrial version of 2014’s “Digital Witness”, a heart-rending new string arrangement of "Strange Mercy", “Cheerleader”, and...well, pretty much everything on Masseduction.

Clark recently extended her Fear The Future tour to mid-2018, so if you can, check out a true virtuoso performing one of the best albums of the year.

Shitty photos here.

* "Laughing With a Mouth of Blood" and "the second in the 'Johnny Trilogy'", "Prince Johnny".

** She had mentioned in the Q&A that her look for the live show was a mix of "silly and sexy".

End of the Month Music Bitchfest - November 2017

Had spinal surgery on the 18th of this month, but right before that, on the 17th, I received my review copy of the new TMBG. And, although I am embargoed...it's fantastic. Look for the full review in early January.

Aside from the new TMBG, I've really just been listening to those NIN EPs, the new St. Vincent, and the new Beck.

Opinions have emerged further on all four releases: Not The Actual Events is really good (received my CD of that recently and it's a perfect interpretation of the vinyl package and art, just smaller), but Add Violence is one of their best, tightest releases ever, Masseduction might be surpassing St. Vincent as my favorite album of hers*, and Colors is still lacking a lot for me. While I understand where Beck's in making such an album, I just don't love the album.

In December, I'm seeing St. Vincent as she wraps up the US leg of her Fear The Future tour, Mother Feather at Knitting Factory, and TMBG's triumphant return to the stage on both the 30th and 31st at the Music Hall of Williamsburg...where, hopefully, they'll play "Last Wave", as I need to stand amongst a crowd of people and sing that chorus out loud.
Oh man I can't wait 'til folks get to hear I Like Fun...

Also...there might be something from Nine Inch Nails on December 5th. Not the new EP, but, if not a song, then at least a tease, update, or image introducing yet another art style over which fans can get hard. Reznor and Ross are going to be on Song Exploder, but the song being exploded (?) is "The Lovers", so...who knows...I could just be wrong.

* Which is thrilling as I can't think of many bands whose subsequent albums get better and escape that godawful stereotype of their-first-was-their-best.

End of the Month Music Bitchfest - October 2017

I know the world is ending not because I'm listening to the new Marilyn Manson more than the new Beck, but because I'm enjoying the new Marilyn Manson more than the new Beck.

Beck
I wrote my review and it's a goddamn whirlwind. Now, a few weeks after having played nothing but this, the new St. Vincent, the new Manson, and a few Stephen King audiobooks* on repeat...I think I get it.
Beck says he wanted to make something joyous, something that felt good. Joy and feeling good are not always complex.
So. There.
When I want complex joy from Beck, I'll listen to "Milk & Honey", or "Debra", or "Dirty Dirty". When I was simply joy from Beck, simple like bright swathes of primary colors, I guess I'll listen to Colors. These are shitty, shitty times in which we live, Beck is only trying to help.

St. Vincent
After her most recent, self-titled release, I was curious as to how she'd top herself. Masseduction is, at least, as good as St. Vincent. Plus, "Slow Disco" is so beautiful that it hurts to listen to it. At one point, I looked up how old Annie Clark was, thinking she was, like, 25 or something, and it somehow made me feel better that she was making all this amazing shit and was only a year younger than me. I'm seeing her in December in Brooklyn and I'd suggest you do as well.

They Might Be Giants
Album title, release date, and first single have been revealed! I Like Fun (excellent title) drops January 19th (unless you're in the IFC or reviewing it...like me) and "I Left My Body" is a pretty solid introduction. Check it out here.

Nine Inch Nails
TR and AR released their cover (although I'd call it more of a reinterpretation because the original is less than three minutes long and theirs is seven and change) of John Carpenter's theme to Halloween. IT'S HERE FOR YOU TO LISTEN TO! TO! Shit gets cray around the six and a half minute mark.

Marilyn Manson also released the most Marilyn Manson-ass Marilyn Manson video ever. It's for his track "SAY10" and it features a chick masturbating and the devil and Johnny Depp and that rubber wall thing and slow motion blood explosions and just fucking everything but Twiggy.

Between those three albums, a quick revisitation of Reznor and Ross' Vietnam score, and some vintage Tori, that is, literally, all I've been listening to this month. But...a note on packaging***...

Over the past few weeks, I've received physical copies of the deluxe vinyl version of the new St. Vincent, CD and vinyl editions of the new Marilyn Manson, thht awesome-rad-cocaine-on-your-cock-and-asshole colored vinyl version of the new Beck I'd mentioned a while back, and, finally, the latest CD from Nine Inch Nails**, and I was blown away by some of what I saw. These days, a special package for a deluxe or limited edition vinyl isn't that crazy; you're paying more and should receive more for your money, but, as Trent Reznor loves to remind people at every turn NO ONE BUYS CDS BECAUSE FUCK CDS EITHER BUY MY RECORDS ON VINYL OR STREAM THEM BUT NOTHING ELSE. NOTHING ELSE. NO. FUCK YOU ANDY. ONE OR THE FUCKING OTHER. However, while he might hate them, the packaging for Add Violence is tight. Nothing flashy, just a perfect and concise package for the EP. On one side of each page you've got the track title and on the other you've got the lyrics, white text on a black background. The middle of the booklet has a small taste of the elaborate and insane physical component, then back to basics for the rest of it. The disc itself is red with black text. On the back of the booklet and the disc itself, the NIN logo and "halo thirty one", printed clearly. In other words, Reznor didn't phone it it, even though he doesn't believe people buy them anymore.
So, thanks.

Then, shit got interesting...Manson's last one, The Pale Emperor, came in a simply digi-pack with no liner notes and an exterior that was akin to sandpaper, meant to damage any surfaces it touched. I always thought that was cool and a pretty neat trick for Manson to pull. When Heaven Upside Down arrived, I opened things up**** and found one, single insert: one on side, the album cover, on the other, the geometry Manson has embraced this time around, nothing more. I was pissed. On one hand, I want to fully experience the release; since my first cassettes, I would sit down with a magnifying glass and pore over the liner notes, absorbing them, devouring them, trying to get a better understanding of the other elements that made up what an album was. On the other hand, I wanted to hear what the fuck Manson was saying. I'd say...40% of the album is garbled by Manson's throat-shredding yowls and I was wondering (as I always do these days) if it happened organically or because the lines were silly and he was trying to hide something. And I don't trust any of those lyrics sites because, without the official lyrics, everything is fan fiction. All that to say...I was pissed. Then, I took a closer look at the jewel case. It was the type of case usually reserved for a 2-disc release, that is to say there was a "page" on which the CD was set instead of the back cover. That's when I saw it...the back cover was the booklet. Now, I mentioned this to my wife and she said that wasn't anything special. Personally, I'm 36 and have been buying CDs for 23 years and I'd never seen anyone utilize this back space in such a fashion. Yes, Tool and a few others have "hidden" artwork back there, but never a whole booklet. And, on top of that fun little revelation, there was the book itself; the lyrics were laid out as bible verse and the paper stock was that insubstantial stuff on which bibles are printed.
Wow.
Manson.
Well done.
For a guy who'd just been releasing jewel cases with folded inserts for a decade, this was something special.

YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE WAS SPECIAL???? ST. VINCENT'S DELUXE LP OF MASSEDUCTION! Honestly? I was legitimately confused when I first opened it. But I was also on painkillers, so...I choose to blame that.
The whole thing comes in a vinyl envelope. Inside that envelope is the cover art on a huge, double-sided poster which serves as housing for all the stuff. The stuff that I just mentioned a few words ago consists of the record itself, yellow (I'd have preferred the pink, but never mind), and in its own slipcover, a sticker sheet which is maybe a little odd, and a really great, zine-y booklet containing pictures and the lyrics. It reminds me of something from Fight Club, now that I think about it...
The package
The record

Next, the crazy fuck-my-ass-with-your-awesome-rad-coke-covered-dick deluxe edition of Beck's Colors. Whether you like the album or not, you cannot deny that Capitol is aching to make this release a thing*****. Aside from the numbered enamel pin (I'm a patch man and this pin isn't changing that), the kaleidoscope (seriously), and the fucking hexagonal, glass prism (thing weighs like eight pounds), the records (two of them, red as the devil's taint) are in this semi-customizable slipcover with four colored transparencies all coming together to form the dude, just watch the video. Also, the booklet is laid out fantastically. This is actually worth all the hubbub.
The packaging
The useless physical objects
The records

And, lastly, because of the awesome CD packaging for the new Manson, I grabbed the vinyl edition...which was nothing more than red vinyl, and a single lyrics sheet. Nothing cool. Something about putting all that effort into the CD but not the vinyl feels weird...

And on that odd and disquieting note...


* My professional opinion as a voice actor and a three-time audiobook narrator: George Guidall is awful (Dark Tower series), Steven Weber is awesome (It).

** ...who seems to have parted ways with Manson, perhaps because of the passing of Daisy Berkowitz.

*** Strap in, motherfuckers!1!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

**** ASTONISHED to find there was no parental advisory sticker on the album...the album which features a track clearly titled "WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE"...did Tipper Gore die?

***** #CustomHashtag

A review of Beck's "Colors"

All right, I'm going to get weird here for a moment. I do not consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but since the direction of Beck's follow up to Morning Phase has slowly come to light over the past three years, I have developed what one might call a "conspiracy theory"*...and here it is...

After Beck won the Grammy in 2015 and was rewarded by Kayne's cuntishness and a legion of ill-informed children tweeting #WhoIsBeck, I believe he had a thought. I believe his thought was to make an album so accessible and so mainstream as to show these twenty-somethings exactly who he was and what he was capable of. He sat down and looked at what he had lying around** and saw a bunch of stuff he did with super-mainstream, finger-on-the-pulse producer and former keyboardist, Greg Kurstin. This stuff was as far from the somber beauty of Morning Phase as Beck had been perhaps since 1999's Midnite Vultures and it was accessible as fuck. The plan started there.
Beck went on to make songs as commercial and radio-friendly as he was able, dusting them with just a hint of the funk and weirdness he is so adept at, but not too much funk or weirdness, got to keep this appealing to the masses, always think of the masses. If Morning Phase was the spiritual sequel to 2002's Sea Change, a complete work for musicians and people who loved intricate and challenging music that pays dividends after repeat listens, then this new one was going to be for the Playlist People, the Shuffleheads, those who like songs but not albums because who has forty minutes to listen to anything? To someone in their twenties, forty minutes is the equivalent of four hundred years. That is a fact created by combining math and science.***
At one point, and here's where things get uber-conspiratorial, Beck decides to not just make an album for the kids, he decides to mock them a little by lampooning the music and subjects they're used to. Proof?**** The first single, "Dreams". The song actually features the Millennial Whoop. And those lyrics...so...normal...
As time went on, the songs got more and more overproduced, and less and less substantial. He removed continuity and flow from the album, and came out with ten candy-coated frosting dots that were designed to appeal to the most brainless and least focused demographics: Millennials and the corporations that shill for Millennials.*****

Now, do I actually believe all this? Eh, no. In a nutshell; I think the direction and content of the album as well as the decision to release Colors after Morning Phase was influenced by the fact that the overwhelming response to a skilled artist winning one of the music industry's highest awards****** resulted in the majority of the public asking "who's this guy who is almost 50 and who we've never heard of who just beat Beyonce for the best album released in the entirety of 2014. I don't care if you're a time-travelling space alien like Beck, that's got to get through, and it's got to sting, at least a bit.

I should probably review this thing, huh?

Colors is an album made of and for the zeitgeist. Sadly, while the zeitgeist can be colorful, it can also be hyperactive and vapid. From start to finish, the album is rife with the same overused and mundane concepts and assertions that've plagued the music industry since its inception. "Put it up in the air / if you don't really care", "just wanna stay up all night with you / nothing that I wouldn't rather do", "it's my life, your life / live it once, can't live it twice"*******, "what I need is right in front of me", and so on. Here's the thing though, even if 90% of the lyrics here are just fluff, a lot of the songs are catchy, if not good.
I don't hate this album. I hate...what it is and why it is, the need for it and the music it reflects and mimics. There are good, well-crafted, pop-as-fuck songs here. "Dreams" (the original, not the blander album mix) and "Up All Night" should be on every summer mix tape for at least the next five years, "Dear Life" is solid and would fit nicely on other, better Beck albums, "Square One" and"Wow" are fun (but the latter isn't nearly as weird as seemingly every other review claims it is. There's one "weird" line in it and that accounts for five seconds of a forty five minute album. Fucking get over it and make sure you don't listen to Midnite Vultures or your heads will explode), and "I'm So Free" needs to be on the radio forever.
And hey, if Beck wants to make an album where every song is crafted to be purchased by movie studios or car companies and featured in commercials or trailers or bland CW dramas, who am I to get mad when he does? He's got kids and, apparently, musical genius and Grammy awards don't pay for college. Going from there, as I was listening to Colors for the first time, I could actually see the commercials in which each song would be used and took notes. 

"Colors" - iPhone 8 Color announce or new Canon printer, something where they're trying to sell the idea of "color" as a new invention or product

"Seventh Heaven" -  CW teen drama prom dance song as credits roll; our introverted hero just found out his mother has cancer but she told him to go to the dance anyway and to ask the girl he likes to dance with him and he does and she does - full disclosure - this might be because of the old WB show of the same name, but I've never actually seen an episode so...I don't know.

"I'm So Free" - sugar-free chewing gum commercial, both because the gum is sugar...free and also because chewing gum makes one feel free. Or maybe some smartphone plan that has free long distance.

 "Dear Life" - ABC pilot about a bartender/burgeoning stand up comic, used as the theme or maybe an extended intro. Is the show called "Dear Life"? Patton Oswalt would have been offered and would have turned down this show. But Joel McHale might not have...

"No Distraction" - specifically the bridge and chorus - used in the first act of the inevitable sequel to NERVE, before shit gets dark - driving through a city at night, perhaps with someone yelling out the window about how great the night is going to be

"Dreams" -  is there a sequel to Inside Out? If not, definitely something by Pixar. Probably just in the trailer though.

"Wow" might be the only track too "out there" for typical ad agencies. That's not to say it's not viable, just that I'm not a fucking copywriter. Whatever it gets used for it will have the spec "urban".

"Up All Night" - oh, I don't know...maybe, like, a watch commercial?

"Square One" - in the fourth sequel to Bridget Jones's Diary in a scene where her daughter is having a fun girls' night out but she's in love with one of her girl friends? Was Bridget Jones's baby a chick? Can we rewrite that?

"Fix Me" - "hip", "cool" life insurance ad for 30-somethings. My wife suggested that one and it clicks audibly for me.

I was going to go as far as to record little fake commercials using these tracks in these situations, but that felt shitty. Plus, I'm lazy.

My hope is that Colors will prove to the idiot tastemakers, the vaping and vapid Millennial masses, Twitter********, car company ad execs and to himself that he can be as banal, mundane, and relevant as the rest of what's drifting in the cultural septic tank that is pop music. Then he can get back to being Beck, unfettered, and continue making real music for no one but hiss founky self.
And me.

* Not Gibson's worst movie, but certain scenes reminded me too much of Jacob's Ladder, plus he's still a rapey, anti-Semitic piece of shit and no one seems to remember that anymore.

** In my mind, and with regards to the amount of material they've both got backlogged, I equate Beck to a funkier Richard D. James.

*** I used to be in my twenties, so shush.

**** Or "proof", I suppose.

***** Obviously this doesn't apply to each and every single person born between 1982 and 2004 (or whatever the definition of a "Millennial" is). I know a lot of Millennials and a lot of them they kind of hate the label and fight against it, but for every Millennial I know who is not a piece of shit, I know a dozen who are.

****** Kind of. To some people anyway.

******* aka "YOLO". Ugh.

******** Seriously though, I feel like the marketing budget for this album could offset more than one third world country's debt. But hey, check out that custom Beck hashtag!!!!

End of the Month Music Bitchfest - September 2017

Blogger ate my post. It rolled back five days of on and off writing.
Fuck Blogger.

Here's what you're getting.

Nine Inch Nails
So, you know the score for Ken Burns' Vietnam doc...it's not really great.

Notes/Standouts:

Less Likely
Justified Response - NIN does early 00's Marilyn Manson
Before Dawn - organic evolution - crickets looping cool stuff
A World Away into The Rights Things
Passing the Point - trance inducing
Strangers in Lockstep - sounds like How To Destroy Angels instrumental
Before/After Faith - ha! Bet you thought this was going to be all soft and shit and have a melody! PSYCH!!!
Haunted - Was really hoping for more than just texture on the closer.

Aside from a few moments ("Less Likely", "A World Away", "The Right Things"), a lot of this feels a touch featureless. There's a distinct lack of melody on everything but a few tracks. There's dynamism and levels and everything is beautifully crafted, but it's a beautifully crafted blandness, if that makes sense. "Justified Response", "What Comes Back", "Before And After Faith"...these all sound great, but they're missing something. Maybe Burns and whoever else was in charge thought too much melody would distract from the subject matter or maybe R & R made that choice to get out of the way of said subject matter, either way, yeah.that would distract from subject matter? One could say it's more texture, or one could say R/R need to branch out a bit.

They Might Be Giants
Dial-A-Song 2018 has been announced, but unlike the original DAS in 2015 which featured one new song every week for the whole year, this time around, the Johns are only releasing twenty-six. Ouch. The inherent and unspoken upside to releasing fifty-two tracks is that if three or eight or twenty-three of them suck, there are still twenty-nine fucking songs that don't, not that anything from 2015 sucked. There were a small handful that weren't my cup of tea*, but whatever. Gift horse, mouth, etc. Looking forward to half an avalanche of new They Night be Giants music starting in a few months.


A review of The Meadows
Er. Not really, since I only saw two bands. So, let's say a review of Gorillaz with TV On The Radio as an opener.

This was the second time I've seen TVOTR and, as I felt after seeing them the first time (at the Apollo on their Seeds tour), I wish I knew their lyrics better. My live experiences are marred by more than just people and potential shitty sound; if I don't know the lyric to EVERYTHING being played, I feel like I'm just standing in a crowd of people mumbling. Their set consisted of almost half of Seeds, a fact with which I was completely fine. "Lazerray" and "Happy Idiot" are some of my favorites. "Province" was heartbreakingly beautiful, but the highlight of the evening was right before they launched into "Trouble", when Tunde said someone had told him once that "everything will be okay in the end, and, if things aren't okay, then it's not the end." Now, if I saw this written in some floaty handwriting with a tree at sunset in the background on social media, I might sneer on a good day and sneer and unfollow that person on a bad day. It's one of those brainless, wistful truisms like "today is the first day of the rest of your life", "good things are good" or "well, when it's not raining, it's the time when there's no rain" that plague the internet. But, having this dude, at that point in their highly emotional set and at this point in human history say this before that particular song...I got choked up. And, during the song itself, yeah, I got more than a little weepy.
So.
I guess the point I'm making is: location, location, location.

Moving on.

I'd been a fan of Gorillaz since they first came out (even if I didn't understand exactly what was going on, didn't smoke weed, and hate reggae), and the mythos of the band along with...literally everything else had me fall deep for this weird side project of Damon Albarn's, but I'd never seen them live. To cut right to it, it was a Gorillaz show. For their songs that had music videos, they played those in the background...each one about a second out of sync with the audio, which was very distracting. Aside from that, there were two huge drawbacks, first, the people. I retain that the biggest problem at concerts, the biggest problem with mass transit, the biggest problem with this world as we know it is the people that trundle and slump across its face. Well, I've never flip flopped on that...
The poeple were just...CONSTANTLY MOVING. THIS IS TONIGHT'S HEADLINER! THESE ARE THE ARTISTS YOU CAME TO SEE! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO, HEAD DOWN, EYES SLIDING OVER YOUR PHONES.
You kids...with your Saturday night, post-Gorillaz plans...
Second problem, "Sex Murder Party". Even though, in my original review of Humanz I said that, while I didn't love the album, I understood it was a great album...well...I don't know now. "Sex Murder Party" is a singular song. A singular song that should never be played live. Especially with an added two minute break down, further fucking up the flow of the entire set. It was like placing a black hole in the middle of a wedding reception right between cake and coffee.
However, I got to see Gorillaz live. And, while Albarn and Hewlett have yet to master the human vs animated live balance and I don't know if they ever will and the show desperately needed more Murdoc and Noodle, I saw Gorillaz live. Don't know if I would see them again unless I loved the album they were supporting and they were not headlining a fucking festival, but "El Manana" is still an incredible song.

Marilyn Manson - Heaven Upside Down
Oh man, I am so happy about this album. Review is here.**
For context, here are my reviews of his albums/singles before this.
Born Villain
"Third Day Of A Seven Day Binge"
"Deep Six"
The Pale Emperor

Along with everything else last month, Tori released her newest, Native Invader. I'll be completely honest; this got a bit lost in the shuffle. I have listened to it and there is a lot of artistry here, but nothing grabbed me on my first handful of playthroughs. This doesn't mean something won't, it just means I need more time with it.

But, speaking of talented female artists...call me infatuated. Maybe I am. But, here's the thing, I should be. Everyone should be. Her voice is smoked honey and she's not doing the normal, boring thing all the singers with smoked honey voices are doing with their smoked honey voices. I met her in a star-lit room in Brooklyn. Here's my review of her debut single as Kat Cunning. Skip the review if you must, but listen to the song.

And, finally, still reeling from the shock and confusion of the end of its third season (and, perhaps, its end period?), the two musical accompaniments to Twin Peaks: The Return are out and I reviewed them both. Got a little unhinged with these... Here are my reviews of both the soundtrack and the score. I was thinking about reviewing the album of collected ambient noises and soundscraps that filled in the gaps between the talking, soundtrack, and score, but come on, I don't want to come off as obsessed...

Next month new Beck and new St. Vincent! What have I done to deserve such happy?!?!?! Also, last month, I purchased a little collector's box of all of Ian Dury's albums, Might dig into that when I need a break from reality.
Or maybe Blogger with become sentient, invent time travel and go back to erase Ian Dury from the timeline.
Either way.
Blogger can eat a missive bit-dick.

*...em...bee...gee...sorry.

** Unformatted because the site I occasionally review for is, more often than not, janked like a motherfucker.

A review of Marilyn Manson's "Heaven Upside Down"

From the moment it starts, it's clear that 1996's Antichrist Superstar, the best album Marilyn Manson has ever released, is the template for Heaven Upside Down, and that is always a good idea. This album is evidence that Tyler Bates in Manson's new Trent Reznor. Is he as good as Reznor? Obviously not, but he's the best thing to happen to Manson in over a decade.

The album's opener, "Revelation #12" echoes the thudding, sludgy bass of Antichrist Superstar, the kind of shit Twiggy Ramirez was meant to play. From there, we get something absolutely unique in "Tattooed In Reverse". It's like bluesy-electro-Goth-jock rock. Knowing Manson, this one is for the strippers. It's like something from The Golden Age of Grotesque* slowed down and made massive. The cadence of that opening line..."So fuck your bible and your babble"...that is word play. "WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE" is another excellent ACS throwback, and his best single in years...fourteen years, to be specific. "We know where you fucking live / we know where you fucking live / we'll burn it down / burn it down / they won't even recognize your corpse". Jesus, no shitty puns there. "SAY10" starts like a horror movie and then becomes the killer, and, while I'll award points for "cocaine and Abel" (because it is so. Fucking. Manson.) I'm taking them away almost immediately for referring to himself as a "legend". You flew too high, Brian. "SAY10" should have been the last track on side A (ABOVE), and the next track, "KILL4ME", should have been left off the album entirely; it's the weakest link here, smacking of Eat Me, Drink Me from its first note: repetitious, plodding, dull. The first in a small handful of missteps.

Side B (BELOW) begins with "Saturnalia", one of the longest tracks Manson has ever created, clocking in at almost eight minutes. I was very excited/anxious for this, as it could have been a toilet fire like "I Want To Kill You Like They Do In The Movies"**, but it kept me engaged the whole time. Between the drums, bass, and Manson's backing croak-als, this is the closest thing to "Bela Lugosi's Dead" he'll ever release, unless he just does a straight-up cover. Manson does love his 80's covers... "Je$u$ Cri$i$"*** has some of that barroom-fist-fight dirt introduced on Pale Emperor and there's something concise about the circular manner of the chorus that appeals to me. I was worried when I first saw the title, but when things kick in about halfway through, all the worries go out the window. They should really play this live. JC might be the perfect amalgamation of Manson's previous album and the direction of his next one...I hope. And, speaking of hope, here's where I started to lose mine. The final three tracks in no way stack up against the majority of the opening seven. Nothing is out and out awful, just a letdown in comparison. I was really looking forward to the title track being as revolutionary and world-ending as that of Antichrist Superstar, but it is not. "Blood Honey" and "Threats of Romance"...just kind of happen.

I like Manson better when he's telling a story and playing a character. I've always seen him as a character and I don't need to hear about how he can't sustain a relationship, it's mundane. I like my Manson screaming and bleeding in front of a burning church, not howling power ballades and asking someone to hold his hand...which he actually does in the title track...like half a dozen times.
"KILL4ME", "Blood Honey", "Heaven Upside Down" , and "Threats of Romance" all feel like remainders from the Pale Emperor sessions and they don't belong here, they distract and get in the way of Manson's re-evolution back to ACS. To be clear, they aren't bad (except for "KILL4ME", that song is bad), just not right for this.
60% of this album is more than solid, more than good, it's great, and, as Manson's music for the past fourteen years has created a sort of grading curve, that translates to a much higher score. Heaven Upside Down is the true successor to Antichrist Superstar. There are traces of Pale Emperor here, but I'm hoping this is the second piece of a new trilogy, the final installment of which will sound wholly like Superstar and signal a return to form for Marilyn Manson as a dark, malevolent force, championing for and bringing about the musical apocalypse.

* Manson's last great album before this one

** A nine minute track from The High End of Low

*** Oy.

End of the Month Music Bitchfest - August 2017

Nine Inch Nails
The Add Violence physical components are here and lordy lord lord...
While there might not be an ARG this time around on the scale of what happened ten years ago, there's definitely something deep going on here...
Check out the videos for "Less Than" and "This Isn't The Place", and then these pictures of the AV physical component and, just...shit, man...extrapolate.
It is, once again, a very exciting time to be a Nine Inch Nails fan.

But. I must mention Sandbag. How to frame this...okay, you know, I'll just try and be succinct.
Back in December, NIN announced a new EP and a bunch of vinyl reissues. All that shit was supposed to be handled by a merch store called Firebrand. After they just absolutely fucked everything up, in June Reznor made an announcement they things were being taken care of and an apology. Cut to- Sandbag. They were now handling things, including NEW merch as well as the shit people ordered back in December. They were gracious and said things like: "if you want a refund, just click here and we'll get that taken care of" and they offered a 20% off your next order thing and all that, but we are Nine Inch Nails fans. We don't want apologies or refunds, we want the music Trent Reznor makes in the format which Trent Reznor chooses to make it. So a lot of people just decided to wait...
I'll skip the gory details but after the time it takes to gestate a human being, I finally received my order, placed in December of last year. And it was damaged.
Long story less long- Reznor is about to switch to yet another online retailer and actually reached out to fans on the unofficially official NIN forums to get their good online merch experiences in order to inform his next move.
Ugh.
What a diarrhea expo.

Anyway, the 90 minute, 2-disc score for Ken Burns' The Vietnam War is dropping in about two weeks and I'll be reviewing it. Word is there are several tracks from the Dragon Tattoo score that have been reworked for this, so we'll see exactly how much "new" music there actually is.

Beck
It's official! The ecstatic summer jam record of 2015 is finally coming! October 13th, 2017! WOOOO! SUMMER IN OCTOBER!!!!!
The biggest issue with Colors isn't going to be its 40+ minute run time, or the fact that its first single came out over two years ago, or even the fact that, by the time it's finally released, we're really only getting 60% of a new Beck album*...it's all these things laid out next to the fact that this fucking thing was supposed to be out OVER TWO YEARS AGO. While I completely understand that time does not exist for Beck as it does for every other person on this planet, he exists (at least sometimes) in our world and must, occasionally, follow its rules. While the wait was not as bad as with Cake's Showroom of Compassion, because Colors only took three and a half years and because Morning Phase was absolutely amazing, this kind of fuckery has got to stop. This could have been completely avoided if they'd not continually announced release windows and just let us wait in meaty, sullen silence.
In anticipation of the new album, a crazy shitton of pre-order stuff has been posted on the Beck site**, along with a pretty fantastic lyric video for "Dear Life". While the video is fantastic, the song is merely good, only becoming awesome in the last twenty seconds wherein Beck gets all choral wit hisself. Here's hoping for more of that.
When it comes out****, I'll review it.
And then get grumpy.

St. Vincent
The video for "New York" is out and it's just absolutely beautiful. Man. Just watch it.
No album news yet, but I still feel like it's coming soon...even though I said that, like, two months ago.

Next month, that new Reznor/Ross review as well as reviews of those two Twin Peaks records: music from the Bang Bang Bar and the new score.

* "Dreams" - released 6/15/15
   "WOW" - released 6/2/16
   "Up All Night" - "released" 9/2016
   "Dear Life" - released 8/24/17

** Including a bundle which comes with two copies of the album on vinyl (regular, boring, bullshit, plebeian, black vinyl, and awesome-rad-cocaine-on-your-cock-and-asshole colored vinyl!!!), the CD, a shirt, a pin, a prism (eyes rolling), and a fucking kaleidoscope (eyes gone). Look, dude, no one wants these things***, just release more albums more often.

*** YES I PRE-ORDERED THE FUCKING KALEIDOSCOPE BUNDLE FUCK YOU

**** If it comes out...

End of the Month Music Bitchfest - July 2017

Nine Inch Nails
Hoo doggy...

First and foremost, the new EP, Add Violence, is just stunning, with or without knowing its place in the Year Zero universe. There's a rock solid single in "Less Than", and then a bunch of weird, experimental, beautiful, horrible shit afterwards*. No idea how they're going to top this for the third and final entry into the trilogy. It's going to be a long, dark six month wait...
Full review here.

Also, I saw NIN two nights in a row: first at the final day of Panorama and then, the next night, at their secret show at Webster Hall. Yes, I am very, very cool and should be envied.

Panorama

When you can silence tens of thousands of sweaty, drunken people with your music at age 52, you know you’re still relevant. When you do it four times in 90 minutes, you know you’re Trent fucking Reznor. Nine Inch Nails' set, which closed out the three day music and technology festival, began with intensifying, ominous noise while the “NIN" logo slowly formed on two massive screens flanking the stage, then, just as the panic-inducing cacophony was about to overwhelm the crowd, it cut out and a voice spoke: “yes, everyone seems to be asleep”. Suddenly, Reznor was storming his way to the microphone, dressed in aviators and a leather jacket, set to burn the world down.

The band, with new addition, Atticus Ross on bass and synths, perfectly captured the fury and chaos of "Burning Bright”, lyrical clarity be damned; you didn’t need to understand the words, you just needed to know that whatever Reznor was screaming through that megaphone was absolutely fucking venomous. "Less Than”, the lead single from their most recent EP Add Violence, came off very strong, but not as towering and powerful as the album version. “Reptile" was as loud and destructive as always, transporting the entire audience of thousands back to 1994 for about seven minutes. It was also great to see "Gave Up" back on the roster, the live performances of that have always been some of the most bladed moments of the NIN live experience. And anyone not weeping openly when Bowie's vocals joined Reznor's on “I Can’t Give Everything Away" was either not human or...no, just that, not human. Sadly, Reznor still relies on his “The Show Is Almost Over” trio of “The Hand That Feeds” into “Head Like A Hole” into “Hurt”, three songs that mean nothing to me anymore and can’t possibly mean anything to him at this point.

This was the third of a small handful of dates Nine Inch Nails are playing this year before embarking on a world tour in early 2018 and, if this was any indication, whatever they come up with in the new year is going to be more than worth the wait.

Webster Hall

In town for the Panorama music festival, Nine Inch Nails decided to drop by Webster Hall with Tobacco, fill it with fog, and slowly asphyxiate everyone inside with heat and punishingly loud music. While the size of the venue made it the definition of intimate (about a 1200-person capacity), it was more than that; Reznor forewent the subtle costuming from the festival shows and, right before introducing the band, stated “you know who they are”. And that was true. The show was announced on the Nine Inch Nails Facebook page eight and a half hours before doors, with tickets only available to fans who had a password or to those “loyal nin.com store patrons” via an email from the band. 

The show featured the live debut of “She’s Gone Away”** and a few welcome surprises in the form of the tour debut of “Sanctified”, “1,000,000” and “Somewhat Damaged”, that last as the opener. Then there was the odd inclusion of about thirty seconds of How To Destroy Angels’ “The loop closes”. Since all of HTDA was there and on stage except for Mariqueen Maandig, the crowd was expecting a rare treat, but before everyone could really grasp what was happening, they stopped playing it and moved onto the next track. “Gave Up”, “Reptile” and “Burning Bright" were devastating  in the confined space and the addition of “Survivalism” had people screaming along and pumping their fists like protestors. The moment when all the lights went out during “Burn" was truly terrifying; I thought Robin Finck was going to leap off the stage and stab me to death with a shard of shattered guitar, which, admittedly, would have been a pretty awesome way to die. Proximity, energy, and setlist aside, my absolute favorite moment of this evening was that, for the first time since I started seeing Nine Inch Nails almost twenty years ago…they did not. Fucking. Play “The Hand That Feeds”. The simple lack of that overused, cookie-cutter, threadbare-kitchen-rug of a song made this show stand out more than anything in recent memory.

I am truly grateful. 

And spoiled.

Small gallery of Webster Hall here.

Beck
Some website has a title and release date for Beck's new one, specifically October 13th and Colors. I could buy that. Although I won't believe until I hear it and am disappointed at its length and the ratio of wait to reward.

New Tori Amos song, "Cloud Rider"...while the lyrics are just rife with story and a hidden depth, the music is...a bit...powdery....is the word that keeps popping into my head. I don't know if that's an outright bad thing, it's just...I don't know...powdery. See and hear for yourself here.

Also, a new Garbage song, "No Horses". In a nutshell, it does what all of Depeche Mode's Spirit was trying to do, but better and in about five and a half minutes. It's dark and intense and fucked up but I really wish Manson didn't say "no horses" so many times. It gets irritating. But I suppose when it's for a cause (all proceeds go to the Kickstarter to have the Angry Marmalade Pancake Man assassinated...or the International Committee for the Red Cross...one of those)...that doesn't matter? Because, like, if you complain about a song that's made for a cause...it's a bit like you're not supporting the cause for which the song has been created?

Anyway.

They made a video too. 
It's prophetic and disturbing as fuck.

Oh, and while I had my (fucking goddamn fucking 4th row center) ticket to see Garbage play at the Beacon last week, I booked a fucking on camera commercial. Which shot in fucking Baltimore. And required me to shave my fucking arms and legs. And I missed the show. Furious because the set was something I'd been dreaming of for years. 
Fuck you, career.

Finally, Gorillaz just put out a fun, disco-riffic video for "Strobelite", a song which, as far as I can tell, does not feature the Gorillaz at all. Whatever the case, seeing Murdoc leer at the camera and 2D and Noodle dance together is all I need. Ever. 
Watch here with your eyes.

* Except for the end of "The Background World".

** From that episode of Twin Peaks.

A review of Nine Inch Nails' "Add Violence"

Note: I’m not going to even mention the ARG here. Okay? Good.

Add Violence is the second in a trilogy of related EPs from Nine Inch Nails…and it’s real good, you guys. 

"Less Than”, the EP’s “radio single" is misleading in the best way possible. It’s like an ideal version of “The Hand That Feeds”, which was tired about two minutes into its first play; here’s hoping the weirdly retro synth and drum programming along with the jump kick to one’s front teeth this song provides will forever replace it in all future Nine Inch Nails live shows.

“The Lovers" is as dark and eerie as a song called “The Lovers" by Nine Inch Nails should be, featuring lyrics such as "hot swollen skin / want me take me / perfect embrace / black and bloody / rotten and perfect” and instrumentation that harkens back to “The Believers”, a track from the first How To Destroy Angels EP.

“This Isn’t The Place” has an almost jazzy feel to it and a gorgeous, syrupy slow build, culminating in some of the most vulnerable vocalizations Trent Reznor’s ever created. 

"Not Anymore” is driven by an utterly filthy bass line, reminiscent of 2005’s “The Line Begins To Blur” but…just fucking filthier. Atticus Ross, you wash your bass, young man. It’s also creeping and schizophrenic and just unsettling as hell, one of the band’s most unique tracks to date.

Add Violence ends with “The Background World”, which clocks in at nearly 12 minutes. The first four and change are a solid Nine Inch Nails song, nothing more, nothing less, but the last seven and change are the digital equivalent of a locked groove, but instead of repeating the same few seconds over and over until the needle is lifted, the nine second phrase slowly degrades until it’s just a sludgy buzz. It’s…memorable.

This is some of the most challenging and experimental music from Nine Inch Nails since the stranger moments of Ghosts I-IV. Though I will say that, after one listen, I never have to hear those last seven plus minutes of “The Background World” ever again, just like I never need to hear Coil’s “Tunnel of Goats” ever again.

For those keeping track*, there are references to 2007’s Year Zero, 2013’s Welcome oblivion**, 1999’s The Fragile, 2011's score for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, last year’s Not The Actual Events, and even Bleedthrough, the unreleased concept album that later became 2005’s With Teeth….and that's not even taking into account the nods, Easter eggs, and allusions scattered around the cover art and accompanying music videos. Folks…there’s a lot to unpack here. But, for those who saw that episode of Twin Peaks and downloaded “She’s Gone Away” then heard “The" Nine Inch Nails had a new thing coming out and decided to check out Add Violence…well, sorry. After “Less Than”, you might just be let down and/or confused and/or terrified…and/or a Nine Inch Nails fan for the rest of your life.

* Like the thousands of people over at the Echoing The Sound forums

** Debut LP from Reznor’s side project How To Destroy Angels, which consists of Reznor, Atticus Ross, and Reznor's wife, Mariqueen Maandig.

End of the Month Music Bitchfest - June 2017

Well, "spring 2017" is officially over. And here's what didn't happen...

Beck

Not . A. Peep. No pre-order, no album date/tracklist/title announcement, no new* single. And, here's where my shitbrain went, you ready?

Well, obviously, Beck is letting his label handle this whole thing, otherwise, he'd have just released it like he did with those 12" singles a few years back. They didn't release it last summer because there was so much other summer music and they didn't want this new summer flow album to go unnoticed**, so they waited. But then it was fall and winter and, pssh, NO ONE buys music that isn't season-specific in a season for which it's not specified***!!!!! Soooo fuck it, let's push it to 2017.

*2017 rolls around*

Okay, the album is done and has been for, like, four years, spring is coming up, let's release....naaaah, Beck is off in some sort of space womb right now and has totally forgotten about this new album because he's working on several more new albums we can't wait to not release, so let's say...2018-ish?

*handshakes and blowjobs all around*

The Aristocrats.

In all seriousness though, based on the gap in his tour schedule, the album should be out in August.

And, speaking of "spring 2017" letdowns...

Nine Inch Nails

This is actually bittersweet. Or I suppose, since it's me, bittersweetbittersweetbitter.

All those fucking records folks ordered back in December of 2016 (definitive editions of Broken, The Fragile, The Downward Spiral, the new EP, and that crazy alternate version of The Fragile) were delayed because of Reznor and the people he chose to work with, bitter. But, with the resolution of the nin.com store fuck up came an e-mail from Trent Himself apologizing and telling fans that NTAE was the first of three related EPs, the second of which is coming out before 7/23, sweet. But, it's still just an EP (which can't be more than 25 minutes of music if these are all getting one-sided 12" releases), bitter. BUT there will be a third EP coming out, sweet. But not until the end of the year, bitter.

In other news, everything else in my life is great, hence why I can always find this sort of shit about which to bitch.

There is also the massive score for Ken Burns' The Vietnam War, which should be...Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross scoring a Ken Burns film about the Vietnam War. Clips sound a bit like Dragon Tattoo.

And finally, "the" Nine Inch Nails (guest starring Mariqueen and Joey from QOTSA) made their karaoke appearance on Twin Peaks.

St. Vincent

Shit's happnin'! Fun little tour announcement was posted on her redesigned site and a brand new track called 'New York' has been released! Eeeeexxxxccciiittteeemmmeeennntttt!!!!!!

They Might Be Giants

As work continues on their new album, slated for late 2017, TMBG have announced a massive 65 city tour of the U.S. for early 2018. Here's hoping we don't hear 'Drink!' once.

The tour begins with two back to back shows at their old haunt, the Music Hall of Williamsburg on 12/30 and 12/31. And I shall be at both. 

Gorillaz released a song that should have been on Humanz called 'Sleeping Powder'. It's...well, what most of Humanz should have been. The tracklist for the super deluxe vinyl version of Humanz was also revealed and there are about 14 brand new tracks coming with it. Tasty. Albarn said there are "about 40 tracks that didn't make the album", and that that's going to "keep him busy for the next 18 months or so".

W00t.

And, saving the last for last, it looks like Marilyn Manson's 2/14 release of SAY10 is coming in September. I'm sure it will live up to all the hype, make up for the delay, and redefine music as humans understand it just as Manson says it will.

Next month...Nine Inch Nails live at Panorama and a new Nine Inch Nails EP. Might have a little something to say about those.

* You know, "Up All Night"? That new Beck single from that watch commercial/soccer video game that came out in September 2016? That new Beck single.

** Because we now live in a world where fucking Beck can release a new album and it can go unnoticed.

*** No one buys music...at all...

End of the Month Music Bitchfest - May 2017

Nine Inch Nails
Hurricane of shit between Firebrand (the shitty people who ruined Nine Inch Nails' online store for thousands of people) and the man himself, who posted a snarky little shot at them on the official site. Apparently, in "early June"* the store is coming back and the NIN fan community is rife with speculation. When it comes to Nine Inch Nails, I have embraced the mantra: hopey for the besty, expecty the worsty.
It's how I live.
And that is sad.

There's also a tiny taste of new Reznor/Ross stuff from September's Vietnam War dco from Ken Burns.

Beck
Not only am I beginning to doubt there is a new Beck album, I am starting to doubt there is a Beck. He was just some mass hallucination, some fever dream cooked up by swamp gas, moonlight, and a picture of David Bowie.

They Might Be Giants
TMBG are still beavering away at their next one and doing a few free shows in the next few months. Probably nothing new.

Marilyn Manson still hasn't released his new album, but he does appear to have something on his face. Again.

Was blessed enough to see Mother Feather at Tokyo x Brooklyn. Review and pictures here.

Inspired by Drew McDowall's latest, Unnatural Channel and disappointed by the latest Gorillaz, I got dark and listened to a shitton of noise and ambient and electronic and scum. Basically, Coil, Hyde, NON, Psychic TV and their ilk. Made life weirder.

Done.
Go.

* Though nowhere does it say June 2017

Good Bye, Best Buy

To preface everything: this was all my fault.
Also, none of it matters.
This is one of the most egregious examples of a first world problem I've experienced in recent memory and I accept that...because I live in a first world country.
Please, remember all that.

Now, as I was saying...this was all my fault; I had my item in my Amazon cart, it was in stock (a pre-order item, two weeks before release), and would have been delivered on the day of its release. I did my research, decided this was exactly the product I wanted...and then, for whatever reason*...I forgot...to click..."pre-order".
Flash forward to a day before the release of said item: I found it odd that I hadn't received the usual six emails from Amazon, letting me know my product was taken off the shelf, letting me know my product was being prepared to be placed into a box, letting me know the people placing said product into said box were very nice and thought I smelled good. So I popped over to Amazon to find, to my horror, my soul-wrenching, gut-churning horror...that I had forgotten to order my item...and it was now "currently unavailable".
That phrase, "currently unavailable", to someone in a first world country must be the equivalent of "pogram" or "no water" to those in third world countries.
"What do you mean the Unicorn Frappuccino is 'currently unavailable'?! I'll die!" "What do you mean Netflix in 'currently unavailable'?! I'll dehydrate!"
"What do you mean my copy of Injustice 2: Ultimate Edition for the Playstation 4 with Darkseid as a pre-order bonus is 'currently unavailable'?! Hundreds of thousands of refugees and their families will be slaughtered!"
Yes. This is about a video game.
You may leave now, if you'd like.
Still here?
All right, first world warriors...come with me...
After I ceased shrieking, caught my breath, and my mind stopped reeling from seeing those two words arranged next to one another**, I said out loud, "Fuck it. This is New York." I figured it would be harder to not purchase a copy of this game here. I redirected my internetting to Best Buy dot com. I saw the game listed and checked for in-store pick up locations since I live in New York and there are five I can get to within twenty minutes. I was informed that "there are no stores within 250 miles of my zip code that have this game in store". Perhaps I should have just killed myself then...but no...I persisted.
Oh, it's the day before release, that makes sense.
I felt relief come rushing in.
Jump forward again to the next morning. Injustice 2 had been released! It was a thing that people could purchase and own and have and bring home to their mothers and fathers and kiss and cherish!!!**** I realized after spending two weeks playing the first game and reading all the supplemental material, that I was officially hyped.
So! Back to Best Buy dot com, when the game was now available for purchase and in store pick up at the most convenient location for me, 23rd and 6th, literally, yards from the M train. Door to door? 30 minutes. I make my purchase and everything is ducky.
Another jump forward!
I show up at the store, ready to pick up my game. At the store pick up location, I wait for about five minutes while the woman behind the counter helps a blind man find an "introduction to Keith Sweat" CD*****, then...I meet Oliver. Oliver is short, has close cropped blond hair, and thin-rimmed, black glasses. I show him my order number and he disappears for ten minutes. When he returns he informs me that the store does not have my game. Before I can say anything he says that the Union Square location (about ten to fifteen minutes away between one stop on the M and a few avenues) has "300 copies". I did not make this number up, but, as it turns out, Oliver did.
"And if I go there now and show them my order number, they'll just hand me a copy?" I ask.
"Absolutely, They have 300 copies."
Why does he keep telling me they have 300 copies? Is this man all right?
"You're sure?" I ask.
"Yes. They have 300 copies."
"All right, I'll head there now." I put my phone and wallet away.
"I'm very sorry about that," he adds.
"Not your fault," I say, and I mean that; I've worked retail, I know he didn't steal my copy of the game, Best Buy fucked up, as they have been known to in the past, "thanks."
About fifteen minutes later, I enter the Union Square Best Buy.
Here are some highlights of my exchange with their store pick up department:
"We don't have this."
"I was told you had '300 copies'."
"'300 copies'?"
"Yes."
"We had less than 20, now they're all gone."
"So you don't have 300 copies?"
"We never had 300 copies. Who told you that?"
"The guy at the 23rd street store. Was he just making that number up?"
"Yes."
At this point, I have become irate, but just as the 23rd street store not having my copy of the game wasn't Oliver's fault, this woman not having the invented number of copies of the game was definitely not her fault. My being at this location with an invented number of copies of the game, however, was Oliver's fault.
"Can you call the store pick up at the 23rd street store?"
"You want me to call them?"
"Yes, I'd like to ask why they lied to me."
She paused...because...really...what do you say to a sweating, 6'8 man whose brows are clouding like a summer sky before a thunderstorm?
I describe the person I spoke to because I did not, as yet, have his name, and, after some time, she hands me the phone.
"...hello?"
"Hi. I'm the very tall man who was in there fifteen minutes ago and you didn't have my copy of Injustice 2: Ultimate Edition."
"...yes?"
"Why did you tell me there were 300 copies of the game at the Union Square store? They had less than 20 and now they're all gone."
"Sir...I...I hope you don't think I gave you the wrong information and sent you there intentionally."
"I'd just like to know why you told me they had 300 copies when they have none."
"Sir...I...look, we're getting another shipment of the game at 6:00 today. I can call you the moment they're in and then I'll give you a 20% discount."
I did not believe him.
"Okay, fine, I'll see you at 6:00."
I handed the phone back to the lady, who hung it up.
"Why did he tell you we had 300 copies?"
"I still don't know."
"No one has 300 copies."
I left and went about my day.
Just before 3:00, my phone rings. The caller ID...Best Buy.
For a moment...I had hope. Why do I hope?

"Hello?"
"Your order is going to be cancelled because it didn't arrive at our store."
This was not Oliver. This was an Angry Man.
"What do you mean?"
"*irritated sigh* Because your order didn't show up in our store, it's going to be cancelled. Or you can pick it up at the store on 44th and 5th three days from now."
Apparently, it was my fault my order didn't show up.
"I was told that you're getting a new shipment at 6:00 and that I can pick it up-"
"That's not current information! You can pick it up in three days or it's going to be cancelled!"
I was done with this cocksucker yelling at me because his organization had fucked up.
"Cancel it."
He hung up.
Guess who has two thumbs and didn't get a phone call at 6:00 pm.
The next morning, Wednesday, I was heading to an audition about a block away from the 23rd street Best Buy, so I decided to stop in and have a chat with the person who had lied to me twice. I approach the store pick up window and ask the woman if there's a shortish, white guy with close cropped blond hair and thin-rimmed, black glasses working there. After ascertaining that I was not talking about an Apple rep(?), she asks me if he's "chubby".
"Sure." I respond.
She then gets a smile on her face and asks, "Oliver?"
Ah. Yes. This person was definitely an "Oliver".
"That sounds about right. When is Oliver in today?"
"At 3:00."
"Thank you."
I leave.
After my audition, I meet a friend, Ryan, for lunch and, afterwards, I ask if he would like to come with me to intimidate someone. He knows me well enough to know that, aside from my height and Resting Asshole Face, I'm kind of a teddy bear. He laughs and says yes. As we approach the 23rd street Best Buy, I tell him to not say a word, "just put on your sunglasses and stare, blankly, in his direction." We stalk up and there he is...Oliver.
Here is where I start to feel bad. I don't know why I never realized that, under the right circumstances, I can, perhaps, come off as...a threatening presence. It was clear by the look on Oliver's little face that that was happening...right now. I was being a threatening presence. And, while I did realize just how threatening of a presence I was being and how this might affect little Oliver...I was also kind of done getting fucked around. Plus, I'm an actor and had already committed myself to the role of Threatening Presence.
"Oliver".
"...yes..."
"Can you guess why I'm here?"
"I...the game..."
I counted on my horrible, spidery fingers.
One...
"You sent to me to the Union Square store."
Two...
"You lied and told me they had 300 copies."
Three...
"You said you'd call me yesterday and have the game for me."
I paused.
"What's going on, Oliver?"
"It...it didn't come in. The shipment. I don't...right now...we have the shipment coming in Friday morning, early. 8:00 am. I'll put one aside and give you the discount."
"You're sure."
"Yes."
"100%."
"Yes!"
I did not believe him.
"I received a call yesterday-"
"From corporate? Ignore them."
"-about cancelling my order-"
"Ignore them."
"Okay, I'll ignore corporate."
"Okay."
At this point, I could tell I had ruined Oliver's day, maybe week, and that I was making him uncomfortable. So I decided to make things better.
"Best Buy fucked up, but you're making it right."
I held out my hand.
"Thank you, Oliver."
He shook my hand, and I left.

You're probably about done with this whole thing, so here's the rest...
No, I didn't get a call on Friday morning. I called the Best Buy on 23rd and after eight minutes listening to their goddamn insipid holdbot, a woman in a "call center" picked up. I told her everything, she called the store and spoke to Oliver who told her fucking guess what. It was then, right then, I asked myself: why is there still a Best Buy? Amazon has drones, they do same day delivery, their customer service is astonishing while 95% of all Best Buy employees I've interacted with have been either uninformed, misinformed, unpleasant, unhelpful, and/or staggeringly (almost surely intentionally) doltish...how is this still something that exists? For whom is this blue and yellow hell of shitty retail intended?
And then I remembered that first day trying to pick up the product that I had purchased...I remembered the blind man...looking for Keith Sweat CDs.
Well, that answers my question.
I've been a customer of Best Buy since I was in high school, for almost 25 years, a quarter of a fucking century...but after this, I'm good. I'll forgo that specific and false feeling of accomplishment which comes from going into a place and walking out with something you did not have before in exchange for never having to experience anything like this, ever again. Vote with your wallets, right? I know I'm just one person and that I don't even frequent Best Buy enough to actually have a real impact on their empire, but at least I can spare myself that particular retail gulag for the rest of my natural life.
This is for me.

* Let's blame the president.

** Probably should have mentioned this earlier, but every time you read the words "currently unavailable" from this point on, here and out in the world, picture them being spoken by Vincent Price with a fair amount of reverb***

*** To better achieve that specific sense of dread and horror-from-beyond-the-grave

**** Yet another aside: in the time leading up to the release of I2, I was on the fence about buying it. Not only do I have a huge stack of video games that I really need to get though, you guys, but, while I did enjoy the first game, it wasn't the greatest game ever made and, since I don't use the multiplayer features on most games I purchase, I was only going to get most of the enjoyment intended out of this game. But, fickle me! I decided to replay the first game, just to remind me of the story. I enjoyed it very much, perhaps more than I remember. Then, as I am wont to do...I took things up a notch. Okay, bear with me...in a nutshell, Injustice creates an alternate reality in the DC Comic universe. The catalyzing event is that Joker, who's grown tired of messing with Batman, decides to mess with Superman. He does so by kidnapping Lois Lane (who is newly pregnant with Superman's child), attaching a trigger to her heart that, if it stops, will detonate a nuclear bomb in Metropolis, then gassing Superman with Scarecrow's fear toxin laced with kryptonite, casing him to perceive Lois as Doomsday and kill her. It's actually a pretty cool story. So, Superman sees what he's done; his wife and child dead by his hand, and the millions of casualties from the bomb, and absolutely freaks out. He finds the Joker, who teases him and asks if he thinks he'll ever love again, then Superman kills Joker. Puts his hand right through his chest.
What results over the next five years is Superman becoming a dictator and "protecting" the world, while Batman and other heroes try to stop him. Eventually, the good guys pull heroes from a different reality over to this fucked up reality and that's where the game starts. While the story in the game in about three to four hours long, a comic was created to expand upon the events of those five years which led up to the events of the game. This comic came out in real time over five years, over a hundred and fifty issues.
And I read every issue.
I like a fleshed out universe, what can I say?
All that to say: I had put some "effort" into this endeavor.

***** In the end, he bought two.