andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

We all know what KanyeWest did at the VMAs and it looks like we’ll be talking about it until the Grammys. But shouldn’t we be prepared for this by now?

Kanye has based his career on the unlikely pairing. College student becomes iced-out rapper. Rapper wears sweater vests and horn-rimmed glasses. Prep-school rapper spits rhymes about Jesus and the politics of blood diamonds. Catholic hip-hopper samples Ray Charles for a song about women horny for money. Blues piano samples replaced with electro-house synthesizers and Auto-Tune.

Et cetera.

When he stormed the MTV VMA stage on Sunday, interrupting the sugary acceptance speech of tween country princess Taylor Swift, the event was actually more scripted than offensive. It wasn’t like the time Kanye accepted an MTV Europe award he didn’t win, or refused to accept an award he did win because he felt Outkast deserved it more.

No, it was more of a half-assed display of choreographed ego, just Kanye scoping out the most unlikely character to stand next to and making sure it happened before commercial break. Sure, Kany emay have been upset Beyonce’s video for “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)” lost out to Swift’s beige video for “You Belong with Me”.

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There’s little in the music world that excites me more than a good collaboration. Be the unlikely pairing of Eminem and Elton John, or inevitable power tracks from Jay-Z, Kanye and Rihanna (check out “Run This Town” if you haven’t already heard it.)

Recently, though, more than just musical minds have been getting together. So here’s the news.

It seems early to be looking forward to the holidays, but this year I actually have a reason to get excited. Bob Dylan is releasing a Christmas album, according to Pitchfork. No longer will I have to sit through the intolerable holiday stylings of Michael Buble, Destiny’s Child, or Jessica Simpson. At first I was hesitant, imagining his raspy, sarcastic attempts at “Santa Baby” or “Deck the Halls.”

But Dylan’s official website confirmed a more appropriate set list, including “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”, “Winter Wonderland”, “Little Drummer Boy”, and “Must Be Santa.” The album artwork for Christmas in the Heart is also pure class, and will surely stand out amongst the glittery fare normally on the shelves around the holiday time. The album is set for release on Oct. 13 – a little on the early side but knowing Dylan, it will be worth much more than just holiday cheer.

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Just when I thought Ryan Gosling couldn’t get any sexier. Well, he’s in a band now. Not just any band – a duo with his best friend (and sister’s ex-boyfriend) Zach Shields called Dead Man’s Bones featuring, throughout the entire album, the Silverdale Conservatory Children’s Choir.

The result: songs with titles like “My Body is a Zombie for You” (the chorus of which is shouted by the aforementioned children), set to ominous piano-folk and the Roy Orbison-esque voice of Gosling. The mood is something like the Billy the Kid scene from I’m Not There, and if that reference is too obscure, let’s just call it Halloween. In the video for the band’s first single, “In the Room Where You Sleep”, the choir is outfitted in an array of costumes from skeleton to pirate to ghost.

Gosling has clearly gotten into character yet again – he and Shields created their own label, Werewolf Heart, that will release the debut Never Let a Lack of Talent Get You Down this summer. (Werewolf Heart has also taken on upcoming releases from Ima Robot and The Goat.) And just this week, Dead Man’s Bones announced plans for a North American tour in October, with stops in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, and will include a local talent show before each performance.

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If I could party with any celebrity, it would be The Black Eyed Peas. And I think that’s exactly what they are going for. After all, they have managed to make a living off it.

Their latest album, The E.N.D. is a self-proclaimed party soundtrack and has skyrocketed them to the top of the Billboard charts in a record-breaking leap. Between singles “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling”, BEP clocked in 20 weeks up there, beating legends like Elvis Presley and The Beatles.

The record isn’t a new theme for the group who have made a name for themselves with songs like “Let’s Get Retarded” and “Pump It”. Not much has changed in the four years since their last release. Except the resurfacing of mainstream electro-house music, which the peas were exposed to on various world tours and quickly adapted to fit their hip-pop repertoire thanks to guest DJs like Mstrkrft and Crookers.

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Passion Pit are a lesson in modern romance. Ever since I heard their backstory – lead singer Michael Angelakos crafted the EP Chunk of Change as a Valentine’s Day gift for his girlfriend – I knew they would be more to me than just a fling in my musical lifetime. But I never imagined my first close encounter with them would pan out like a fairy tale of its own.

The show was sold out when my companion (I’ll call her Merv) and I arrived at Zaphod Beeblebrox, Ottawa’s go-to live music club. It was shocking enough that a band this sought-after detoured so far into Canada, and even more surprising that the resident’s of Ottawa had enough forethought to buy advance tickets. Not about to give up on our night, Merv and I stuck it out in line until a lush pair of hipsters were escorted from the premises, freeing up some elbow room for the two of us.

The timing could hardly have been more perfect: Passion Pit hit the stage the moment Merv and I were safely inside. They played “Moth’s Wings” and “The Reeling”, and captured the layered essence of their recordings by cramming the stage with a drum kit, synthesizers and more than one stringed instrument. Angelakos sauntered about the clutter, exuding a sort of romantic sex appeal that comes only from a hairy-chested twenty-something singing love songs in falsetto. He hardly spoke a word to the crowd until he announced the last song, “Sleepyhead”, and yet the crowd was hanging on every pulse of the music.

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There used to be a new buzz band for every season. A soft humming surrounded their obscure name, or an aesthetically-abstract lead singer, or a new use for an autoharp. Gradually, the hype would build, and their album cover would soon begin to look as familiar as a Stop sign. By that point, their name and singer and music concoctions were so well-known they booked Late Night with Jay Leno and appeared on the cover of Spin. (Because Rolling Stone was too busy with American Idol.)

So anyway, the buzz has a cycle and I was getting used to it. Keeping up, even. But this summer I noticed how hopelessly out of the loop I am. The cycle has condensed, I think I have clocked it in at a maximum 14-day turnaround.

At the beginning of July, as I anxiously awaited Ottawa’s annual Bluesfest, all I heard was THE DEAD WEATHER. Jack White’s latest endeavour with Alison Mosshart (The Kills), Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age) and Jack Lawrence(Raconteurs, The Greenhornes). I was ready, I was the one  telling people Jack White – yes, the man, the myth and the legend-in-the-making – was going to be in town. I stood stage-side, enraptured during their smoky and bone-chilling set at the festival and afterward I vowed, as I wiped the drool from my chin, to purchase their album and make them my new favourite band.

This was when I noticed the cycle reach warp speed. Just the next day, I was swept into a whole new mode of anticipation: Guelph’s annual Hillside Festival (a.k.a. my reason to live.) I managed to delve briefly into the repertoire of The Dead Weather but was overcome by  Hillside’s performer roster.

There was Timber Timbre, Toronto’s latest creep-folk. Then Woodhands, another Toronto export of lively electro-rock. And even though I had all year to get familiar, I was hastily catching up on The Arkells. It was a busy July.

Not two weeks have passed and I had a difficult time crafting the above paragraph, as the bands that just days ago dominated my iPod have escaped my vocabulary in lieu of this week’s flavour. (Briefly: Discovery, Passion Pit, jj.)

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It’s been a long time since I’ve purchased a brand new album on a whim. As a student, I have little disposable income so you had better believe I expect purchases such as this to pay off.

Well, my friends, I may have hit the proverbial jackpot. In the last two weeks or so, I’ve been carelessly shelling out my rent money for records, yet the return turned out to mean more to me than a roof over my head.

My purchases?

Regina Spektor’s Far. Manchester Orchestra’s Everything to Nothing. Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest.

It wasn’t planned in advance, I didn’t wait in line outside the doors of HMV the day Grizzly Bear’s third album was released, and I actually didn’t even know Regina had been in the studio. As for Manchester Orchestra, it was more peer pressure that led me to buy it. Peer pressure and a steal of a deal at Sonic Boom.

The moral of the story, though, is the pleasant surprise that quickly followed the first few listens of each.

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They say if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I don’t know who “they” are but I’m going to assume they were talking about Lady GaGa. After all, it seems the entire musical universe is clamouring for a piece of her instant stardom.

It started with Kanye, Common and Kid Cudi, or at least that’s where I first caught on. They roughed up her acoustic version of “Poker Face” to the point of making it tolerable, even enjoyable. (I’m not even going to touch the fact that she has gone acoustic, except to say that watching the video is possibly more painful than the hangover of the drugs she has to be on.)

Despite the very obvious gibes at GaGa’s not-so-double entendres, “I Poke Her Face” is actually an incredible step up from anything the songstress has released on her own.

“Just Dance” was nearly my demise last summer as it somehow circulated more frequently than Sarah McLachlan on the soft rock radio station I listened to at my 9-5 desk job. So I made it my mission to publicly rally against her budding career for the rest of 2008, hoping she would have drifted off the airwaves come December. But now it’s June, and she has three more singles revving up for a summer of heavy rotation.

I could feel my protest deteriorating as 2009 wore on. I found myself joylessly bashing the ridiculous rhyming in “Disco Stick” while flinging my hair around to its beat at the club.  Just the other day, someone asked me if I’d heard “Paparazzi”.

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It’s no secret the Gossip Girls have it all, on and off screen, but I never imagined there would be the time or talent to squeeze in a music career. Turns out I am sorely mistaken.

Leighton Meester, famously known as the beautiful and bitchy Blair Waldorf of CW’s Gossip Girl, is launching her solo music career and made her first stop a guest appearance on Cobra Starship’s “Good Girls Go Bad”.

Now, I have a very hard time buying into the actor-goes-serious-musician career move considering the track record of oh, say, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Scarlett Johanssen, Lindsey Lohan, ad infinitum. And if all logic prevails, Meester will fare no better. I had my doubts that she would ever become anything more than just a Gossip Girl once the series dried up. But then she appeared on the cover of both Nylon Magazine and Cosmo in quick succession and all of the sudden she was everywhere.

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It should go without saying that unless you are The Clash, you should never open your album with a track that outshines the rest of the songs. Too often, musicians put everything out there all at once in the form of a single: the catchiest song, the defining song, the best song. All in one neat little bow.

Take Peter, Bjorn and John. The band penned “Young Folks”, undoubtedly one of the hottest whistle-chorus songs since Gene Kelly. They slot it in as the first song of their debut album, “Writer’s Block” – a promising start. Yet the rest of the album is completely useless. Boring, ambling, flat pop. They blew their premature load all over the place, and never recovered.(Their sophomore album was released in April and committed the same offence. “Lay It Down,” though appearing later in the track list, is an adorable and danceable hit. Every other song, however, is filler.)

Now, as annoying as this is, I too am guilty of perpetuating the curse. It’s so easy to fall in love with one song and never give the rest of the album a second thought. Especially when it’s the first song you hear. For example, I recently fell head over heels for “Daylight” by Matt & Kim. I made the world very aware of my infatuation, playing it for everyone I knew, Facebook status-ing the shit out of it, and listening to it on my own at least four times in one sitting, four times a day.

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