Nine Inch Nails in Orlando

Anybody who has been following Nine Inch Nails for more that a decade now know that there are essentially two sides to this band. One of them wants to make loud industrial pop-rock and releases albums like With Teeth, Broken, and The Slip. One of them wants to make slow-burning intricate epics like Year Zero, Ghosts, and The Fragile. Both sides are essential, but how is Trent Reznor going to balance these two urges on a stage show?

That question brought me to see them last night at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. I never thought the pioneer of industrial-goth would fit in at a college basketball arena, but it was actually the perfect sized venue for him. Here's some random thoughts on things I loved about this show:

- The oddball setlist that worked even though it still doesn't make sense. "Echoplex" as an encore? "In This Twilight" as a closer after you just played "Hurt" as a communal sing-along? "The Wretched" as the only thing to represent The Fragile? No setlist by any artist has ever kept me wondering like this one.

- The crowd: amazingly enthusiastic college kids interspersed with a few random actual goths. I actually felt less nerdy as I was leaving the arena. The night was filled with spirited sing-alongs, particularly "March Of The Pigs", "Head Like A Hole", "Closer", and several more.

- The politics: after showing a picture of Bush fading into McCain during "The Hand That Feeds", Trent delivered the message "come on, Florida, you need to get your shit together this time!"

- The lighting can't be adequately described here. In an interview earlier in the year, Trent claimed he wanted to use video as an instrument. Now I get it. Video projections in front of and behind the band made for some stunning effects, while more peaceful backdrops accompanied the softer material. Speaking of that...

- The "Ghosts" instrumental mini-set. Although several people in the crowd found it as an opportunity for a bathroom break, this set featured a marimba, upright bass, banjo, and some stunning atmospheric music that sounded like a completely different band that the one that just lit up the arena with "Wish". "Piggy" was the perfect transition to bring it back to the older material.

- There was an overabundance of Year Zero. Before it's all said and done, that might be the most underrated record of this decade. Multiple keyboards and intense visuals took over when "God Given" and "The Great Destroyer" hypnotized the crowd with their apocalyptic chants.

Even if you know the Downward Spiral material better than anything new, I don't think there has ever been a better time to see the Nine Inch Nails. Now 14 years removed from his commercial peak, Trent is hitting his stride right now.

(Now Trent, give us another live record. Please?)

Guns N' Roses new album

It seems like this might be a disappointing fall for music. Two albums that might have been critical and commercial blockbusters, albums by U2 and Jay-Z, look like they might not be finished this year. Kanye West is putting out a new record, but it's a non-hip hop experiment that has about a 50 percent chance of failing completely. Unless you are getting excited about the new Hinder and Nickelback releases, it might be a dull couple of months.

So after a decade and a half, Axel Rose thinks this is a good time to drop the new Guns N' Roses album. The sudden rise of of Guitar Hero and Rock Band certainly helps: look what it did for Metallica's resurgence. Say what you want about Axel's singing - he might be a marketing genius.

Now the funny part: how is he going to distribute this album? A multi-tiered online/store release like the Hold Steady did? A revolutionary pick-a-price deal like Radiohead's? No, this album is going to be released at one store. On November 23, you can find this album at Best Buy and nowhere else. I have mixed feeling about this idea:

1.) I like the idea of midnight release parties with people flooding the store to be the first to hear a new release. I think iTunes pretty much killed this idea; it will be a nice throwback to my high school years.

2.) I like the idea of them saying no online vendors because they want people to physically own the album, but did you also have to screw over independent record stores? Aren't they suffering enough?

3.) I hope Best Buy keeps up on demand, because this is going to be one of the biggest selling albums of the decade, even if it isn't good. That's my not-so-daring prediction.

I know I should be pissed about Axel jerking me around for the past decade and a half, but I will almost definitely buy this album for two reasons: I think there is still talent there, and there have been a staggering lack of memorable mainstream rock albums in the past five years. Once we get the hype out of the way, we can see if the music will stand on its own.

I'm going to go search for leaked GNR tracks on the internet now.

The Streets

The Streets' first two albums had so much hype and critical acclaim, there was really nowhere left to go. I remember reading British magazines a few years ago after A Grand Don't Come For Free (his outstanding second album): they said things like "the Streets relate to the youth of England in a way nobody has since Joe Strummer and Morrissey". Really, he's already in that class? The next few albums are going to be tough. Unfortunately, British rap is completely incapable of ever being mainstream in America, so your going to have to keep catering to the ever critical cult/hipster crowds here.

His fourth album, Everything Is Borrowed, is shocking from the first second of the opening title track. Is he using live instruments now? Didn't he create Original Pirate Material on his laptop? And them there's the lyrics: "I came to this world with nothing/I leave with nothing but love/everything else is borrowed". Gone are teenage themes of drugs and crushes, now he sings about war and death.

The lyrics are overbearing after a while, but the instrumentation remains pretty exiting through the whole album. He expands his sound to include R&B and jazz, particularly on the surprisingly uplifting "On The Edge Of A Cliff".

I think everybody would love this album if it weren't by the Streets, which is unfortunate. Give this guy a chance to grow up. He still has some good music left in him.

Lucinda Williams' Little Honey

Here is a musician that never ceases to amaze me. That's not to say that everything she tries on her new record actually works; it just amazes me how hard she keeps trying. Now 55 years old, she has already created three masterpieces in three different decades (1988's Lucinda Williams, 1998's Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, 2003's World Without Tears). Little Honey is an album filled with brilliant ideas and a few failures, so I'm going to have to separate the good from the bad.

Good:
- "Tears Of Joy" - Gospel blues built for a Baptist church with some outstanding guitar soloing.
- "Honey Bee" - This sexually explicit stomper could have been stolen from the White Stripes.
- "If Wishes Were Horses" - How can any man turn down an apology this sad and beautiful?
- "Knowing" - The Memphis horns actually work for her on another great lonesome ballad.
- "Plan To Marry" - Simple: Lucinda and guitar. Bliss. One of her best.

Bad:
-"Jailhouse Tears" - For the love of God, everybody stop letting Elvis Costello guest on your album.
-"Little Rock Star" - She's trying to do a spaced-out power ballad now? Why?
-"Rarity" - This goes almost nowhere for almost nine minutes.
-"It's A Long Way To The Top" - Doesn't she think she's above covering AC-DC? The song is as bad as the idea.

This album has enough good ideas to be worth buying if you are already a Lucinda fan, but it has enough bad ideas to scare away the uninitiated. If you want to know why everybody loves her, start with Car Wheels On A Gravel Road. It's still nice to hear her trying every idea she comes across, but maybe two albums in two years is a bit too fast.

The return of Antony

For anybody who had their hearts broken by Antony & The Johnson's 2005 release I Am A Bird Now (the most tearjerking album of that year or most), you'll be happy to hear that voice again. He's been having a productive year already with his Hercules & Love Affair project where his voice surprisingly worked over disco. Now Antony & The Johnsons have a new EP to act as a teaser for a record early next year.

The Another World EP starts off, thankfully, with Antony doing what he does best. The first two songs are slow, undynamic ballads with his voice and piano at the forefront. Then, things go wrong: "Shake That Devil" is an attempt at freeform bluesy vocal-jazz, which ends up sounding like open mic night for amateur poets. I see what he was going for here, I just hope it never happens again. After that, he goes back to the vocal/piano/violin combo that made him famous in the first place. "Hope Mountain" has some beautiful orchestral flourishes, but things don't get to wild on the last two tracks.

As long as he sticks to what he's good at, his new LP in 2009 should be a great album. All he needs is that voice; experimenting and trying to be someone else isn't always a good move.

Lucinda Williams has a new album out tomorrow. It's getting surprisingly weak reviews, but I'm almost positive she is incapable of creating a bad album. I'll tell you in a few days.

Yes, more Bob Dylan worship is in order

I just picked up a copy of Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Volume 8. Not only is this a solid reminder that he's the greatest musician of all time, it's a good reminder of one of his most underrated contributions to music: the bootleg.

Over forty years after its release, mythical extended versions of the Basement Tapes are still being passed around somewhere. Now 8 double-disc releases have been released to commercially (and legally) document his greatest live moments as well as outtakes from his studio albums. Listening to "Series of Dreams" or "Dignity" makes me wonder how any musician can leave material this good in the editing room.

What's important about this volume is that it documents outtakes from a brilliant artistic revival he's had in the past eleven years that has given us three classic albums: Time Out Of Mind, Love & Theft, and Modern Times. This bootleg series fills the gaps we wait five years between albums and give some insight to his songwriting explosion during these years. Both discs start with alternate takes of "Mississippi", which might be his best song this decade. These takes are softer, less urgent, and more bluesy: either one could work and it would still be a classic.

What we need now is a late-era live album from Bob. I want to hear Bob put an new "Mississippi" take next to the 60s classics he's still reinventing at the age of 67. Give us more, Bob! Anything he puts out, I'm in.

2004

Since October is kind of a lull month for new releases, I've been going back through some of my favorite albums of the decade for the past few days. 2007 was an exceptional year and 2008 is shaping up to be almost as good, but no year this decade comes close to 2004. If you don't believe me, here's what came out that year:

- Arcade Fire - Funeral: Still unequivocally my favorite album of the decade.
- Brian Wilson - Smile: It took 37 years to finish; it really was his "teenage symphony to God", even though he was well into his 60s at this point.
- Wilco - A Ghost Is Born: Wilco scores their fifth (an maybe final) masterpiece with this dark, uncompromising folk-rock.
- Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose: Jack White produced this stunning crossover that made us all wish for more country/indie team-ups.
- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Abattoir Blues/Lyre Of Orpheus: This sprawling double disc summarized their whole career and is still their best album.
- Green Day - American Idiot: By far the best mainstream rock-radio album of the decade. In fact, maybe the only memorable one.
- Modest Mouse, The Killers, The Walkmen, Franz Ferdinand: Say what you want about the OC, but that show took some great music to the masses.
- Morrisey - You Are The Quarry and Prince - Musicology: Two 1980s titans finally had their artistic revivals in 2004.
- Madvillian - Madvilliany and The Street - A Grand Don't Come For Free: A banner year for oddball, uncommercial rap albums.
- Kanye West - College Dropout: The best rapper and biggest pop star of the decade showed up in 2004.
- Tom Waits - Real Gone: George W. Bush hating peaked this year (and he won the election regardless). Every year Tom puts out an album is a good year.
- Elliott Smith - From A Basement On A Hill: What a beautiful was to go out - RIP.
- Blanche - If We Can't Trust The Doctors: The most underrated and unrecognized debut of the past few years.
- Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans: A landmark for both modern folk music and Christian music.
- DJ Danger Mouse - Grey Album: The only thing that could stop this from being a classic is lawyers (who actually did stop it, so good luck finding a copy).

You have to go back to 1977 to find a year with a lineup like this; 2004 was the best music year of my life. We would all look at 2004 this fondly if it weren't for that damn election...

Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue

Another year, another Jenny Lewis album. That wasn't an insult; every recording she's done has been good if not great, and between her solo work and Rilo Kiley it adds up to 6 albums in 7 years. She's always reaching for something new by stealing something old: last year's Under The Blacklight was a polished pop-rock record that tried to establish Rilo Kiley as the new Fleetwood Mac. It didn't work and critics were divided on it, probably because the first half of the album was a masterpiece and the second half was horrible. Hard working she is, consistent she isn't.

On Acid Tongue, Jenny mines early 70s Elton John, Neil Young, and Joni Mitchell instead, and the results are the most consistent she's ever done. This album sounds loose, fun, and personal whereas other albums by here have felt overstuffed and overproduced. "Black Sand" and "Pretty Bird" start the album with two beautiful and occasionally haunting ballads, but then she really loosens up with a ten minute rock jam called "The Next Messiah". Apparently she remembered that she is a rock singer and not a pop-soul singer when recording this one.

Although both her range and songwriting have improved, she still isn't a great singer. She doesn't have Fiona Apple's bitterness or Patti Griffin's soulfulness, and her voice really starts to fall apart on the otherwise beautiful "Trying My Best To Love You". Regardless, every song on the record flows into the next, and the dynamics make it a fun listen. The only complete dud on the album is "Carpetbaggers" with Elvis Costello who, despite being one of my all-time favorite singers, is becoming an irritating guest singer. I'm surprised he hasn't been on rap records yet.

There are two highlights: the soulful title track with it's spare instrumentation and cautionary tales of LA life, and the hilarious blues-stomp "Jack Killed Mom". The good things about this album far outweigh the bad, and this album varies far enough from her other records to make you glad that she's still trying to find her voice. I think she might have found it, but her masterpiece is still someday coming.