Sic Semper Tyrannis

Whatcha' Listenin' To?

Cake Fashion Nugget

I always felt ashamed for never hearing these guys before. To hear them described by friends, they sounded like we would be a perfect match: “They’re funny,” “They’ve got a trumpet player,” “They’re awesome…” I had heard all three of these descriptors. Well, certainly I’m not allergic to a little humor in my music and I am a trumpet player, (nominally speaking of course. I just realized a few days ago that I haven’t even picked up the horn in a year.) “But “awesomeness?” No thank you. I want nothing to do with anything awesome.

I discovered a couple interesting things while listening to this set of songs. The first thing I realized was that their music contains not so much humor as it does swagger. There is a slacker-ish, off-the-cuff feel to the white-boy-funk proceedings. In my head I wondered what would happen if the guys in Cake had a fight with the guys in Spoon. Or even more mind-blowing is to try to imagine what would happen if they actually collaborated! I think college dorms across the country would explode from the sheer levels of unaffected “coolness.” It would be like if the Ghostbusters crossed the streams of their ghost-capturing whatchamacallits.

Other than the swagger I also noticed a sensitive male-ness that percolates just under the surface of some of these tunes. There ain’t no “love gone right” on this album. Some of the ideas in a song like “Friend is a Four Letter Word” are really just kind of sad and instantly relatable to anyone who has been the inevitable one person in a pair who cares too much. There are quite a few hurt people in these songs, but you wouldn’t know it by how “upbeat” and “good-timey” the music is.

John Linnell once said that the only thing sadder than a sad person is a sad person trying to act happy. Amen to that.

The Guess Who Greatest Hits

Give me the Guess Who! I didn’t realize just how many hits these guys had. I thought their catalog kind of ended with “American Woman.” But that’s no the case, as this collection shows their progression through h a few stages, starting with the orchestrated pop of “These Eyes” through the inevitable decline where they sound nothing like their heyday. (See also Boston and every prog rock band that survived into the early to mid-80s.)

Patti Smith Horses

It’s frequently mentioned as one of the Best albums of all time and is officially on the Rolling Stone List.

Rather than say “this is one of the biggest piles of self-important nonsense masquerading as a legitimate artistic statement ever foisted on the American music-listening public” or that “Patti Smith should have just stuck with being a poet, just like Leonard Cohen,” (whose output I’m also currently struggling through) I’ll just say:

I am not the ideal audient for this collection of songs.

Sometimes you realize while exposing yourself to new artistic ideas that you "just don't get it." This would be one of those times. So, if anyone out there is a fan of this album, please leave me a comment and tell me what I'm missing here. Surely albums don't become beloved for no reason.

posted by Mike @ 4:15 PM