Holding up the 48th second of the Beatles‘ “Rain” as an example, Wolk claims that, “if some band of 25-year-olds with radio aspirations wrote and recorded ‘Rain’ today…that take would probably be thrown out, or at least digitally edited to fix the screw-up.”

With respect to Wolk, this strikes me as a hollow, distinctly codger-y argument. (And one that cites exactly zero contemporary acts by way of illustration.) Couple points here:

1. “[The Beatles'] recording [of "Rain"] is a mess.” Not perforce true. Sure, it’s loose, and there’s a soupy-psychedelic lag to the arrangement, but the Beatles were always in tireless pursuit of shit like that. (As when John instructed George Martin to make “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” smell like “sawdust on the floor.”)

2. “It’s full of mistakes, accidents and inconsistencies that would be utterly unacceptable by the pop-music standards of 2009.” What “pop music” are we discussing here—the Jonas Bros., or indie rock’s more mainstream extrusions? ‘Cuz it seems to me we’re still in an era where authenticity, even salable authenticity, gets stored in the garage. manifested in tape hiss, &c. &c. The White Stripes were massive in spite and because of the over-discussed sloppiness of Meg White. And I’m no expert in the whole Jay Reatard thing, but doesn’t he tend to drop eighth notes here and there?

3. The Beatles is an odd band to tout as an example of studio imperfectionism. It’s true, their obsessions geared toward invention rather than toward metronomics, but after 1964, this was no garage band. These are the guys who lugged 40-piece orchestras into Abbey Road and spent over 30 hours recording this song.

4. Studio perfectionism isn’t a product of Pro Tools. And it’s not a phenomenon unique to rock, either—think Glenn Gould, whose OCD approach to studio work infuriated sound engineers and entailed unprecedented (and literal) cutting and pasting in order to effect a synthetic perfection that live performances couldn’t approach. (Christ, imagine what a pain he would’ve been in the Pro Tools era!)

5. “The lead singer’s wobbly notes, and the not-quite-in-tune bass guitar, would get fixed with AutoTune.” Sorry, how many current rock acts actually use AutoTune on a consistent basis?

What I’m wondering, I guess, is why we have to discuss this exclusively in terms of songs from the mid-’60s. “The high-tech ideal of popular music means no botched rhythms, no sour notes, no shaky dynamics, but also no ‘Sex Machine,’ no ‘Louie Louie,’ no ‘Rain.’” These are the only three songs Wolk even mentions in the post. I’d love for Fischer to chime in on the lo-fi implications of all this, and mebbe Riggs has something to say re: Emo or something like that. But this whole thing strikes me as a pretty straw-man mode of obituary.

Wow, Barack Obama—what an inspiring figure. Do you remember how, against all odds, he got elected President way back in 2008? And then, despite an about-face in conventional wisdom re: the viability of Obamacare, how he jammed health-care reform (with a public option) through a groaning Congress in late 2009?

But 2010 was really unbelievable—after consolidating his political capital in an unlikely mid-term expansion of the Democratic Congressional majority, Obama made good on his promises to end “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and close Guantanamo. Then—who could have thought this was possible in the face of flagging support for the Afghan war—do you remember how he established a lasting peace agreement with Iran and North Korea before beating Sarah Palin in 2012 by a remarkable 20 points? I bet that, by 2016, he’ll even figure out a way to get Israel to accept a future Palestinian state and withdraw from settlements in the Golan Heights. I mean, anything can happen—who, in 2014, thought that a workable immigration bill and a marijuana legalization plan would happen a year later? It’s just like that original campaign slogan: “Yes, we can!”

Oh, right—none of this shit happened yet, but we’re celebrating anyway.

Somewhere between stellastarr*’s self-titled semibreakthrough and Civilized, its latest, self-released effort, the New York band went from benign and enjoyable indie bubblegum to disposable Guitar Hero rock. That much was clear, anyway, at the group’s packed show at Rock & Roll Hotel Friday with Wild Light and The Postmarks. Here is a band that long has inspired easy dismissal, and after three albums seems to have ironed out all idiosyncrasy. The crowd—rollicking, fist-pumping, high-fiving—couldn’t have asked for anything more.

I don’t mean to sound flip. In 2003, stellastarr*’s debut was derivative, sometimes involving stuff that—with its blatant debt to Talking Heads and Pixies—arrived during exactly the right moment of post-punk and college-rock revival. That album’s singles, “Jenny” and “My Coco,” were mainstays of my iPod for months. So I was somewhat nonplussed when stellastarr*’s hour-plus set Friday produced no Proustian flashback to younger days.

In older numbers, frontman Shawn Christensen resurrected the yodeled take on Frank Black’s barking by which stellastarr* first made its bones, but he slipped comfortably into a nasal, pop-punk whine for the group’s recent material. Civilized was a perfect descriptor. Bland, power-pop hyperbole—the stuff of soaring choruses, bah-bah refrains and meaningless couplets—proved the order of the night.

In other words: I should have taken my own advice and seen Lovvers.

II. I Saw Rock ‘N’ Roll’s Future And It Is Fucked

If the headliner inspired few deep thoughts, then Wild Light, the groomed New Hampshire band who played second but took nearly as much time arranging its gear, was infuriating. On record, a shimmering California vibe dominates proceedings (although one song repeats “fuck California” with grating self-congratulation), but live it was a more bicoastal affair: the pleadingness of latter-day emo; New Romantic Killers-style synthscapes; the E-Street Band’s large sound/salt-of-the-earth dichotomy. “Earnest and ambitious” reads the group’s promotional material, which, in a pejorative sense, is exactly on point. Vocals reverberated; synths swooped; glasses clanged; girls screamed (already the young band has groupies). By my count, only one song didn’t end in an arena-ready cadenza.

(Reverb obfuscated most of the lyrics; those that penetrated were postcard aphorisms and milquetoast ramblings about small towns and The Road.)

I’m not sure that Wild Light has the hooks to land it on, say, Grey’s Anatomy (though Rolling Stone begs to differ), but its members certainly have the Abercrombie looks. Guitarist Jordan Alexander The Rebel Heartthrob was all tattoo sleeves, skinny jeans and earnestness-with-an-attitude; his warbling, plaintive vocals by turns suggested All-American Rejects‘ emo-pop and Bon Jovi’s heartland-derived pinup rock. For his songs, multi-instrumentalist Timothy Kyle The Blue-Collar Auteur was serious in black, and affected a crooning Brandon Flowers baritone. Drummer Seth Kasper The Drummer was the least photogenic, though there was much to admire in his Spectorian (or Max Weinberg-ish?) flourishes. And Seth Pitman The Blond One, also a multi-instrumentalist, telegraphed condescension with each banter. At one point, he thanked The Postmarks—whom he said he “had never heard of” before the tour—for opening, and encouraged the crowd to “get their CD or something.” Well, thanks, dude.

III. A Farewell To Barbs

Miami’s The Postmarks didn’t match the crowd-bating energy of their tourmates, but for all their sophistipop iciness, they had the most heart. Often, the five-piece complemented chanteuse Tim Yehezkely’s girly deadpan with a chunky, robotic post-shoegaze; softer songs balanced finicky tweeness with infectious, Motownesque bass hooks. It’s no surprise or accident that Ivy’s Andy Chase gave The Postmarks their first career boost; Yehezkely & Co. share Ivy’s polish, understatement and erudition.

Then again, The Postmarks’ set closer, a cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Nine Million Rainy Days,” was anything but polite: In it, Yehezkely was less Liz Phair than Bilinda Butcher, an ambient angel amid the violent, echoing maelstrom.

Photo by Benjamin R. Freed

So I finally got around to listening to Ben Folds‘ new a cappella album, and I had some thoughts I wanted to append to last week’s post. Those of you who are still in the process of forgiving me for bringing Ben Folds and a cappella in to this space to begin with will probably want to skip this one. (Also, full disclosure: I belonged to an a cappella group in college that was denied a spot on the album. I can now confirm that the singers who made the cut turned out to be much more talented than I am.)

I have always thought a cappella music was a lot more fun to perform than to listen to, but I can appreciate a well-realized arrangement when I hear one. This album has more than a few of those; that’s not the problem. The problem is that the portion of Folds’s oeuvre that lends itself to the a cappella adaptation is the sort of soft-edged superpop that been his general tack ever since Ben Folds Five disbanded in 2000. No vocalists, however talented, can imitate the frenetic piano runs and heedless mashing that made Folds so fun in the ’90s, and few would dare attempt his jazzier arrangements (”Sports and Wine,” “Uncle Walter,” etc.), which are more suited to piano than voice anyway.

Yes, Ben Folds wrote pop ballads in his days with Five, but they were always carefully nestled among those rawer uptempo tracks as ballast. Here, these songs are adrift in a homogeneous sea of melancholy. The album has no arc; just ultra-smooth crooning above triad chords, song after song, with only a handful of exceptions. (Two are worth noting: “Selfless, Cold, and Composed,” by the Sacramento State Jazz Singers, was an ambitious rendering of one of the best breakup songs of the past two decades, and the only track from this album that made it on my iPod; and “Magic,” by the University of Chicago Voices in Your Head. The latter unquestionably falls in to the emo-pop category, but the arrangement is so different from the original that the song is a completely unique artifact–which should be the goal of any group, a cappella or otherwise, when attempting a cover.)

This is not to knock the groups. My point is that Folds’s best music–the stuff he wrote when he was a pissed-off kid in North Carolina who probably wouldn’t be caught dead in a white turtleneck sweater and beret–cannot be imitated by human voices, no matter how talented. Meanwhile, choral adaptations of his latter-day work, even if objectively pleasant, are likely to wind up as inferior facsimiles of unremarkable pop songs.

From the Cleveland Park listserv. Writer “Don” begs for vinyl:

“I have decided to go retro in my music listening and am trying to rebuild a collection of good old vinyl record albums. If you’d like to give a loving home to those lonely albums sitting around your house, I’d be happy to take them off your hands. I am mostly looking for rock from the 60’s through 80’s, but would also consider jazz, folk and other popular music.”

Dude needs to hit the used-record bins at Red Onion and Crooked Beat. If he lives in Cleveland Park, I think he could afford their prices.

But this point was sorta dead on:

“Sure, 30 years ago DC had Bad Brains and Minor Threat, and today it still has, uh, Ian Svenonius (the Sassiest Boy in America!), but the intervening years have gentrified the hell out of a quarter of the city proper and kept the rest in abject urban poverty, more or less. Not a great recipe for ‘cool’!”

Except, last time I checked New York was gentrifying the hell out of its grid. The last time I checked, the most influential band in Brooklyn doesn’t reside there. No, that band’s early albums were put out by a guy who lives in D.C. and its members grew up around here. That band is called Animal Collective. We really like Animal Collective.

I dig the writer’s interest in fighting economic inequality. But if the writer really cared about “abject urban poverty,” what the hell is he doing blogging for Gawker? It’s not like that job really sticks it to the Man. I might be wrong, but Gawker hasn’t exactly turned into Human Rights Watch or hired a renowned sociologist to write engaging narratives about urban poverty.

And New York didn’t invent go-go. I’m shocked the writer didn’t at least give it a mention! Anyway, all this ranting is just an excuse to post this Junkyard video from 1985. I discovered this video at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum (which I sort of critiqued a while ago).

Wonkette labels Galaxy Hut a “dive bar.” Really? The post comes in the politics site’s new “Wonkabout” section presumably to attempt to takeover our turf! Wonkette writes:

“This tiny bar offers 20 taps of craft and imported beer, and more than 30 kinds of bottled beer. They don’t serve any hard liquor, so don’t ask. There’s live music Sunday and Monday nights (how they fit the bands inside is a mystery; the bar can barely hold 15 people), Ms. Pacman, pinball and a vegetarian-friendly menu.”

Let’s see. Veg friendly menu. Twenty taps of craft and imported beer. Does this sound like a dive bar to you? Granted the writer of the post didn’t call it a dive bar. But who ever manages their new site tagged it as “Another Dive Bar.” Which is ridiculous.

*photo courtesy of DCist.

Alicia Keys would have been the better choice. I just have this feeling–correct me if I’m wrong here–but the next four, five days are going to be a huge bland sandwich only with massive crowds, security zones, and huge traffic congestion. Safe acts (Sting, Sheryl Crow) meeting up with the usual Hollywood cameos (Kate Walsh?). It’s telethon-level talent. But what are they singing for? Obama? The fact that we’re done with Bush?

I can’t help but be disappointed. Again. Where’s Wilco? For my money the best show in town is going to be the Big Shoulders Ball at the Black Cat featuring folks like Ted Leo, Ken Vandermark, Tortoise, etc. I’m going to that show. I promise to post pictures and maybe a little video.

This week, Rolling Stone fronts a totally definitive list of the 100 greatest singers of all time. (Previous totally definitive lists include the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest songs of all time, and THE 100 IMMORTALS. But that’s just scratching the surface.)

Besides the inherent arbitrariness of the exercise and the fact that most casual listeners could write these lists in their sleep—along with the celebrity-penned panegyrics that accompany them—what tends to bum me out about these things is the complacency involved. You dredge up a ream of archival photos, solicit a lot of free content from celebs who want to align themselves with the legacy of a given “immortal,” and publish with maximum fanfare. Plus, to dig the entire list on the web, the reader has to click through ONE HUNDRED TIMES. (Surely this’ll crack the totally definitive list of the “100 greatest ways to phone it in while increasing pageviews…of all time.”) I mean, sheesh, at least Blender maintains a bit of irony about the whole list motif.

Still, the celeb encomia have their moments. Below are a few of the purpler, more platitudinous moments of pop pedantry. See if you can guess to which vocal titan each one corresponds.

(I’ll post answers on Friday. Or you can cheat by giving pageviews to the Stone. Either way.)

• There is a difference between people who sing and those who take that voice to another, otherworldly place, who create a euphoria within themselves.
• You know a force from heaven. You know something that God made. And [blank] is a gift from God.
• There’s a lot going on in [blank]’s voice. A lot of pain, a lot of life but, most of all, a lot of strength.
• [Blank]’s unhinged aggression presaged punk rock.
• I can’t compare [blank]’s voice to anything — [blank] had such an unusual breadth of influences, from Sonic Youth to Edith Piaf.

***

UPDATE ~10:30 a.m., 12/8/08: We have winners. Answers posted here!

The New York Times ran a story last Thursday about a service that ranks in societal importance next to dog psychiatrists and fish pedicures.

…it is just in the last five years that a handful of music consultants, mostly in New York and London, have begun to specialize in creating custom domestic soundtracks. From Aspen lodges to bungalows in Belize, they are compiling playlists to match their clients’ décor.

Isn’t this what online music services like Pandora are for? Or hopefully, sites like Black Plastic Bag or Pitchfork? I’ve always felt the thrill of discovery adds to the enjoyment of music, but ignorance is bliss.

Also, does the service come with a servant that hits the play button with a white gloved hand?

Even if the music a client likes isn’t insipid, stylists warn, it might be all wrong for a given space. “You’re not going to have Johnny Cash playing in a fantastic retreat in the West Indies,” Mr. Gibson said. “It just wouldn’t work.”

I’m not so sure that these paid cultural gatekeepers actually like music, ’cause Johnny Cash works everywhere — from Wasilla to Kim Jong Il’s deathbed. So following Gibson’s logic, If I’m flying transatlantic my choices are moe.’s Plane Crash or Steve Miller’s Jet Airliner? No chamber pop to go with the Valium and scotch?

Sure, I’m harboring a fair amount of resentment. Getting paid well to pick music for rich clients with “insipid” taste sounds like a decent gig. Expect the part where I recommend Iron Maiden’s The Trooper for martial disputes.