Bdbgs Rpup #3: The Lonely Ryan and the Bee

3. ALBUMS. I has listened to them. Eh, it's February. A few good ones, though I'm somewhat disturbed to note that my #1 album of the year is The Lonely Effing Island followed by Ryan Leslie, whose album is barely passing my "any good at all" test. Thing is, though, that Ryan gets by low and steady, a totally uncharismatic lead with his own productions as a crutch, both highlighting the economy/ingenuity/details of a lot of his production work (how far he gets on, say, two simple hook ideas, one usually being a totally awesome synth setting playing a two-chord pattern ad infinitum, that just barely don't overstay its welcome) and reminding you that it's not JUST his production propping Cassie up -- girl's got some kinda mojo going, though damned if I know what it is. She should totally NOT be interesting. And yet she is. (Her album's due out this year and I'm hoping it soars above everything I've listened to so far and then some.)

I'm a sucker for novelty, but really didn't think I'd go for an album of the stuff. Preadolescent repeat listening in secret to Adam Sandler albums will do that to you, I guess. And of course Lonely Island is better than Sandler, though I can't really gauge how funny it might be in comparison, since...y'know, I was A PRETEEN at the time and "Medium Pace" was basically the most scandalous, hilarious thing that any human being could ever conceive. But yeah, production is pretty great on this Lonely Island thing; and what I really love about it is a sorta wide-eyed-ness you get that undercuts some of the parody elements. Flight of the Conchords can do this on occasion, but they're so deeply in character you lose sight of a real person who could actually be in the situation the character's in. They're too dopey, you can only really laugh at them. But I can totally see Lonely Island actually flipping out that they're on a boat. It's sarcastic, I guess, but at the same time I start to think to myself...shit, I wish I was on a boat right now. WHICH IS EXACTLY THE POINT.

Er....yeah. Underdog track is probably "Boombox," for a similar reason -- there's this "music can save the world" attitude that you know the group actually believes in, just not in quite as silly and obvious a way.

But like, whatever, comedy albums, right? Yeah.

Liking a lot of R&B that seems less gimmicky than what usually grabs me, though not free of gimmicks. I'm kind of a rube when it comes to R&B, go for the most throat-grabbingly obvious conceits. But I'm liking a Teedra Moses mixtape that Lex shared a track from on Poptimists, "So Kool," and this Platinum Pied Pipers thing, which is not without its gimmicks but also seems like it doesn't exactly draw as much attention to itself as stuff more up my alley.

And on the sunny indie pop tip, still liking the Bird and the Bee album, a pretentious little thing full of fussy little arrangements that don't lose a sense of lushness. I guess "theatrical" is the word for it, though it's less obtrusive than that suggests. Prissy but expansive, navel-gazing but aims for simpler pop-pleasures that makes the lyrical tendency less obvious, if not quite moot. It's charming, you know?

Lily Allen, jury's still out. This is what Nia said about it, and I take her recommendations pretty seriously, especially when they sound like this:

Overall, I feel like the weak spots are weaker on this album than on Alright, Still — but the bright spots are much, much brighter. It’s Not Me It’s You is basically divided into the personal and the political, and political Lily is always weak — for whatever reason, when she’s criticizing policies or politicians, she chooses vague put-downs over logical rebuttals, which is why you end up with those cheap Flight of the Conchords lines. For example, from “Kabul Shit,” re: politicians: But I don’t know who to trust, and I just find it all confusing / All as useless as each other, it’s past the point of being amusing. Wow, thanks for that insight, Lils. But the preceding two lines are lovely: And the teachers always told us, told us we should love thy neighbor / And my mother always told me, told me I should vote New Labour.

Because she’s best at stories, and scenes, and characters. There are two political songs that do work, through and through, and it’s not a coincidence that those are the two political songs that are about specific people. The fame-hungry, love-hungry women in “The Fear” and “22” could very easily be brainless caricatures — and she could very easily be condescending and dismissive toward them and their misguided ideas — but she makes them real, she shows their desires and their doubts, she points out that they’re misguided not because they’re stupid or lazy but because we, as a society, have failed to guide them.

All the personal songs are strong, because, again, stories and scenes and characters. Some of the highlights are Alright, Still-style charming: “Never Gonna Happen” and “Not Fair” are funny and come out swinging. But she’s also warm, and loving, and vulnerable, and heartbreaking on this album in a way that she only hinted at on Alright, Still. “Who’d Have Known,” “Chinese,” “I Could Say,” even “Not Fair” — she shows timidity and weaknesses she wasn’t willing to show before.

Uh, so, I guess what I’m saying is, it’s a good album! And I stand by what I said back in July, about this album being on an Autobiography level.

I'm agreed on most of this, really, though it's REALLY hard to ignore an "out-of-character" political track, in which an affected character might undercut the actual sentiment behind it, like "Fuck You" and then square that with the "in-character" stuff. If she's in character, blunt, confused, quick to blame the other person but always with a sneaking (sometimes unstated, but stated over the course of things enough to make it a facet of her character) sense that she's equally if not more at fault than the offending person -- it would, you would think, lead to a slightly less assured sense of political righteousness, too. Especially since she's 100x more annoying when she's being politically righteous. I think this kind of happens a bit on "Everyone's At It," which has some serious Flight of the Conchords moments of overly literal "message" moves ("You daughter's depressed, we'll get her straight on the Prozac / Little do you know that she already takes CRACK!") that I can step back from and appreciate (a little) knowing that the impetus for this song, according to the song, is that she's been at it and thinks it's stupid. And her first reaction, obvs, is to blame everyone (see?) but herself.

So yeah, it's got some depth, and the tunes are better this time around, I think. The cobbled-togetherness of the first one seemed somewhat at odds with the forcefulness of her character; in this one, the arrangements kind of lift her up and take her through the stories, as theatrically or sparely as they need to. "Everyone's At It" has warning sirens, "Back to the Start" has a confessional dance drug-haze synth and hectic breakbeat sorta thing to match the anxiety/paranoia in apologizing to someone with whom you have a major inferiority complex, "Chinese" appropriately suggests swooning and sweatpants...a kind of chipmunk anthem (those could be U2 drums, or maybe Jesus and Mary Chain in another context, if they weren't so canned). I'm still trying to figure out what the hell is going on with "Him," in which a seemingly boring dude is equated with a terrorist [EDIT: He, um, God, is WATCHING the terrorist do his thing; hasn't been personified yet in the song], then painted as a yuppie who listens to Creedence, all set to..."Friend of the Devil"? Really? (Eh, it's interesting!) [EDIT: Oh wait, she's talking about GOD. So basically this is an "edgier" version of Joan Osbourne's "One of Us." I'm not sure if that makes me like it more or less?]

Actually, it might kind of be my #1 so far, because I know I couldn't muster that many words about anything else on the list.

4. SONGS: Surprisingly weak year for singles so far, though I should clarify that this is more a reflection of how I've been listening to music (full albums in headphones to accompany subway trips, mostly) than anything else. Doesn't helped that I've ticked "don't like any" at least twice so far this year on the Poptimists UK Charts polls. Dire straits, those charts...I considered going back and ticking "Crack a Bottle" but couldn't do it. It's just too boring.

That said, looking forward to future releases from Ciara, judging from "Turntables," and Keke Palmer, judging from the theme song to her TV show, and maybe some more material from Priscilla Renea, who does a dead-on Rihanna impression, along with someone who does a dead-on Akon impression, in "Emergency Room" which, given the song's content and unfortunate events with the REAL Rihanna, is ensured no chance whatsoever of being officially released. But at something like age 17 Priscilla's got a bright future (I hope...no telling these things, especially nowadays). Brighter still, though not as enthusiastic about it: Dr. Luke/Max Martin project Kesha, whose career I am waiting with some trepidation, but a bit of cautious optimism. Maybe she'll be better than Katy Perry AND Lady Gaga, thus making both irrelevant in one fell swoop?