Neko and Bono and Clem, Oh My!

Three solid thumbs up for first week of March, indicative of the solid year 2009 is becoming for music:

Neko Case, "Middle Cyclone" - This just might be my favorite Neko Case album of all, certainly better than "Fox Confessor," since musical arrangements and lyrics are more focused and fascinating. The recurring themes of tornadoes and animal intuition help string all the songs together. As the New York Times mentioned recently, the layering of found-sounds like animal moans and jack-in-the-box hurdy-gurdy tunes just adds to the album's charm (I could do without the crickets at the end, though). Neko's hilarious and chaotic liner notes and art give you the distinct impression she's had more fun with this whirlwind of an album than anything she's done to date.

U2, "No Line on the Horizon" - While it's still not certain if this album will crack the Top Ten of 2009, I refuse to join the legion of Bono-haters out there, if only because this album has so many fun tunes. One of the problems some have with U2 is that the band, similar to Neil Young or David Bowie, likes to take on different personas. If "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" was full-tilt rock, "No Line" is more Phil Spector blue-eyed soul, not that surprising given the UK's new-found interest in soul revivals from the likes of Duffy and Adele. Whether you like the latest instantiation of U2 or not, certain songs like "Unknown Caller" or "Get On Your Boots" are well-crafted enough to rank within the band's best songs ever. And I'll add a particular sacrilege: With 20 years' distance, "Atomic Bomb" and "No Line" stand out as more interesting albums than "Joshua Tree" or "Unforgettable Fire," because the latter are overly-bombastic anthemic visions of excess. However, speaking of excess, here's where I will pick on Bono: Offering five different kinds of limited editions of this album seems pretentious beyond belief. Since it's 2009, I picked up the $9.99 straight-up CD. Sure, a double-vinyl version might be fun, but three different extended CD boxes based on magazines and hard-cover books? I mean, honestly, Bono....


Clem Snide, "Hungry Bird" - Eef Barzelay finally has this Clem Snide identity laid down to the point where it inhabits a mysterious universe made up of equal parts Thom Yorke, David Gray, and John Darnielle. Sort of. If you could believe such a thing. Even when the songs may grow sappy, their intriguing lyrics and song structure make this album stand up to repeated plays better than, say, Andrew Bird's new album. By the way, look for the version of this CD with the bonus EP, the extra songs are worth it. And that raises an important question for Eef - since the album is rather short, why not just stick the EP songs on the end of the CD, and not make the listener participate in this scavenger hunt? Then again, what fun would that be?

May we get many more examples of fun in an otherwise gloomy year!

Bono, Fire Your Damn Manager!

It's fun to constantly point out the inconsistencies of U2 lead singer Bono, and some analysts make a career of it. Bono's work with and concern for the poor has been legitimate, but you have to wonder about a guy who actually likes to hang with Paul Wolfowitz.

While we're on the subject of company kept, Bono and The Edge and gang had better take a second look at lifelong manager Paul McGuinness. The blog world is abuzz with McGuinness' Jan. 28 speech in Cannes on the future of the music industry. Actually, his assessment of the failures and foibles of record companies and musicians is spot-on in the first half of the speech. And then he takes on Silicon Valley.

First of all, "hippie values" in the technology industry? Where has McGuinness been in analyzing uber-capitalists? These are the Ayn Rand slaves, dude! But more important, where does he come off dissing Abbie Hoffman? The most important aspect of hippie culture in the 1960s was the nihilist and comedic trend of Yippie culture. If technology supporters behind peer-to-peer music services and MP3 harbor any Steal This Book! trends (which I find laughable), it's probably a good thing. The real danger in the modern world is allowing the transnational capitalists to control the entire game, while sending the big bad Recording Industry Association of America against those poor little file-stealers. Anarchists seeking to limit the power of large corporations are a healthy rage-against-the-machine, blow-against-the-empire trend, like the Barbary Pirates during the expansion of the British empire. If I had to choose between EMI and the Yippies, I'd choose Yippies every time. And if Bono doesn't share that opinion enough to tell his manager to go take a hike, then Bono is indeed the kind of two-faced hypocrite his critics have claimed for years.