Monday, April 14, 2008

To Z or not to Z - That is the Question...

It's unfathomable to me why the shockwaves following Michael Eavis' announcement that Jay-Z would be the Saturday night headliner at this year's Glastonbury Festival are still rolling around the internet like a bad smell. The only reservations I might have about Eavis' programming here is that it has come at least five, maybe even ten years too late. Jay-Z has been the most respected, challenging and innovative of American hip hop artists, and his prolific work rate puts most guitar groups to shame. Some of us may not relate to the lifestyle his music promotes but his wordplay has always been second-to-none and his performance should be invigorating and exciting. The problem is that he may by this stage be past his best.

The innate conservatism of some festival-goers has occasionally bordered on racism. It's fine not to appreciate hip hop, but to claim that Glastonbury is all about 'guitar bands' is not only inaccurate, but implies a certain supremacy lies in big British rock bands who mostly happen to also be white. Previous Glastonbury festivals have featured Basement Jaxx (with a wonderful cast of black vocalists and South American dancers), Orbital (one of the most famous Glastonbury headline sets, with nary a guitar in sight), Michael Franti (whom I was lucky enough to interview and record in 2004), Al Green and Toots and The Maytals (actually the most hotly anticipated act amongst festival-goers I canvassed for Radio Avalon in 2004). I would certainly rather stand in a muddy field watching Jay-Z than either of the other two headliners - Kings of Leon, a band whose live performances have tended to be sluggish and demotivated (certainly disappointing when playing second fiddle to Oasis in 2004) or The Verve, a band whose grandiose pretentions have surely now been revealed as exactly that - mere pretentions. Who exactly is Noel Gallagher to claim that Jay-Z is 'not right' for Glastonbury?

Having said that, I've not even attempted to buy a ticket and neither, it appears, have many others so far. So - why did Glastonbury not sell out in three minutes as it has done in the past? First of all, few seem to have recognised that this might actually be a good thing, particularly for festival-goers themselves. Why, after all, is it always so desirable for an event to sell out as soon as tickets have been put on sale? The registration process is certainly a pain, but if it has reduced demand, it has made it easier for those genuinely wanting to go to obtain a ticket. It has also helped tickets to be distributed fairly, virtually elimianting the role of ticket touts. If there are further factors involved, broadening choice and rising prices would certainly seem to be the main ones. Smaller, more specialist festivals are now not just surviving, but positively thriving, offering a more intimate and comfortable experience (particularly ATP, which even dares to offer accommodation). It seems a long time since the Phoenix Festival was mercilessly squeezed out of operation. Other festivals offer similar or better services at comparable prices - and Glastonbury is now beginning to look like a substantial expense for many people. For sure, it's in a wonderful setting - but one does not need to go to such a place every single year.

The corollary of this is that the mainstream festivals seem to concentrate relentlessly on the same artists - Jay-Z is doing Glastonbury and Wireless, The Verve and Kings of Leon are everywhere, and the Killers are the main act at Reading, having headlined Glastonbury only last year. Examining the finer detail suggests that choice is more limited than one might suspect - and still people moan that there is no sign of Radiohead or Oasis.

It's a very English analysis to cite the weather as a possible factor - regular Glastonbury-goers are probably a little more stoical about bad weather though. It's certainly stubborn of Eavis to insist on scheduling the festival for the last weekend in June, when it consistently rains pretty much every year. He could reconsider this, but if he's happy to deal with the carnage 180,000 people churning up farmland mud creates, then he can make his own bed and lie in it.

Similarly, perhaps he has to accept that some of the 'younger' audience he was attempting to court by booking Jay-Z are actually depressingly closed-minded about music. Hopefully, Glastonbury will have lost some of the regular whingers and gained some new converts. Next year Eavis should have more courage in backing innovators and not fall back on traditional pantomime horses such as The Verve. This year's line-up ultimately looks like a botched compromise.

Back To My Youth

The B-52s – Funplex
Was (Not Was) – Boo!


What on earth is going on here? Two of the most memorable singles of my childhood years were ‘Walk The Dinosaur’ by Was (Not Was) and ‘Love Shack’ by the B-52s. Not much has been heard of either band since the early nineties. I remember Simon Mayo hammering the latter to death on his Radio 1 breakfast show, thus guaranteeing it would be played pretty much every morning for a month during the short journey from home to my primary school. Some 18 years after this song was released, and 15 years since their last album, The B-52s have returned once more, this time styled in black and white rather than dayglo bright colours.

Other than that, as plenty of critics have stupidly bemoaned, not that much has changed. Even at quite an advanced age, they are still ‘pleasure seekers’, ‘lookin’ for some action’ and promoting a guilt-free philosophy of unrestrained hedonism. Well, good for them! Keith Strickland remains a superb rhythm guitarist and much of the band’s appeal still rests on the contrast between Fred Schneider’s high camp goofball interjections (‘there’s a rest stop – let’s hit the G Spot!’ etc) and the infectious melodies and harmonies carried by a now reunited Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson. This is all lightweight fluff of course – but who could resist such a tempting manifesto? When they promise to ‘take this party to the White House lawn’ at the album’s conclusion, I can’t help suspecting this least political of groups could still teach the Bush administration a thing or two.

It’s also unfair to suggest there have been no developments. Producer Steve Osborne has cautiously but effectively modernised their sound. Perhaps the most notable factor in this is the way the group have incorporated some ideas from bands they themselves once influenced. The emphasis on straightforward four to the floor disco backbeats is redolent of CSS or LCD Soundsystem, both of whom took on board much of the basic energy of early B-52s material. It’s interesting then that the CSS remix of the title track does not actually sound all that far removed from the album version. It’s both surprising and endearing to hear how suddenly fashionable a track like ‘Eyes Wide Open’ now sounds – with its precise hi-hat rhythm, scratchy, muted guitars and exuberant cowbells. Hearing Pierson and Wilson bellow ‘I don’t wanna crash! I don’t wanna rehash the past!’, it would be easy to be fooled into thinking this was something new, when really all it represents is an excellent band remembering what made them great in the first place.

It’s therefore worth recognising that ‘Funplex’, whilst unashamedly one-dimensional, is a good deal more consistent than either ‘Cosmic Thing’ or ‘Good Stuff’. Both those albums had great moments but sometimes veered into inconsequentiality with meandering melodies. By contrast, pretty much every track here is outrageously enjoyable, and at the very least pleasantly hummable. These are pop songs of course – it’s silly and ultimately banal, but for three or four minutes, it completely elevates the spirits in a way that no other form of music can. Even the band’s attempts at sounding more sophisticated somehow work in spite of themselves. ‘Juliet of the Spirits’ is more pristine, but also sugary and mesmerising.

Personally, I can’t resist Fred Schneider’s ‘spandex, spiral vortex’ on ‘Love in the Year 3000’ or the sheer energy and excitement of tracks like ‘Hot Corner’ or ‘Pump’. I certainly can’t resist the bizarre moment in the middle of ‘Deviant Ingredient’ when ‘the sensualists’ arrive (by pink helicopter, how else?), and Fred Schneider suddenly announces, without even a hint of shame: ‘I am now an eroticist - a fully eroticised being!’

Those critics who have found this album embarrassing have maybe just forgotten how to have fun. This is an album pretty much all about dancing and sex. Dancing and sex should be fun – and this music is as straightforwardly and uncomplicatedly pleasurable as it gets. Plus, I could hardly enjoy the full implications of all this in the car on the way to primary school, could I? Now that I can, it’s great to have them back.

In many ways, The B-52s and Was (Not Was) shared similar career trajectories. Both bands started out at the vanguard of alternative fashion – The B-52s uniting new wave and gay disco, Don and David Was emerging as pioneering producers and droll lyricists as part of the Ze records mutant disco staple. Both bands gradually embraced slicker production techniques, and expanded their popularity and radio-friendly credentials as a result. Yet, there were always oddities. Even as ‘Walk The Dinosaur’ and the quite brilliant ‘Spy In The House of Love’ stormed the pop charts, their parent album ‘What Up Dog?’ contained moments of real strangeness - songs like ‘Shadow and Jimmy’, co-written with Elvis Costello and one of the saddest, most melancholy stories imaginable, set to a Cajun lilt, and ‘Hello Dad, I’m in Jail’, a snarling, sardonic one minute rant that sounded positively avant garde. Importantly, both groups proved as adept at being hit factories as they were at being original and innovative.

‘Boo!’ is Don and David Was’ first new studio album since 1990’s ‘Are You Okay?’ (on which they felt better than James Brown and cavorted with Kim Basinger), but it retains all of their weird and wonderful qualities, as well as a cast of familiar faces and some stellar supporting musicians. The grizzly voiced Sweet Pea Atkinson remains the perfect mouthpiece for Don and David’s peculiar song-stories, whilst the group effortlessly craft the kind of bristling, precision-perfect funk that has long been subordinated to robotic R&B. It’s refreshing to be reminded of how energising and exciting this music can be when handled well.

The opening ‘Semi-Interesting Week’ is an awesome summation of this group’s off-the-wall qualities, a verbose story that begins with Sweet Pea enjoying some action with some patriotic twins from Washington DC, continues with him dismembering someone who insults him as ‘a dirty Jew’ (‘I assured him I had showered that very morning…’) and ends with aliens invading Hollywood. It’s a brilliant curtain-raiser and its maverick spirit is further developed with the irresistibly groovy ‘Forget Everything’ and ‘Mr. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore’, apparently co-written with Bob Dylan. This fact isn’t as surprising as many seem to think, given that a number of these songs apparently date back to the early nineties and Dylan hired Don Was as producer for ‘Under The Red Sky’, his first studio album of that decade. All these tracks are elevated by some superb horn charts, and a seemingly unstoppable party vibe.

Elsewhere, the surreal elements become stronger, and the music gets murkier. ‘Needletooth’ is a disorientating close relation to ‘Hello Dad…’, David once more sounding like a total lunatic, whilst Kris Kristofferson sounds similarly unhinged (or at least a lot like Mark Lanegan) on the unsettling, blackly comic closer ‘Green Pills In The Drawer’. ‘Big Black Hole’ neatly combines the group’s interests – a notably dour song set to an urgent rhythm.

Don and David even pull off the album’s cheesiest moments. ‘It’s a Miracle’ is sweet, honey-laden soul benefiting from some sublime guitar playing, whilst first single ‘Crazy Water’ is a completely satisfying refashioning of a New Orleans stomp. It’s fascinating that in today’s climate, such well-crafted and sophisticated pop music can now seem thoroughly unfashionable and a genuine alternative to mainstream chart music, which now incorporates as much unambitious ‘indie’ tedium as it does mass-produced manufactured dross. Here are two of the best albums of the year so far, all the more impressive because they both sound as if they are hardly even trying.