Hey Cleaner! (Beastie Boys + Kyuss mashup)

Updating my best-of-the-year list

Gosh, I have to pare down my ongoing list, as well as add stuff that's come out since.

Still sticking with me:

Esmerine - La Lechuza
Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
Glorie - Glorie
Graveyard - Hisingen Blues
Lamb - 5
Saul Williams - Volcanic Sunlight
TV on the Radio - Nine Types of Light

New additions:

Arabrot - Solar Anus
Atlas Moth - An Ache For The Distance
Barn Owl - Lost In The Glare
East Of The Wall - The Apologist
Glorior Belli - The Great Southern Darkness
Junius - Reports From The Threshold Of Death
Mastodon - The Hunter
Mother Falcon - Alhambra
Puscifer - Conditions Of My Parole
Russian Circles - Empros
Thrice - Major/Minor
Tom Waits - Bad As Me

Not that things on the other list couldn't still make it, and not that I'm still not reviewing other things that aren't on either list, but as of right now, these are the ones in which I'm interested. Metal is a bit under-represented this year, no?

Lou Reed and Metallica - Lulu: The highest-profile outsider music ever?

From wikipedia: "Outsider music, a term coined by Irwin Chusid in the mid-1990s, are songs and compositions by musicians who are not part of the commercial music industry who write songs that ignore standard musical or lyrical conventions, either because they have no formal training or because they disagree with formal rules. This type of music, which often lacks typical structure and is emotionally stark, has few outlets; performers or recordings are often promoted by word of mouth or through fan chat sites, usually among communities of music collectors and music connoisseurs. Outsider musicians usually have much "greater individual control over the final creative" product either because of a low budget or because of their "inability or unwillingness to cooperate" with modifications by a record label or producer."

This is not the strangest thing on this album. By far.



I'd argue that at this point, both Lou Reed (who has kind of made a career out of this strange style) and Metallica fit every part of this definition except about being a part of the commercial music industry. And they have enough career and pull that they can pretty much do whatever they want.

Combine that with the state of the celebrity's status in pop culture, and I don't see much difference between the mentally-ill street people that have been a part of the outsider music culture and the far-removed-from-reality celebrities that dominate popular media.

This collaboration is absolutely fascinating. Do not read that as an opinion that I think it is good. It's not. In fact, it's pretty terrible.

The lyrics are messed up. The music switches between the usual kind of metal riffs you would expect from Metallica to ambient guitar swells more suited to a movie score. Many of the changes are abrupt and jarring. Ironically, the production is better than the past two Metallica releases. Rarely does the music fit with the vocals. And the vocals. . .

I've never been able to get into much Lou Reed, maybe a few songs from the Velvet Underground, so I'm not real familiar with his work, but the vocals are so bad that they become interesting. Like maybe there's a point to the delivery that I just don't understand. They are at least delivered with sincerity. When James Hetfield joins in though, it becomes even stranger. To hear him shouting some of those lyrics is just bizarre. And most of the time, really off key. And I like some pretty weird stuff, including some vocalists that can tend towards the sketchy pitch (Greg Dulli, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave and Tom Waits). And I kind of feel like David Bowie did this concept better with Outside, back in 1994.

So, what's fascinating about this is how wrong it all seems combined with such commercial artists. Is it some sort of hoax? Is Lou Reed mentally ill? Is the misogyny and racism present here a character concept, or the rantings of a disturbed, out of touch man? Did Metallica really think this was awesome, or did they just really want to work with Reed? One thing you can't say about Metallica, is that they aren't trying something new here. It might even be that the nature of the collaboration itself, and the internet nerd-rage that is already being generated on the net after the album streamed is enough to garner them more media attention and thus, more record sales during a time in the music industry where selling less than 50K copies in the first week of release can actually get you in the Billboard Top 100 (keep in mind, Metallica recently pulled a "KISS" and released a Metallica-version of Monopoly--they are a brand, and by this point they know how to market).

So, is this to be the highest profile outsider music ever to be put into people's ears? The answer to that does not depend on whether Reed and Metallica are serious or not. Either way, the end result may be really awful music, but it is at least fascinating to think about how this must have happened, and I do think it has artistic merit. Even if I never want to listen to it again.

Here's some well known outsider music performers for comparison, if you ever sit down with Reed and Metallica's Lulu.







And finally:

Glorior Belli - They Call Me Black Devil

Damn fine coffee! And hot!

Got a bag of David Lynch's coffee not too long ago, and I'm sorry to say that it's not very good. Perhaps I had expectations too high based on how much he seems to love coffee in his works. Or maybe I'm just spoiled from my local roaster, Biff's in Jacksonville. Oh well.

Update: I'm learning to appreciate the lighter roast and the breakfast blend. A friend of mine built a roaster, and we've been ordering green beans from a website to roast our own coffee. This is the way to go--far better than anything we've purchased so far.

Don't Be Dead Before You Die

"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”--Steve Jobs