Medialoper

We're Not Who You Think We Are

Archives for December 1998

Hole – Celebrity Skin

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(DGC)

I know why people hate Courtney Love. Crazy, contradictory and caustic, she’s so fake she’s beyond real. And, of course, coming from a subculture where realness equals sincerity equals artistic integrity, her fakeness and ambition give all of the people who worshiped her poor dead husband (or even her earliest music) an easy target. Yet, her goal to make a record that would cut across this most fragmented pop scene ever is strangely noble. And naïve. And no less informed by artistic integrity than, say, Modest Mouse or Silver Jews. Of course she failed — even the impact of Nevermind was probably overstated by those of us who were impacted the most, and things have just unraveled further since — leaving us with a record that has far more flaws than her brand-new body. More highlights, too.

[Read more…] about Hole – Celebrity Skin

Bob Dylan – The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert

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(Sony Classics)

Written for the 1998 Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll

. . .

Like, who cares if the acoustic set sucks? Even if it was exquisitely perfect, it would still just be a set-up, a lead-in to the greatest, wildest, most fucked-up visionary set of rock and roll music ever recorded by anybody. For me, that means it kills the Clash, stomps the Replacements and makes the Who and Nirvana smell like sensitive little singer-songwriter bands. And don’t even get me started on the Rolling Stones or Sex Pistols or Led Zeppelin or Bruce Springsteen. Feh! Pretenders and poseurs all. That’s why it’s easy to vote for this — impossible not to, really — even though it’s been in my life as a boot for just about ever.

And of course, it’s nearly impossible to add to the volumes that have been written about the electric set, with the guitars crashing into each other like drunken electrons while Garth Hudson’s organ makes the sound of Christmas lights. Or Mickey Jones playing his crashing and rolling drums like he can’t decide to put the brakes on or just speed into the spinout. Or that crazy fucker, Dylan, almost gleeful in the hate he is generating, as if he knows that he’s gonna get in trouble for this one so he might as well take it as far as it could possibly go. So he did.

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R.E.M. – Up

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(Warner Bros.)

The only thing that would might have made this record more perfect was if it had been produced by Brians Eno or Wilson, instead of just stea–, er, repurposing — a lot of their ideas. Not that it would have happened, of course — their idea of a big-name producer was Don Gehman, who guided John Mellencamp to artistic respectability by adding big drums and seemingly meaningful words to the sound of R.E.M’s early records.

[Read more…] about R.E.M. – Up

Billy Bragg & Wilco – Mermaid Ave.

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(Elektra)

It isn’t so amazing that Woody’s fucksongs are more fun and interesting than his political screeds — who’s (including Billy Bragg’s) aren’t? Nor is it so amazing that Wilco could make like the lost Basement Tape. What is amazing is that, in a project so weighted with potential historical significance, that they played down the politics and the Basement Tapes aspect when all most of us know about him was that he was a lefty folkie who was a major influence on Bob Dylan. What’s left, then, is a guy who wanted to fuck a celebrity; make his daughter happy and oh yeah, had a plan for making the world a better place. Pretty much like the rest of us, when you think about it. And when it was all over, head out here to California, and dream forever while listening to the state song he wrote for us.

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Written for the 1998 Village Voice Pazz & Jop Poll