Wednesday, January 27, 2010

I've got more features than posts these days

So I was in Everyday Music a few weeks back when I stumbled across something I just knew I had to have. It was a certain used CD--ancient, cheaper than your mom, and funnier than a Tommy Wiseau sex scene. I snapped it up (without the expected strange looks from the clerk, disappointingly) and scurried home to upload it to my iPod.

As I listened to my acquisition (the subject of today's post) that night, the concept for a new recurring feature germinated in my mind. This CD represented a fertile field of music criticism--the Embarrassing Album. You know what I mean--a band releases a record that, for whatever reason, they ought to be ashamed of. This could be due to bad production, abysmal songwriting, inappropriate genre/style shifts, lineup changes, a combination of these or other factors, etc. Whatever it is, these albums have the ability to put even a band's most fervent fans in a torches-and-pitchforks mood. Very often the band itself will express dismay with the finished product; however, they'll just as often stubbornly brush off criticism and soldier on with the new sound. This, to put it mildly, rarely ends well.

This isn't the case with today's album. Mercifully. Submitted for your (dis)approval: Ministry's With Sympathy.



Even if you're not a fan, you've probably heard Ministry on a movie soundtrack at some point. Certainly they're one of the more distinctive bands out there; their brand of pounding industrial music combined with Al Jourgensen's heroin-soaked, strangled-loudspeaker vocals is pretty much unmistakable. Just hearing a few seconds will make you think "Huh. Is that Ministry?"

This...is not the case on With Sympathy.

Nothing, nothing on this debut album correlates with the later band. Seriously. Don't believe me? Look, I'll show you. Here's a more typical Ministry song:



And here's a song from With Sympathy:



Now, I realize you probably have questions. Such as, say, "I don't understand--is Al Jourgensen behind this guy?" or "So was he doing more or less heroin back then?" or, most likely, "Are you absolutely sure this is the same Ministry?"

This last is quite relevant; Stickly knows bands names get repeated often enough (there've been, like, three Nirvanas. Seriously). But yes, I'm sure in this case. Not only is this that Ministry, it's that Ministry's debut album, their first and last for Arista Records. Not what I'd call an auspicious beginning, and Jourgensen agrees--he's referred to With Sympathy as "an abortion of an album", further elaborating:

"I consider it worse than that because it's not my album...I was the original Milli Vanilli, man. I'm serious. They (Arista) wrote the songs, they wrote the lyrics, they appointed producers, they appointed musicians. I even had management tell me what I could or couldn't dress like. It was like going to prison...I was young and stupid. I sold out before I even started. When you're living in a burned out squat where it snows through your roof into your living room, and you have extension cords a block long for space heaters, you're not going to say no to someone offering you 150 grand...It was really fucked up. I don't think I have a pretty face (on this, Jourgensen and I are in perfect agreement--C.), but someone up there apparently did. Either that, or they were happy to find a fucked up idiot that would say yes to everything they said..."(Decibel Magazine interview, Nov. 2007)

And this is coming from a guy who thought a "Lay Lady Lay" cover would be a good idea.

You may be pondering another question. "Now, C., is With Sympathy really THAT bad? Sure, it's...unusual, but Jourgensen's nothing if not experimental. For fuck's sake, he collaborated with Ian MacKaye of all people and I'm pretty sure he's had more heroin than blood in his veins for most of his career. And that song you posted isn't completely horrible; how bad can the rest of the album be?"

Is that an awful lot of words to put in your collective mouth? Sorry. But to answer your hypothetical query: pretty damn bad, actually.

I'll start with one thing which stands out in the above song--Jourgensen's singing voice. "Hey," you might be thinking (and this is the last hypothetical question/comment, swearsies) "I didn't know that guy was British!" Well...no. He's not. That's right, Al Jourgensen (or "Alain" Jourgensen, according to the liner credits) fakes a British accent for the entire album. That's not even the funny part. The funny part is, he does a great job of faking a British accent--he pulls it off all flawless-like. It's literally the only thing With Sympathy pulls off consistently well. If you didn't know the band's later reputation (and remember, this is a debut album), you'd never suspect Jourgensen wasn't British. That's old Al for you--even when he's so baked he literally can't remember recording entire albums (and presumably greenlighting retch-worthy covers for said albums) you can't fault his work ethic.

The same way With Sympathy does the phony-baloney accent consistently well, one thing is done consistently badly--the production. This becomes apparent from the first moments of the opening song, "Effigy (I'm Not An)". The whole album sounds that weak and, I don't know, farty. It sounds like one of those TV shows or commercials set in the 80s whose producers didn't feel like springing for song rights, so they just strung together a few vagely new-wavey sounding beeps and boops and called it a club scene. Or, if you prefer, like the soundtrack to pretty much any porno movie.

The composition's about as inspired as the production--even if you hate new wave (and I don't, believe it or not--at least, not always) the instrumentation's so generic you have a hard time working up much loathing for it. With Sympathy sounds every inch the cash-in it is--a bland, factory-stamped also-ran meant to wring a few more pennies out of this new-fangled music all the kids are talking about these days (you know, assuming "these days" is 1983).

No, it's in the lyrics where the veils of mediocrity fall from With Sympathy to let the true crap shine through. Most of them reminded me of nursery rhymes more than anything else--see above video ("the corridor, yes, the corridor"? Lolwut?). Though you at least have to give "What He Say" credit for including the word "Swaziland". That, and being the album's worst/funniest song (which I know is saying a hell of a lot), thanks to its faux-mariachi/world music pretensions.

The sad part of all this--the truly, desperately sad part--is, someone out there, some dreary distasteful shell of what I only loosely deem a human being to be sure, having taken the band's future discography into account, still thinks this is the best Ministry album. It might even be you.

But perhaps I'm being too harsh. Sure, With Sympathy is bad, but it falls very much on the "so bad it's good" side of the scale. Certainly it's nothing a band like Ministry wants on its discography (especially as a debut), but in the end it's mostly inoffensive and forgettable.

It's certainly not as bad as some of the other albums I have in mind...

Sunday, January 24, 2010

'Cuz this seems to be my favorite feature

Well, it took a little longer than I thought (due mostly to reasons of laziness) here I am, posting again. And what better way to get back in the swing than with yet another hilarious dissection of a crappy music video?

I'm doing something slightly different this time: I'm actually going to do a GOOD song. The video isn't even all that bad, it's just snarkworthy and strange as hell if you don't know where it's coming from. And I DO know.

Today we're covering a song by Finnish band Amorphis, who draw most of their lyrical inspiration from the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. Originally compiled from a series of loosely-connected folktales by physician Elias Lonnrot in the 19th century, the epic provided the Finnish people with a heretofore-missing sense of national identity, leading them to seek independence from foreign oppression with their army of terrifyingly skilled, invulnerable snipers. No, that picture's not Photoshopped. The really scary part? It was an EXPLODING bullet. Remind me never to pick a fight with a Finnish guy, ever.

Something else you need to know about the Kalevala: it's really, REALLY fucking weird. Seriously, you thought the Egyptian gods marrying their siblings or Zeus turning into various animals to fuck random women was strange? That has NOTHING on stories of people getting turned into swamps or being pregnant for 700 years. You know you grew up in a weird place if a folktale of an immortal prehistoric blacksmith trying to replace his dead wife with a robot (the subject of today's song) is one of the less strange local myths.

Anyway, let's get started on the video proper:



I should begin by pointing out that this video doesn't include the entire song--about the first thirty seconds or so have been chopped off (yes, I own this album--no, I'm not Finnish). You're not missing out or anything, it's just a bit of intro and isn't at all integral to the rest of the song. Don't know why I brought it up, really...

0:03--The fu...this video is blacker than Tyler Perry!

0:05--Oh, wait, there we go. Damn, this opening riff is just so kickass...

0:08--Santa's Ilmarinen's off to have a little chat with his plastic surgeon re: his nosejob. And by "chat" I mean "he's going to dickcrush him with that hammer".

0:09--My, Finland sure is sepia today.

0:13--You know, if I was a talented enough blacksmith to make the FUCKING SKY I probably would've invented the razor at some point. Plus I'd probably wear a shirt. 'Cuz I've heard it's cold over there. Just saying.

0:16--But then, I was also under the impression Finland didn't have mountains. Shows what I know, right?

0:20--Eww, it's like he's wearing a hospital gown!

0:21--Sorry, I should have mentioned--Amorphis' singer is apparently Captain Jack Sparrow. Also, his voice is the only thing more kickass than that opening riff. He's much better than that nasally little bitch he replaced.

0:23--Yeah, Finland's Olympic fencing team isn't turning out well.

0:27--"Hmm...yes, there's DEFINITELY a woman in here!"

0:30--Most bands run like bitches when their venue catches fire. Not Amorphis. Funky Claude can suck it.

0:35--"I detect a hint of cilantro!"

0:39--"Welp, my wife got killed by the only actual villain in this epic and I couldn't even be bothered to get revenge. Still no reason to close the shop, I say!"

0:44--Sad to say, he probably thinks that hair's pretty metal. However, he commits the fatal error of being a white guy with dreads and winds up looking like he belongs in a Korn tribute band (do those really exist? Stickly, I hope not). Still, I guess it's the thought that counts.

0:53--You ever wonder why anvils are shaped the way they are? I do. I should research than and then disseminate (huh huh) what I find out. Maybe I'll film a documentary about anvils. I'll call it Anvil: The Story of Anvils and...FUCK.

0:58--Damn, this guy's FACE is a fire hazard.

1:07--Why is he dressed like a doorman?

1:11--Funny, that looks more like a fireplace poker. It makes sense--all women are cold metal implements, once you get right down to it.

1:17--You know, I think this guy should challenge Brian Fair to a dread-off. He'd lose, but he should still do it. Just to prove America's still #1 at something, damn it.

1:20--Dammit, would you just spring for a spirit level already?

1:27--Shouldn't he be wearing gloves or something? Basic conduction indicates that bar should be getting hot as fuck, right?

1:28--"STOP PLAYING COY, YOU FUCKING SLUT FORGE!!!"

1:30--Whoa, when the fuck did he do THAT? Ilmarinen Claus has mystical montage powers!

1:31--YOU GONNA GET RAPED

1:33--He seems nice, doesn't he? Stickly knows I'd let him babysit MY kids...but then, I hate children...

1:36--So is his head just really sooty or is that some kind of tattoo? I can't tell.

1:41--He got all this out of one chunk of rebar? Take THAT, Conservation of Matter and Energy!

1:44--Hey, he found the little man in the fire canoe!

1:47--Captain Jack's posture's even worse than mine...

1:51--I see he's above the vagoo-part now...he could just stop here really, everything from here on up is quite superfluous.

2:02--Weird how he can just hammer on it randomly and it'll still make a woman shape...

2:04--What, the feet again? Did Joss Whedon direct this?

2:06--It's even weirder how it burns like firewood, despite being metal and all.

2:08--AIIIGGGGH! LARS ULRICH!

2:16--Wow. At least the singer's white-boy dreads weren't on his face.

2:27--Yes, warm your hands over the fire 'cuz it's CLEARLY a bit nippy in there!

2:28--Okay, your fingers are actually IN the fire now. Clearly these are the same CGI people who worked on Alone In The Dark, except now they've progressed from ignoring obvious misses to ignoring obvious hits.

2:34--Hey, that's the guy who was staring at me at the bus stop yesterday!

2:47--Nope, not getting any creepy vibes off this guy at all!

2:57--Okay, time to get something off my chest: I really, really, REALLY don't like double-tracked vocals. It just makes it sound like the singer has two vocal chords or some shit.

3:02--I will say, though--Captain Jack can death-growl with the best of 'em...

3:14--Congratulations. You've made Persis Khambatta. She didn't have nipples either, right?

3:18--"I WINZ TEH KLAEHVLAHEH!"

Holy shit. HOLY SHIT. I just noticed. This guy shaves his armpits. HIS FUCKING ARMPITS. Just look at his face and then his armpits. Stickly. Just...STICKLY. I mean...I just...WHAT?!

So, yeah. I get the feeling I'll be covering a LOT of Finnish bands in these features. You can't have folklore this odd without producing a shit-ton of metal bands (many of them absolute shit) with crazy-ass videos to match.

And yes, I'm back. BITCHES.