Working For Jobs

By David Roberts

One of my favorite albums of 2009 was Aim & Ignite by a band called fun. In an indie music scene filled with mopey mumblers, it was a bright burst of color, “symphonic, gleefully over-the-top power pop” as I called it. It was a bit Queen, a bit Elton John, a bit camp … oh, let’s just say it: it was super duper gay. In a good way!

I often thought fun.’s music would be well-suited to the show Glee — and sure enough, last December, the show featured one of their songs, from the then-unreleased sophomore effort. That made them a big hit with the younger set and raised enormous hopes for the album.

It’s out now: Some Nights, produced by Jeff Bhasker, who’s worked with Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Alicia Keys. They’ve gotten more ambitious even as they obviously grasp for mainstream success. The songs mix pop, rock, hip-hop, soul, and sheer melodrama into one soaring anthem after another. It’s just outrageously entertaining.

This is the song that made them famous, “We Are Young.”

Bonus video!

Here are those crazy Glee kids doing the song:

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By David Roberts

Ani DiFranco: Which Side Are You On

Ani DiFranco is what you’d call a “known quantity.” She’s been cranking out albums since 1990, roughly one a year, so if you’re going to be into her thing, you probably already are.

I’m not an Ani fanatic (there are some serious Ani fanatics), but I’m a fan. I came to her through the double live album she released in 1997, which is still my favorite. The woman knows how to put on a live show!

Whether you like her music or not — and it’s definitely idiosyncratic, “an acquired taste” as they say — it’s hard not to admire DiFranco herself. She’s smart as a whip, unapologetically sensual, politically righteous, and, maybe most significantly, fiercely independent and entrepreneurial. She started her own label when she was just a young girl with a guitar and no money. She’s produced and released all her own albums. And now she’s crafted that most rare thing in pop music: a stable, long-term career. She is totally self-sufficient, a good example for musicians in an era when label money is going to be harder and harder to come by.

Her music has always been political, especially the super-raw early stuff, but in the last decade she’s been drifting toward more personal material. It looks like the Tea Party and Occupy have put an end to that, though. Her new LP, Which Side Are You On, is her most radical and outward-looking in years. Any such record flirts with the danger of didacticism, but DiFranco has always had a unique talent for squeezing political statements into poetry and melody. A lot of sentiments that would be groan-worthy in other hands somehow work for her.

In light of the ongoing vajihad against women by the right-wing lately, this song, “Amendment,” seems particularly apropos.

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by David Roberts.

I’m not what you’d call a big country music fan, though my once-fervent hatred for the genre has softened a bit as I’ve grown older. It does seem—from this outsider’s perspective—that country is a little less uniformly bland than it used to be and there’s more room for iconoclasts and experimenters. (I made a similar point in my post on Jamey Johnson.)

Another salutary trend in country, which seems to be a trend across all of American culture these days, is the rise of kick-ass women. (The Dixie Chicks were not the first, but they really seemed to open the floodgates.)

Which brings us to the Pistol Annies, the country “supergroup” that has been such a smashing success this year. The band was pulled together by Miranda Lambert, who enlisted the help of her friends Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley. They’re all solo artists in their own right (Lambert has a great solo album out this year), but their collaboration has a kind of loose-limbed insouciance that is unique and incredibly appealing.

The general vibe of their debut, Hell on Heels, is captured well by this song, “Takin’ Pills,” which I can’t get enough of:

———

Bonus video!

Here’s another of my favorite songs, the droll “Trailer for Rent.”

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Friday music blogging: Milo Greene

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by David Roberts.

I give you the Next Big Thing: a band called Milo Greene.

They haven’t even released an album yet—they’ve got a single out and an EP coming soon—but they’re getting buzz all over the place, for good reason. They land squarely in the current indie sweet spot, with the gorgeous four-part harmonies of Fleet Foxes, the propulsive,  strummy accessibility of Mumford & Sons, and just a soupçon of bohemian tribal percussion.

I, of course, am a sucker for pretty harmonies, so this song might as well have been cooked up in a laboratory especially to appeal to me. But I can’t help thinking these guys are going to be huge when their album comes out next year.

Here’s the single, “1957.”

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Bonus video!

Here they are doing a live version of the song:

So good.

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by Claire Thompson.

This
Thursday night, while many families are still wrapping up Thanksgiving
leftovers, the annual Black Friday shopping frenzy will begin, with 74 million people expected to head to stores over the weekend. But Friday also marks the 20th
anniversary of Buy Nothing Day,
an alternative celebration that invites us to “wean ourselves off of mega
corporations, put our money back into the local independent economy, and live
for a different kind of future.”

Given
that Buy Nothing Day was dreamed up by the folks at Adbusters magazine — the
same crew that spawned Occupy Wall Street — perhaps the day of austerity will
take off on a larger scale this year.

My family liked the idea of Buy Nothing Day when we first heard of it, about 10 years ago. Because sitting at home and buying nothing in
and of itself is not particularly exciting, we started a tradition of holding an at-home film festival on Black
Friday. Watching three or four (high quality, carefully selected) movies in a
row and noshing on Thanksgiving leftovers became a fun way to keep us at home
enjoying each other’s company instead of out contending with the frantic masses downtown.

Figuring
other Grist readers probably had their own sustainable spins on Black Friday,
we asked you to share some of your day-after-Thanksgiving traditions. Here’s a
sampling of what you told us on Twitter and Facebook. Share other post-Thanksgiving rituals with us in the comments below!

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by Jennifer Prediger.

Residents of New York, Philadelphia, and neighboring areas can turn on their taps without worrying about the flammability of their water for at least a little while longer. The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) made anti-fracking supporters happy this week when they announced the cancellation of a crucial Monday vote to approve fracking in Trenton, N.J. 

Thanks to the move, the drinking water of 15.6 million people in the Delaware River Basin has been temporarily spared from the potential damage caused by hydraulic fracturing.

On the fracktivist website Save the Delaware River, Gasland director Josh Fox wrote, “They cancel the meeting if they no longer have three out of five commissioners voting in favor of fracking. Which is exactly what they have done. They don’t cancel meetings often, let alone votes.”

Appeals to Vice President Joe Biden and Delaware Gov. Jack Markell, and 69,800 public comments to the DRBC opposing fracking may all have contributed to the meeting’s cancellation.

“This is not a complete victory by any means,” Fox wrote. “We still do not know when the DRBC will reschedule their meeting. Could be 10 days, could be a month, could be a year.”

The previously scheduled rally in Trenton on Monday, Nov. 21 (and peaceful action trainings planned for Sunday, Nov. 20) are set to take place as planned. 

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by David Roberts.

Donald Glover is a stand-up comedian and a comedy writer (he’s written for Community, 30 Rock, and The Daily Show), but he’s probably best known as Troy Barnes, the genial, goofy friend-of-Abed on the show Community.

Side note here: you can argue whether Community is the funniest show on television right now (my vote would go to Parks & Rec, which is firing on all cylinders), but for my money, Glover as Troy is far-and-away the funniest character. Literally everything he says and does in that role makes me laugh, even when it’s not intended to be funny.

Anyway, Glover is also, as it happens, a rapper. He goes by the nom de rap Childish Gambino, which he chose via the Wu Tang rap name generator online. (For the record, my rap name is Mad Lover, which, sweet.) When I first heard Glover was rapping I groaned, like, I’m sure, everyone else. I expected some kind of jokey comedy-rap novelty kind of thing.

But with a series of mix tapes and his newly released debut, Camp, Glover has surprised everyone. First of all, it turns out he’s a great rapper! Second, he produces all his own beats and it turns out he’s great at that too. And third, the lyrics are not jokey or funny at all—much closer to what I’d guess you’d call emo. Glover is honest, insecure, and confessional about everything from his childhood as a foster kid to his struggles with girls.

I’ll be honest: I’m not a huge fan of the production style that’s popular in hip-hop these days—the big, echo-y,  booming beats combined with melodramatic chorales and synths. I can barely stand to listen to the new Kanye/Jay-Z album. But in this case, the lyrics make up for it. Mainstream rap has become such a tedious, numbing cliche, filled with increasingly baroque boasts about money and women and bling.

Glover’s lyrics, by contrast, are smart, wry, vulnerable, occasionally funny … he sounds like a human being. He grapples with what it means to be a black kid who isn’t hood, who doesn’t get the ladies, who’s insecure and broke, who likes books and dresses like a dork. I can’t help but think there must be lots of black kids out there like that who would love to hear themselves represented in the increasingly thuggish rap game.

Regardless, I like it. This song, “That Power,” is the first single, I believe. It’s good on its own but definitely don’t miss the sweet little poem/short story at the end. Not your typical rap track!

———

BONUS VIDEO!

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Friday music blogging: Portugal. The Man (exclusive world premiere videos!)

Friday music blogging: Dolorean, again

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by David Roberts.

The annoyingly punctuated Portugal. The Man is a psychedelic rock band originally from Wasilla, Alaska, home of … oh, what was that crazy lady’s name again?

They made their way down to their current home, Portland, Oregon, in the mid-2000s and have been cranking out albums ever since, gathering momentum and popularity along the way. Last year, they got signed with Atlantic Records; their major label debut, In the Mountain in the Cloud, was released in July.

The closest musical comparison I can come up with is MGMT—psychedelic atmospherics, funky bass lines beneath, white-boy-soul falsetto over the top—but there are also hints of Animal Collective, Panda Bear, and Yeasayer. Though I have not seen them live, reports say the experience is improvisational, jammy, and much heavier than what’s on the albums. Sounds like just my speed!

The band has been kind enough to give Grist an exclusive first look at two new videos, filmed by friends of lead singer/guitarist John Gourley up in Alaska, which is, Gourley says, “where I feel the most inspired and the most at peace.  When you’re out there surrounded by natural beauty, you realize it’s not all about you.” As you’ll see, both videos have pretty strong green themes.

I really like this one, for the song “Got It All,” because it captures the extraordinary beauty of wind turbines:

This one is for the song “Sleep Forever”:

Thanks to the band for thinking of Grist. If you’re in the mood for some psychedelic brain adjustment—and these days, who isn’t?— check them out.

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Friday music blogging: Elliott Brood

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by David Roberts.

When I went to the Pickathon music festival in Oregon earlier this year, I discovered a bunch of new bands, but none won me over as quickly and thoroughly as Elliott Brood, a three-piece twang/folk/rock outfit from Toronto. Singer Mark Sasso’s gravelly voice, the harmonies, the banjo, the rock energy … it pushed all my buttons.

They have gotten pretty big in Canada. [Your Canada joke here.] Their second album, Mountain Meadows, was shortlisted for the 2009 Polaris Prize, which is a big deal in Canada. [Another Canada joke here.] Now they’ve just released their third LP, Days Into Years.

I’ve had it on repeat for days. It doesn’t quite capture their live energy, but the songs are impeccably crafted and I continue to be unable to resist that singing voice.

This song is the first single, “Northern Air.” It’s one of the mellower tracks on the album, but I like the fact that it doesn’t try too hard. Enjoy, and if you find yourself in Canada soon [third and final Canada joke here], see them live; you won’t regret it.

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Friday music blogging: Noah & the Whale

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by David Roberts.

Noah & the Whale is a UK indie-folk band. If you guessed what their name is about without googling, you may be a terminal hipster (it’s a tribute to the film The Squid & the Whale by director Noah Baumbach).

The band is pretty well known in the UK new folk scene; at one point or another both Emmy the Great and Laura Marling have performed with them.

Last Night on Earth, their third LP, came out earlier this year. It’s got a few more electronic textures and is a little poppier, but the songs retain their sturdy classicism and romanticism. Charlie Fink’s voice and lyrics are old-fashioned in an appealing sort of way. You can imagine them doing these songs in a lounge.

This song, the poppiest track and lead single, is “L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N.”

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