Versus Number Twenty-Four

Whatever Happened to Those 17 Minutes?

If the bask of pretentiousness, eighty-plus degree Lone Stars and American Spirits seems a little stronger around the Austin area for the next twenty days or so you can blame the Southwest by Southwest Conference (SXSW). SXSW celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and so far seems it will be packed with a pretty wide spectrum of will bes, has beens, and I-hope-they're-enjoying-themselves-because-they-blows.

Artists of all sort come to Austin for the "Conference,"* from the latest documentarian's film that uses fish-cleaning as a metaphor for her budding lesbianism to the coked-up dude with a $20 Casio keyboard playing synth pop outside of the Taco Truck. The internet has served the week well as people can actually familiarize themselves with the acts coming at least a couple days before, not to mention the internet's unparalleled ability to create and sustain a rumor mill that leads to absurd expectations**.

*There are short talks by industry gurus, but the term is still very loosely used- "Conference" applies more to the increasingly zeitgeist-setting interactive/technology part of the fest, which was the blast-zone to Twitter's astounding popularity just a few years back.

**Rumored groups: Radiohead, Rolling Stones (because obviously the world's most beloved rock group would kick off its 50th year celebration in a town its probably been to three times at most), Kanye, Pavement- get a grip folks.

Two confirmed groups (ie- committed to play multiple shows throughout the week) are OFF! and ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead. I'll get into each band's individual characteristics but, for the focus, I'll cut right to the lede: One's newest album closes with a six-part 17 minute song; its competitor's album consists of 18 songs that last 17 minutes. Does swinging for the fences pay dividends or was that a-hole Shakespeare right when he said "brevity is the soul of wit?" Perhaps my journey to sharpen my personal tastes might help elucidate your answer.....*

*It won't

Like most, when it comes to music, my tastes are essentially binary- I like something or I don't. While enjoyment can come from a variety of levels- ironic, melodramatic, narcotic-use-friendly, scholarly- my tastes derive from my initial gut reaction, and first impressions are nigh impossible to shake. My initial response when exposed to ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead (Trail of Dead for now on) was "what a silly little thing to name your rock band- I don't think I will be listening to you." Granted, this was 2005 and bands like Arcade Fire and the New Pornographers were making me feel all 22ish with their sunshiny power-pop and anthemic lines like "Every time You Close Your Eyes/ LIES/ LIES."* Bands that had "Trail of Dead" in the title were an easy workout for the ridiculing muscles. After much pleading from a fellow music nerd, I gave "Another Morning Stoner"** a spin. While it had some charm it was overwhelmed by a tight-wound seriousness and emo-ish tone that exhausted almost as much as it bored. I moved to Charlotte and besides seeing the occasional record review or placement of "Stoner" on a few music sites as one of the best songs of the 00s I completely ignored Trail of Dead for about five years.

*Never got around to showing the man who's boss. Oh well.

**Which might as well have been the subtitle of my undergraduate experience

Fast forward about six years and I had just gotten home after the ten hour drive from New Orleans with a hangover fitting of a five day stay in a party city celebrating a best friend's wedding. Without probing too deep, I'll just say it was a trip full of peaks and valleys and by the end of it my mind kind of retracted into a full fledged "big question" mode where I was contemplating topics to the point I just wanted to hide from the world- this is referred to as "analysis paralysis" in some circles*. Anyway, someone had sent me a link to the new Trail of Dead album, "Tao of The Dead" and for whatever reason- maybe it was the anxiety, the boredom, the Austin connection, whatever- I decided to give it a full fledged listen.**

*It was just a really fucking serious hangover in retrospect.

**Looking back I'm surprised I did- the band seems incapable of naming anything without the nerdy seriousness of the "Han Shot Greedo first" crowd.

The album rocks. A mix of Rush/Yes prog-rock, Queen of the Stone Age stoner metal, Radiohead disillusionment, with a side of hallucinogenic-guitar playing I always (incorrectly) identified with groups like the Mars Volta. While I wouldn't suggest really digging into the lyrical content, which is some vaguely leftist statement about the impending Orwellian wasteland we will be living in if gay people can't get married*, it plays like an album and not a collection of songs- a rarity in a music climate where most artists are making sure they can market their song as a ring-tone or at least get $1.29 at iTunes.

*Or something- I don't understand half the lyrics and feel no pressing need to research. I know it has something to do with one of the band leader's recently-penned graphic novels. It aggravates me how good the album is because it is SO ripe for criticizing the bat-shit crazy lyrical devices going on.

The album ends with the topical 17 minute work I was mentioning earlier: "Strange News From Another Planet: Know Your Honor/ Rule by Being Jut/ The Ship Impossible/ Strange Epiphany/ Racing and Hunting."* Few bands have the gall to think people would listen to a studio-recorded song for 17 minutes, much less one as fractured and sporadic as this one. Yet it works, and works well. Themes overlap constantly but in a flowing, natural way. It builds, destroys, smooths, and reconstructs, repeatedly. In yet another hilariously grandiose gesture, there must be forty instruments contained in the song, but their intro and exit are so smooth and seamless it seems like every one of them are essential- although a house of cards this song is not. Its a polarizing tune no doubt, but the one thing I find so impressive is that it has a inimitable perpetual propulsion but has a firm enough sense of control as to not go off the rails- it builds to its orgasmic points masterfully. It certainly won't be a breakthrough song that will fill the prog-stoner void in FM radio**, but it is a love letter to fans of the genre. Simply put: it's a rock gem that no one in the genre has had the balls to do in decades; a song that clocks in at over 1,000 seconds yet wastes none. Grade: A.

*I did not make that up- it really is the name of the last song- it takes my iPod about twenty seconds to scroll through it in its entirety.

**It's twice the length of "Freebird"

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead at Myspace Music

The other horse in this race goes by the "could you guess we're a punk band" name of OFF!* Formed by ex-members of L.A. hardcore bands such as the Circle Jerks and the like, the group's album "First Four EPs" is as assertive a debut disk as has ever been released. Taking a cue from British art-punk deities Wire, songs rarely breach the one minute mark- which also leads to frustrations because a lot of these licks are as catchy as anything Green Day has committed to record**. While most of the band members are well into their 40s, they still play with a juvenile anger of the 17 year olds smoking butts off the ground and snarling at those with collars on their shirts. While this teenage mentality also leads to their truculent, simplistic lyric-writing (sample song names: "Now I'm Pissed," "Panic Attack," "Fuck People," "Full of Shit"), the rhymes fit the riffs. There is almost no variety in the album though- clearly this was intended, but nonetheless you can't give an "A" to an album that seems allergic to even changing the beat measures of their songs. Grade: A-

*Yes, the '!' is included in the proper name.

**A concern I hope they address live- they only have one album and I would prefer not to wait in line for 30 min+ to see a set that takes half that time.



So what's the better use of your seventeen minutes? The two pieces I compare are so different in tone, musicality, structure, point, etc. its hard to really place one above the other. While I find the OFF! album to be a genuinely more fun listen, Trail of Dead's epic album-closer has too much to admire not to declare victor. Whatever the case, at least I know I've got at least 34 minutes of SXSW accounted for.

Oh, and the sub-title of this piece is a reference to this song (which sounds nothing like Trail of Dead or OFF!) so if you've been reading this as a courtesy to me but have no interest in either group, here is a little rock masterpiece as a thank you from your appreciative author. Catch me at SXSW- I'll be the one without pounds of metal in my face.

Versus Number Twenty-Three

"Slanted and Enchanted" vs "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" vs "Wowee Zowee" vs "Brighten the Corners" vs "Terror Twilight"

Pavement comes to Austin on Tuesday for the first time since the band's reemergence after an eleven year break-up*. Much has been written by people far more talented than me for publications at least marginally more prestigious than my fucking wordpress blog, so I'll spare the reader the grandiose statements about how they are the most influential band of the 90s or how Stephen Malkmus is the closest our generation will have to a Bob Dylan.

*I guess the more accurate, up-to-date term would be "hiatus"

Pavement, first and foremost, is a great American rock band. In his "Perfect Sound Forever," Rob Jovanovic goes past the obvious influences of the band (Echo and the Bunnymen, Wire, Velvet Underground, etc.) to offer one rarely acknowledged but thoroughly accurate- CCR. Most Pavement fans I know would find this to be macabre suggestion, as they tend to identify Fogerty + Co. as creators of cheesy Americana rock songs that will always be caught in the vacuum that is Classic Rock radio. But there lies the genius of the comparison- while many Pavement fans praise the band for its unique approach to Rock music, in the end the band really does sound like a Classic Rock band. While their early EPs and "Slanted and Enchanted" certainly enjoy a pissed-off punk energy that quickly garnered the group a devout following, traces of AM radio predominantly run throughout the grooves. "Box Elder" almost sounds like an updated "Summertime Blues;" "The Sha-La-La-Las" of "Trigger Cut" recall a time when women who died on the toilet eating ham sandwiches were musical giants.





But the band was no stranger to experiment, and not in the "let's add a synthesizer" sort of way. Some of their poppiest numbers subscribe to Wire's "repeating yourself is for wankers" philosophy and clock in under 2 minutes. They followed "Crooked Rain," easily their most accessible record, with "Wowee Zowee," their most labyrinthine. Malkmus intentionally made many of his lyrics ambiguous, and actually changed the words when performing live apparently to perpetuate confusion*.

*This seems more out of Malkmus' probable complete annoyance with people screaming "So drunk in the August sun" over him than out of some Joycian lyrical invention.

However you define Pavement: the laziest band to ever tour, the loudest literary band in creation, a charming distraction or a mediocre mess, the quintet's influence is inescapable in modern rock, mostly due to the width of the net they cast during their recording years. They were never popular enough to shoot off a genre of music like Grunge, Emo, or Chillwave*, they just made great albums and gathered a fanatic following in an organic fashion**.

*The more I write about music, the more writing these genre classifications just annoys the shit out of me. I actually really like "Chillwave" music, but why do we have to make sure every single digitized recording be identified in a larger scene? I guess it is natural to want to coin a term, but I challenge those who find it clever to think of these absolutely pointless names and start applying the brain power to their writing (I doubt my son will come to me one day and ask "Dad, how was the indie-sludge-pop of the early 2010s," actually nevermind- I can completely seeing me having a kid that weird)

**Most of the time:


To honor the band's sole performance in the Lone Star state in a decade, I've ranked their albums. I can't stress enough that ALL would garner a "10/10," "A+," "3 boner salute," or whatever the maximum of your grading scale would be, but that doesn't mean I don't like some more than others.

5. "Terror Twilight"- The only problem with the band's swan song is that it sounds more like Malkmus' solo ventures- not a "problem" at all, as Malkmus' work with the Jicks was some of the best guitar work of the 2000s. Because of this more singular vision- which was engineered by Radiohead Producer Nigel Godrich and his rumored infatuation with Malkmus' slacker-genius persona- the album lacks some of the oddball cross-sections that characterized their earlier work. That being said, "Terror" has some of the group's best songs, including the oft-covered "Spit on a Stranger" to the grinning "Carrot Rope." "The Hexx" might be as dark as the group ever got, and the song's genuineness, particularly in the hypnotic final guitar solo, verifies the band's chops. It's no "Abbey Road," but that's because it wasn't known at the time that it would be the band's final album- and it's highly doubtful Pavement would do anything nearly as pompous as putting TWO three-part song suites in their kiss-off to the world anyway.



4. "Wowee Zowee"- The hardest album in the band's catalog to place. "Rattled by the Rush" and "Grounded" show the band's range and their refusal just to make a radio-friendly rock song. Malkmus jokes that "Rattled" was his pick for a single because he was smoking a ton of grass at the time and genuinely thought that with this song crossover success was finally his. While it is more likely that he is joking than not, the song seems a perfect metaphor for the band's sound- take the great rock song and turn it on its head. It's hard to see frat guys going nuts for a song that includes the lyrics "worse than your lying/ caught my dad crying," but the enormity of the guitar riffs and impeccable timing of the song show that the band has listened to just as much AC/DC as any so-classified "Hard Rock" group. The album's eccentricity is a response to the overwhelming praise the band had gotten for its first two LPs- fan's of "Crooked Rain"'s alt-country or "Slanted and Enchanted"'s Gang Of Four by way of CA were mostly confused by the song's somber pacing and indecipherable tone, but rock freakouts such as "Flux = Rad" and word-play exercises such as "Extradition" have slowly infiltrated the Pavement fan's ear, and as a result the album is often cited by the crazed as the band's best work. I find "Wowee" to be the band's most polarizing listen- if you're in the mood for a challenging but ultimately rewarding listen, look no farther; if you're looking for something more traditional in structure, run.

*Quick Note: This video was banned from MTV because it lead some to have motion sickness.



3. "Slanted and Enchanted"- The album that cemented Pavement's status as "critical darlings" in the Rock press is a grower if there ever was one. Reading the emphatic reviews of the album, from pitchfork to Rolling Stone to EW, might lead one* to believe this is the 90s "Sticky Fingers" and to just get a twelve-pack and buckle your safety belt because you're about to get the skin on your face melted off into your lap. It is almost the exact opposite, and the press' inability to properly articulate the album's charms lead me to denounce Pavement as history's most over-hyped band for about three years. If you've never heard of this album and expect some polished gem, you'll be disappointed- very disappointed. The sound quality is shitty at best, the mix seems like it was done by somebody who was standing on his head, and the chemistry of the band leaves much to be desired. That being said, it is one of the finest rock and roll albums of all time, for all of those "deficits" quickly become "qualities" when the verse- chorus- verse of the music world becomes stale. But it's bigger than just a "fuck it" approach to recording that makes the album irreplaceable in music's canon; it is the initially unlistenable pop ditties that literally bloom if given enough listens. Consider "Perfume- V" from later in the album. The song starts off with a jolting yet discombobulated guitar thrashing, then it kind of gets quiet and this earnest voice comes, followed by a weird sort of echo chorus that promptly concludes the song around the 2:20 mark. The song's brilliance is not obvious, but it is plentiful. I could easily write thousands of words about the phrase "She's got the radioactive and it makes me feel Okay/ I don't feel Okay," most of which would be focused on if there were parenthesis intended around some of the clauses.** Repeat listens also show Malkmus' slight yet effective cadence shifts, indispensable to the band's sound, and how they subtly mesh with the band's blasting yet nuanced instrumentation. And that's just one song. I find a new song I like from "Slanted" once every six months or so (currently, it's "Zurich is Stained," a sad, small countrified tune)- it's one of those great albums that can be as personal as the listener is willing to let it be. Bonus Points for the album name.

*I'll admit "one" in this case really means "me."
** But I'll admit you wouldn't want to read it and I would feel like an asshole about 2/3 of the way though so its probably best for all parties if I just leave it at that.



2. "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain"- While it wouldn't have the sea change impact of "Slanted," "Crooked" is where Pavement silenced all who thought the cynical quintet was just another buzz band who had silently tiptoed into obscurity. How do you best follow the album that made you a critical darling on both sides of the pond? You make an album that sounds almost nothing like your rookie recording. While many of the qualities that defined "Slanted" are here in spades- the atypical song structure, the hyper-literary lyrics- "Crooked" is where Pavement seems to have adjusted to the idea of being a rock n' roll band. The snarls here are more subtle but twice as acerbic*. While maturity is to rock music as cyanide is to, well, everything else, the two years between "Slanted" and "Crooked" did wonders for the band's collective chops. With the original drummer Gary Young out of the line-up due to erratic behavior**, the band finally started to gel in ways few predicted. It resulted in the songs in the band's catalog that would closest resemble hits, such as the minor radio hit "Cut Your Hair" and the song Pitchfork recently named as best of the 1990s, "Gold Soundz." But it wouldn't be Pavement if it didn't have quirk and sarcasm to spare- "5-4= Unity" is the band's only foray into lounge (and it's great), "Fillmore Jive" the first song they let Malkmus really start showing his emerging talents as a six-string samurai. If you only have one album by the group, make it this one.

*See "Range Life," a song that pissed off Smashing Pumpkin's Billy Corgan so much that he used his commercial clout to get Pavement kicked off of Lalapalooza in the mid-90s. This solidified S. Malkmus as a wise-ass menace and Corgan as a humorless pussy. While Malkmus has gone on record and said that he was criticizing the Pumpkins' status, not necessarily the band itself, he has contradicted himself in several instances, occasionally going on drunken tirades about the bald uber-whiner while performing

**And not just drug use and alcoholism either. I highly suggest checking out "Slow Century," the documentary about the band, which hints at some of his odder habits such as passing out French Toast to fans before shows and doing hand-stands mid-song; which would have been charming if he wasn't the DRUMMER.



1. "Brighten the Corners"- My favorite Pavement album is also probably the group's least celebrated. Made in the aftermath of the hazy "Wowee Zowee," "Brighten" was the group's re-centering after venturing into the tempting yet tricking world of art-rock. It's lighter in tone than the group's other albums, but no less substantial. "Transport is Arranged" would be the perfect song for that scene in a film where the pissed off artist-type leaves town if it didn't change pace in such dramatic yet seamless ways. The manic "Embassy Row" might be Pavement's best song; its introspective but in a reactionary and not self-absorbed way- its the song when the band proved they could ignite as brightly as any band in the land. But the reason the album really hits home is because it perfectly sums up my* 20s. The hard realization that you aren't in fact the smartest person in the world. Friends growing up, becoming yuppies, bums, or power players. Enemies finding happiness. The world alternating between disappointing and motivating. All the weddings and pictures of dogs and babies. Trying- but not too hard- to make a dent. Getting those first gray hairs. Funerals. Laughing too much at immature things but not caring. Drinking to the point of moral hangover, just to be told you were cracking everybody up the night before. Mistakes and the lessons they teach you. Sloppy but fun sex. Realizing fat, dumb, and drunk is not a good way to go through life, son. Talking endlessly about sports and culture and repeatedly making the same points. The transition from cynicism to curiosity. Being equally terrified and excited that the world is ours soon enough.

Oh yeah, also because "it's the most I can stand to cry about/ the mental energy you wasted on this wedding invitation" is probably my favorite lyric.

*And while they may not know the album, a lot of my friends as well

Versus Number Twenty-Two

"S.O.S." versus "I L U"

When it comes to art, I am sexist. I am not necessarily proud of this fact- while I would never be confused as progressive, I don’t think anyone should revel in the fact they hate something sight unseen/ heard. If I were to list my favorite authors, a female would not come into the picture until at least the twenties, and that would probably be Ayn Rand, an author I more respect than genuinely enjoy. Even more embarrassingly, I can only think of one female film director I truly like, and that reverence was only discovered recently*. But nowhere is my awful, awful bigotry more obvious than in music. I would guess of the 10k +/- songs I have on my iPod, less than four hundred are sung by the fairer sex. Worse, in many instances the songs in this four percent sliver just happen to be sung by women- the bands are typically made of artistic looking young men with names like Titus Andronicus; the girls’ voice seem at best auxiliary and at worst expendable to what the bands themselves typically seem to represent**.

*This being Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow director of the mind-blowingly-awesome-yet-deemed-overrated-by-every-person-I-have-spoken-about-it-with Hurt Locker. I have since given Point Break the closer viewing it so obviously deserves and can honestly say I feel like a richer, or at least more celestially in-tune, person because of it.

** I realize this is a pretty meaningless exercise- to talk about what bands “mean” in context of their creator’s life, but I think anybody who has even given a half-interested listen to The Monitor concurs it is a male-created album if there ever was one.

I guess it isn’t really that surprising. Like most people that appreciate music way too much, most of it involves how songs can give one significant perspective on our most personal of moments. When people get emotional, this can get amusing- borderline-pathetic because people are hopeful that a song will somehow fit their situation, give them that nugget of knowledge that they lacked that made said emotion (particularly when this emotion is “depression”) relentless, but it rarely does. A good example is how Pink Floyd’s most popular wedding song* is “Comfortably Numb.” It is doubtlessly an iconic, beautiful tune, but also tells the tale of self-numbing artist ostracized by the public that adores him- I’ll let you insert your own “marriage sucks” joke here if you deem it necessary. But while I may not be classy enough** to request an AOR track on my day of matrimony, I completely relate to the desire to make music personal. This is why I think I listen to male-dominated music- its simply easier to relate on a personal level to a guy than a girl. Plus, and this is at a more knee-jerk level, I listen to more guys because women rarely, if ever, can articulate the X-Men level destruction they are capable of unloading unto a man’s heart; a serious issue as a majority of great rock music is inspired by and/or about that very topic.

*If I ever have the means to live life out as an eccentric who just did random acts of kindness I found enjoyable, I think I would be willing to pay for a wedding if the first dance was “Echoes,” the original uncut one from Meddle.

**yet

There are obviously exceptions. I think Aimee Mann and Fiona Apple are two of the best singer/songwriters of the last twenty years- but that’s because both of them are willing to address the second criteria I suggested in the prior paragraph. Lush was comprised half of women members, but I’ll round up and say they were a girl group because songs like “Ladykillers” and “Single Girl” are defined by a female perspective. I like all the Motown-era singers and other women of soul, but I can’t think of the last time I put a Supremes song on a jukebox. Nico* was a significant part to the Velvet Underground, but I was always more enamored with their later stuff that was Warhol-less anyway. The B-52s have some cool songs, but I’m not so quick to identify them as a girl-centric band, as their asexuality is indispensable to their quirkiness, which is in itself indispensable to the band’s success. The Donnas have a couple songs with ironic/unironic** Foreigner-like guitar blasts, but the Donnas are too, albeit unconventionally, formulaic for my post-urban musical tastes***. I would consider Elastica one of my favorite girl-fronted groups, and they only made one album- the awesome, shamelessly derivative Elastica****, about fifteen years ago.

*Interestingly, a girlfriend of mine once told me Nico was blind. While I would quickly find out that she wasn’t blind, just a statuesque blonde, I wasn’t surprised, but I found it odd that it just made perfect sense that she was blind- how does a blind person sound? Apparently like a woman who blows self-important “visionaries” in hotel elevators.

**Who even knows anymore?

***The Donnas’ equation for (very relative) success: focus on appeal of band to audience over sound of band itself. That means we went to appeal to rock fans by saying they are like the Runaways, to girls by not too subtly selling the vapid “Valley Girl” shtick that is sarcastic, and thus gives people an inflated sense of intelligence (a sure-fire way to appeal to a very encourageable chunk of the American population), pepper with a healthy dose of cynicism; try not to look so disappointed while serving.

****Sound familiar?:

Enter Chuck Klosterman. While the flaws in his writing can be glaring at times- his taste for tangents annoy some, his wordiness others, his theories, which he presents as profound but really are just discussions on topics nobody can possibly think about*, I still love reading his stuff. He shows a clear passion for writing, and I think he is willing to take argumentative risks without sounding like an the always inflated “devil’s advocate” advocate. In his latest collection of essays, Eating the Dinosaur, Klosterman characteristically contemplates many of rock’s cultural mechanics with trademark random comparisons and consistently funny anecdotes, including one of the best pieces of his career, “ABBA 1, World 0.”

*An example from his newest collection discusses football being sold as a conservative game while in strategic practice it is anything but. Most people like reading books about common life questions; Klosterman seems uninterested unless getting digging through a topic’s intestinal minutiae - Klosterman clearly shoots for what singularly interests him, but that what makes his arguments so damn fun to get wrapped up in

Amongst the many points on music and how modern audiences appreciate it, the essay suggests a phenomenon that I have always found interesting- the “rediscovered” artist. ABBA is one such artist; while culturally irrelevant in the late 80s/ early 90s, the group ability to maintain a solid fanbase* eventually paid out when international stars like the Scissor Sisters started citing the Swedes as influences (although they should have referred to them as “people we will steal from”). Techno music’s direct tie to the disco era only further solidifies ABBA’s relevance, and the band’s stamp on popular music will only continue to grow as music becomes more electronic.** Interestingly, the film Mamma Mia would become popular with the anti-contemporary-music crowd***, a testament to ABBA, and maybe pop music in general, having the ability to be everything to everybody.

*Oddly made up of gay- esp. British (esp. Australian)- men.

**Although this will eventually end up in a backlash- think about how a band like Prodigy, one of the most successful dance groups of all time, evaporated after the Strokes came along. I’m sure in a few years that we will be decrying Fat of the Land an overlooked masterwork of the 2nd millennium, until people get bored with electronic music again and pursuit a more “genuine”- a term so relative it is nearly irrelevant- document, such as This is It…. Authenticity->Experimentation->Authenticity.

***We were far too busy looking deep into the nature of our soul’s after seeing Heath Ledger’s Joker; the fact that both of these films came out on the same weekend and were both financially successful further proves what I have known all along: Girls: Meryl Streep :: Boys: Batman

Because people like myself perceive ourselves as “cool,” or at least “smart,”* when we consume art we try to cut through things we might perceive to be bullshit. For instance, we dislike things like Lady GaGa and Will Smith because we know they are essentially corporate constructions that are more entities than people, and thus their art automatically comes across as mechanic or at least inorganic**. That being said, sometimes it is almost impossible not to be in awe of some facts, even if they deal entirely with the popularity of a piece over its artistic merits. Consider these three facts about ABBA’s most recognizable song, “Dancing Queen.”

Three Incredible Facts About “Dancing Queen”

1. When asked in 2008 by Blender magazine to name his favorite song of all time, then-presidential hopeful John McCain named “Dancing Queen.” I imagine this probably stunned many of his constituents. I would have bet because of his years spent as a prisoner-of-war it would have either been something darker because he was so effected by the experience or something older because I would imagine that after you spend time in a POW camp with your arms in pieces you could really give a shit about pop music. Klosterman also speculatively reports in his book that Russian Overlord Putin had an ABBA cover band at his birthday party in 2008. The band crosses political divides.

2. According to Wikipedia, which is usually dead-on when it comes to statistical matters***, the song was the number one song in thirteen countries. It has charted in Australia and England on three separate occasions- 1976, 1992, and 2008- all sixteen years apart from one another. There is probably some obtuse, awesome Nordic-Art symmetrical phenomena to report on here, but I can’t back that up. Speaking of impressive figures, the band was offered a billion dollars to reunite in 1999 according to Klosterman. No band has come remotely close to making this amount over the course of a tour- the mastermind of the scheme must of had another motive in this - maybe a spiritual journey to make sure everybody sees the singy-songy melodies of the band.

3. The song was written for Queen Silvia of Sweden and played for her at her wedding reception to King Carl XVI Gustaf. This is fucking insane. ABBA was one of the best selling acts of the 1970s, and easily the best selling Swedish act of the 1970s. Fast forward thirty years and compare this to contemporary America, where Eminem was the highest selling artist of the 2000s. Can you imagine Michelle Obama asking Slim Shady to write a song for Michelle and Barack’s marriage had they not wed decades ago?**** But that’s not even really that accurate because even Obama isn’t royalty (no matter how he is treated by some media outlets). I guess the British equivalent is more feasible- Prince William getting married while Chris Martin of Coldplay sings some harmless song about trade embargos or another topic on which musicians are clearly qualified to opine.

*Only nerds like myself would suggest that these are synonyms

**The contradictory thing here is that many music and films that people like me seek try to establish this aesthetic- see Kraftwerk, David Lynch

***I concede that if I were getting this published somewhere I would have to find a more reputable source, but this is a blog, and half the stuff I think and all the shit I say is just made-up anyway

**** Barack would clearly want someone a little less provocative, like Lil' Wayne, Jay-Z, or the other musicians he name-drops, to perform.

And “Dancing Queen” isn’t even the song I’m comparing. That would be “S.O.S.,” and while it may not garner the instant response of ABBA’s trademark song, its pop sensibilities may even be sharper. Plus, it too has a couple interesting side facts. First, the Sex Pistols- yes, the band most people would consider about as anti-ABBA as a group of musicians could be- essentially stole the riff for their “Pretty Vacant.” A more esteemed accolade is the fact that both Pete Townshend and John Lennon specifically listed it as one of their favorite pop songs. Love or hate classic rock, it still amazes that two of the most recognizable musicians of the last fifty years both respect what appears at first to be such an innocuous ditty.

Because this blog is based on comparing things*, I decided an interesting argument would be to compare “S.O.S.” to another female-centric song that has three letters, School of Seven Bells’ “I L U.” While the School of Seven Bells will probably never be asked to write a song for whatever Chinese dictator we will be saluting in twenty years, their first two albums show, and occasionally deliver upon, great promise. In a current pop-landscape where it seems everybody’s favorite new band is delivering this Passion Pit/ MGMT bleep-bloop-blap with spacey lyrics, School of Seven Bells escape mere mimicry by seeming somewhat…. and I hate to say it…. genuine [GASP] with their music. “I L U” from their recent Disconnected to Desire is an excellent example of this.

*Even though it’s obvious this article was supposed to be mostly about ABBA.

So now I’ve painted myself into a corner. On one side, we have a very genuine pop song written about lost love written almost forty years ago. On the other, we have a very genuine electrockica* song, also about lost love, although I am only 73 percent sure of that as the lyrics, as gorgeous sounding as they are, are difficult to construe because of their placement in the mix. I think they are both touching songs, but one I feel like you dance to when you’re hammered and want to show girls** how “fun” you can be, while the other seems like background music for pondering after you just got dumped, took your last whippit, or wondering whatever happened to that weirdo from seventh grade***.

Like most of ABBA’s music, “S.O.S.” begs interaction. “Oh when you’re near me/ Darling can’t you see me/ S.O.S.” is a chorus that begs participation; the building percussion and electric guitar combo perfectly wraps up the chorus that is as infectious as anything in pop music. It is far more difficult to imagine how people will react to “I L U.” While the tune certainly has a somber tone, the light beat and repetitive yet thoughtful guitar brushes keep it from an agonizing self-pity party, the thing that quickly makes music like this a Bargain Bin item. While this mopery**** does poke its sad little head up near the end of the song, it does so late enough in the recording not to spoil the rest of the song. And there lies the difference; while it could be argued that “I L U” is a better song for my rock-nerd ear, the fact that it has any deletable fat whatsoever makes it lose to “S.O.S,” one of the most direct and efficient pop songs I have ever heard.

*A term I made up and thought was very clever until I actually thought about it.

**Or gay Australian men

***He writes this blog

****Really mean “moping,” but always looking for an excuse to show this:

Versus Number Twenty-One

The Buzzcocks Versus The Sex Pistols

Sat in 100 degree wet heat a month ago to watch the Buzzcocks, a punk band whose popularity pretty much came and went with the original British wave of the genre, but whose head pops up every once in a while when a new group of idiots start naming The Clash as inspirations. While popular in Britain, the Buzzcocks relative obscure profile in the States have lead a sort of cult following seen by the packed house full of patched-up denim jackets worn by dudes who clearly get dental insurance, as well as the “still practicing” punks who have Mohawks and legitimately seem angry, particularly when seeing goofy, drunk tall guys stumbling around in a bar t-shirt and gray Saucony’s.

At first I was apprehensive of the attending the show. This was not because I am afraid of some under-loved pissant trying to fight me or something, but due to the fact that watching a group of sixty year olds playing break-neck punk rock seemed motivated more out of schadenfreude than reverence for the music. Wrong.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Not only did these guys rock, they fucking killed. Having only one Buzzcocks album, the singles collection Singles Going Steady*, I wasn’t too well versed with their back-catalog, but let me tell you something- after last night, I plan to celebrate it in its entirety in the near future. While I would be remiss to not mention it wasn’t the original four- unless the bassist and drummer have aged like Demi Moore- the band laid out a tutorial to every emerging faster-rock band how to play a show. They kept it loose but concise; they rarely, if ever, stopped and if they did it was for instrument changes or to make some smarky Ol’-fuckin’ Geezah comment which were actually pretty amusing.

*Which is as good as any punk album I’ve ever heard, short of London Calling and Pink Flag

That’s not to even mention the star of the show, one Steve Diggle, guitarist. Unashamedly imitating Pete Townshend*, there were huge arm-whirls and kicks a plenty. At risk of sounding overly Romantic about musical performance, the guy made you believe that the guitar was literally a part of his body, and at times it proved to be transcendent. He understood the one rule about being cool, particularly in context of rock music- don’t try to be, and you will be. Look at the assholes for a band like Kings of Leon try to woo the crowd with their U2-imiatory “emotional” back creases- it is effective if your listener is an eighteen year old female (or, in all fairness, male) and are just curious what all the fuss is about rock music after finally taking your headphones off from listening to Rihanna.

*And if you’re going to imitate somebody’s ability to just rock, why not Pete Townshend? His web-browsing habits, however, are not condoned by any of the staff here at vsmatters.

Oddly enough, however, while watching the Buzzcocks ball up my predispositions on age, rock, etc., one band came to mind, The Sex Pistols. Probably the most famous of all punk bands, the Sex Pistols actually only released one full album (Never Mind the Bollucks….) before they burned out when that combustible mix of heroin, lack of talent, ugly groupies, and general petulance finally hit the reactionary point. The Sex Pistols sang/snarled about pressing issues of a time, and proved to be an outlet for many lower-class workers in industrialized England who indeed had “No Future” to look forward to except a bus pass, a shitty job, and a requisite family that just kind of happens as opposed to be birthed out of love, or whatever emotion families are created from*. They hacked and snarled and made some canonical music in the process. Whenever asked about what I think punk music is**, the song “Anarchy in the UK” pretty much sums it up. Starting with a unforgiving guitar lick, Johnny Rotten lets out that Clockwork Orange-like sarcastic laugh and tunefully tells you the listener that yes, “I am the Antichrist.” Screw this new 3-d technology for films and television- we need some sort of technology where it seems like you get spit filling your ear every time you hear this song. Reflective of the album as a whole, the song represents the angst and frustration of an entire culture of people almost flawlessly, on topics ranging from Abortion (“Bodies”) to specific ways to attain titular anarchy (“God Save the Queen”). It’s not exactly the album you listen to when you finally had the guts to give your best girl your varsity jacket and you want something to make-out to at the point, but essential listening nonetheless.

*What?

** Clearly Has Never Happened

The Buzzoccks, on the other hand, seem more interested in personal topics rather than the-sky-is-falling-let’s-either-fuck-each-other-or-find-something-to-light-on-fire. “Everybody is Happy Nowadays” conveys an energy similar to the Pistols, but obsesses more about loneliness and covetousness rather than worker’s rights or some other topic that a punk band full of drop-outs would at best have a vague idea about. The Buzzcocks sang about things that Green Day used to sing about before Billie Joe Armstrong equated mascara diffusion with political knowledge; the song “Orgasm Addict” is unquestionably a forerunner for Green Day’s “Longview,” the song that threw them on the Billboard 200 like a pickle slice at a glass window. That doesn’t mean the songs are less substantial; “What Do I Get?” is the Stones’ “Satisfaction” with a faster pace and a slightly more dry sense of humor. “Ever Fallen In Love” is as tight* as punk music gets, while the kraut-rock-infused “Why Can’t I Touch It” shows the band’s range.

*As in “tightly arranged,” not like “fucking tizzzzzznight”

The Sex Pistols will always be admired and studied as they found themselves to be a symbol of rebellion in the face of poverty, frustration, and boredom. They embraced this role and took off with it successfully… for about two months. The band has been in shambles since the early 80s when lead singer and general butt-wagon* Johnny Rotten formed Public Image Limited, a wildly inconsistent but generally cool band. Sid Vicious famously killed himself after killing his girlfriend, the madness that the band commercially beheld finally taking its toll on its members. The other members have had varying levels of success in other bands, but nothing that I really care mentioning, as I’m trying to make a point here. The Sex Pistols, naturally characterized by their cynical impression of the chemistry of common life, screamed themselves out of relevance before most realized their zeitgeist-shifting prominence. Any other narrative of the band would have neutered their influence quickly- a potential second album would have lacked the immediate kick that Never Mind the Bollucks… had; it would also have miniaturized the aesthetic of the incendiary trail they blazed. The Buzzcocks, on the other hand, never tried to fight this planetary hierarchy- they kept their scope mostly introspective without losing the dry sense of humor that punk lives off of to maintain relevance. The Sex Pistols- or at least Malcolm McLaren (a genius who recently passed away)- inhaled the many breaths of discontent and in the process made a musical statement unparalleled in its specific intensity to this day. The Buzzcocks clearly never reached these hyperbolic cultural heights, but because of this they age much better. Because the more 18-years is in my rear-view, the more I believe that Johnny Rotten and co. weren’t these repulsive fighters of the bullshit-bourgeois status quo that I detested at that age**, and more a creation along the contemporary lines of Lady Gaga, and her manufactured presence to awaken, and commercialize repressed feelings among suburbanites***. While it would be unfair to say that the Buzzcocks were a better band than the Sex Pistols, I can say without irony that they are a far less exhausting band, which means they win this one. That, plus they are lesser known, which automatically makes my opinion seem smarter and more controversial.

*Must accredit to B and B

** Antidote: Got a Honda; the gas mileage is just incredible!

***Although I am still clueless why dressing like a tourette’s-laden hermaphrodite can be so damn liberating for women; I digress.

Versus Number Twenty: The Stone Roses Versus My Bloody Valentine

Introduction: Many regard the mid-80s as the nadir of British creativity in popular music. While bands like U2 were slowly starting to develop sounds that would lead to them dominating the airwaves and innovating the basic idea of a rock n’ roll show*, most of Britain’s inventiveness stayed happily on the fringes. Iron Maiden and Judas Priest revolutionized the Heavy Metal sound and image** while The Smiths created a refuge for the overly read, prone-to-cry pop-music fans. It seemed there was no music for the listener who didn’t want to dawn S&M influenced- leather or spend hours in front of the mirror to apply superfluous amounts of mascara. While nobody at the time seemed to notice, there was a vacuum in all of rock music that would be filled by two of the most influential genres of recent popular music- Britpop and Shoegaze. While the names alone should suggest it, Britpop was more focused on creating a mix between American college rock channeled through British music loyalty like David Bowie, whereas Shoegaze was the refuge of art-rock nerds all around the country who found the verse-chorus-verse style of most rock radio to be a tad dated.

*And well on their way to being the most obnoxiously pretentious band in existence. Also, for all of you generally annoyed by the Rocker-by-day-world-problem-solver-at-night archetype Bono has created, I suggest this for a good chuckle.

** I’m just glad I get to put this on the blog:

Better Album: I had owned The Stones Roses’ eponymous debut and MBV’s Loveless for well over a decade merely as an indicator of sophisticated taste for anyone curious enough to search through my CD collection. The albums themselves left me cold. In the case of the Stone Roses, I felt that bands like Oasis did what they did significantly more efficiently while I couldn’t even get through Loveless without needing an aspirin. But the best thing about music is how the listener is half the equation, and I suppose my exposure to bands like Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. made me a patient enough of a consumer to give these albums another chance*.

*That, plus the two albums are breathlessly referred to as two of the greatest albums of British history, and I didn’t like the feeling that I couldn’t “get” why.

The first quality that always sticks with me regarding Loveless is its sheer density. The term “swirling guitars” was created as a result of the LP, and hot damn are there some guitars-a-swirling. Almost every song gives the listener the impression of almost being in a kind of thick brush, MBV being a sort of wind that grabs the listener through the space in between leaves of greenery. A first-time listener might think that it is because of poor recording or production values, but the album was infamously expensive to create and the constant feedback is intentional. “When You Sleep” is about as close as the album gets to a traditional rock song structure, but it also embraces enough of the qualities of MBV- the spectral voice, the hammering guitar line that drives the song like an oscillating bus driving through a graveyard- that it escapes the “obvious single” moniker that can plague these sort of albums. The exploding drums of “Come in Alone” mix beautifully with the album’s most crystalline vocal track to produce a bliss rarely seen in music this intentionally obtuse. Like many of the other tracks, “What You Want” matches a tightly wound anxiety that gives the song a personal feel, but the guitar is simply too kick-ass for the track to consider fodder for pussies and introverts. It all ends with “Soon,” a track whose unexpected danceability* seems to enforce rather than undermine its intensity. While it can take an enormous amount of patience and an openness to multiple listens, Loveless is about as good as rock albums get.

*Although it must be noted that I could never see most of my friends listening, much less dancing, to this album.

On the other side of coin is The Stone Roses, an album that sounds almost confusingly straight-forward to be called “The Greatest British Album of All Time” by NME in 2006. It might have something to do with this album having a great involvement in molding what “straight forward” means. While a lot of songs at first give the listener a similar vibe to The Smiths- the quaint British voice, the acoustic-guitar lead attack, etc.- multiple listens elucidate that if The Smiths were a band born out of angst, The Stone Roses were a band created out of “fuck you” arrogance. “She Bangs the Drum” seems like a Byrds’ song with enough slight electronic effects to feel modern. “Waterfall” shows the band’s ability to harmonize as well as show the pop side of John Squire’s masterful guitar playing, but never builds to its natural* conclusion. “Fool’s Gold” was only on the US version of the album, but remains essential to the band’s catalogue, as it takes the shape of a techno-song yet maintains the lyrical ambivalence and striking guitar line that defines the Roses’ best stuff. It all concludes with “I am the Resurrection,” but I get to that song later in this piece [hint: I really like it]. If there is one problem I have with the album, is that its track listing doesn’t really seem to have any sort of point and thus the LP seems to lack a coherence that a Ziggy Stardust or Sgt. Pepper’s had**. It leads to a saggy middle third of the album, which is a shame because those songs are by no means bad, they just work better as individual songs than are parts of a puzzle.

*Natural here meaning “where I think it should go”- not sure Webster’s would agree.

** I acknowledge both of these are concept albums, and that the lack of overall album structure might be playing right into the detached nonchalance that makes the band as a whole so fucking cool.

I find it odd now that I at one point referred to these albums as the most overrated in rock history, as the hype is justified. Not exactly the stuff you give to a girlfriend or little sister you are trying to get into Rock, but both stand as shining examples of their respective genres. Nonetheless, I think Loveless as an album works as a whole better than TSR; it takes the Pink Floyd approach to album-creation and as a result edges out the more song-centric The Stone Roses.

Better Song: While many critics point to MBV’s “You Made Me Realise” as their best song, I’d suggest that the song isn’t really reflective of what the band was all about. Sure, it kicks ass like a revved Thunderbird that is about to switch into first, but there trademark restraint is lacking, and for somebody that has listened to the band’s catalogue pretty extensively, I don’t think it is a good representation of what they were about. Nonetheless, the song’s mix between cynicism and blunt viciousness deserves a listen:

With all that being said, I think “Soon” is the band at its creative height. The lyrics can be largely dismissed, as the sounds de mots were the clear focus. The song mixes the moans of a bland Smiths song with a beat that precursor’s the rise of dance-rock in the latter 20^th century. But the parts are pointless to discuss- MBV is at its best when creating layered songs with all the instruments meshing as if the band was dipped in syrup. This song, however, seems to be one of the few where the band was genuinely innovating and producing something exciting but not out of character- after listening to the song enough, one gets the impression that if the band could get their shit together* their next album would be the OK Computer to Loveless’ The Bends. Enough of my chatter though:

*Which, shockingly, a band named My Bloody Valentine has issues doing.

Love or hate Britpop, one can not argue that some of the songs from the era will undoubtedly stand the test of time with the Rolling Stones and Who numbers who so heavily influenced the era. The most famous example of this is Oasis having two number one hits in America with “Wonderwall” and “Champagne Supernova,” a feat that seems pretty incredibly in retrospect. Sure, Coldplay has put out some songs that have tickled the American public’s ear, but to be frank, I wouldn’t consider Coldplay rock, I’d consider them pop.

That being said, no song of the time touches the Stone Roses’ “I am The Resurrection.” While it would be easy to talk about the flawless rhythm section or the prodigious guitar playing of Squire, the star of the song is its attitude. The song is essentially an 8-minute “fuck you” to the person who clearly devastated the lead singer. Throughout the album, this heartbreak gives some of the lighter numbers a density that maybe misplaced, but the recoil of the other ten songs of The Stone Roses lead to the catharsis, bitterness, and nearly overwhelming power of “I am the Resurrection.” It really is on one of those songs that it is pointless to write about- the song is good enough that it explains its relevance far better than I could with a bitter smile on its face:

“I Am The Resurrection” takes this one, pretty easily.

Who Wins? : As with most of these, it is such a conditional thing to declare a victor definitively, but I think perhaps some of these conditions might make it clear what you the reader would like to listen to. My Bloody Valentine is headphone music for the more attentive listener- if you are a fan of Sonic Youth, Radiohead, or more recently Deerhunter, you’d probably like MBV. If, however, you are more of a sing until you are hoarse type of music listener, The Stone Roses are your band*. Regardless, while both bands’ stories were truncated because lets face it, most musicians this talented are for some reason automatically assholes, the little music they did produce took a pathetic British scene and made it relevant once again.

* Although, conveniently, Ian Brown- the lead singer- rarely stretches his voice, so you can annoy the piss out of your thin-walled neighbors for months to come

The Top TV of A Decade: A List

The Top TV of the Decade: A List

While 1990s television programs like The Simpsons, Seinfeld, and Homicide: Life on the Street proved that the medium could compete with the film industry at a comedic and dramatic level, it would take until the 2000s, and the widespread use of DVD Players and Tivo, for television to be widely regarded as a legitimate art form. While television still did not have the budgets of studio films, creative TV producers realized that they did have something that film studios do not- a lengthy amount of time to produce a story. And with the power of the new technology, people could record or purchase entire seasons of a television series and treat them as though they were a film. Some series, as a consequence, stopped being episodically contained. Shows such as Lost and The Sopranos demanded a working history of the narrative out of their audience, and were more rewarding to the patient discerning viewer as character development and intricate story lines took place of immediate satisfaction and catch phrases. With that in mind, I present the five best comedies and the five best dramas of the last ten years.

Top Five Comedies:

5. “South Park”- With the thrill of little kids using bad language dulled, many viewers were curious if South Park could take its place as heir apparent to the Simpsons or if it would rely merely on shock value to sell cheaply made goods at malls across America. In reality, it pulled off both. South Park somehow got to the root of many of the century’s controversies, from the moral ambiguity of euthanasia to the smugness of the environmentally aware, without losing any of the Monty Python-esque absurdity that helped define it in its infancy.

4. “Curb Your Enthusiasm”- The inability of Larry David to let things be is the anchor of this mockumentary, a program dealing with the fictitious ins-and-outs of a high strung neurotic guy; who just happens to be a multi-millionaire famous for co-creating one of the most beloved television shows of all time (Seinfeld). Whether it be his profanity-laden yelling matches with Suzy, his manager’s wife, or his reluctance to give a best friend a kidney, the show excels because it humorously answers this question: what would you do if you had all the money in the world yet were unhappy? That answer: act like an inconsiderate jerk.

3. “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”- Accurately described as Seinfeld but far less self-aware and way more absurd, “Sunny” is a statement about the apathy and subsequent substance abuse that seems to plague many of the younger members of Generation X. But what makes it hilarious is the show’s characters: the mean-spirited but boyish Mac, the arrogant yet fragile Dennis, and of course, the learning-disabled, alcoholic, hopelessly-in-love, impoverished “cesspool,” Charlie. Unlike other modern comedies, “Sunny” never takes itself too seriously and as a consequence makes the characters, who are usually doing thoughtless, if not awful, things, strangely likeable and relatable. You must know your show is good if Danny DeVito decides to sign-on as a gun-obsessed divorcee with schemes so elaborate and frankly ridiculous even MacGyver would shake his head.

2. “Arrested Development”- The story of a once-entitled and now-shamed family has been a cult hit since Ron Howard’s baritone finished off the narration of the first episode. The show, a multi-character collage of what happens when idiocy and privilege meet, excels by mixing its endlessly self-referential humor with a genuine message about the meaning of family in these confusing times. But trying to write a concise two sentence statement about why the show is terrific is as misguided as trying to describe James Joyce with a Cliff-Notes, so I’ll just list a few of the more amusing things from the series: Tobias as Miss Featherbottom, Buster’s “loose seal,” Michael’s transparent self-righteousness, Lucille’s biting sense of humor, and, of course, the magician Gob. If you have no idea what those things mean, finding out is a worthwhile treat.

1. “The Office” (UK Version)- It only took Ricky Gervais twelve episodes and a two-part Christmas Special to create the funniest program of the last ten years. The show, a mix between the dryness of “Spinal Tap” and the absurdity of “The Simpsons,” is a statement about the crushing banality of office work very much in the same vein as Mike Judge’s “Office Space.” Gervais, however, treats his characters with a respect rarely seen in satires this sharp. Take Tim, the drop-out college student with a pension for pranks and an eye for the receptionist- instead of Gervais insisting that the guy is a loser or some sort of soulless drone, Gervais gives the character space to breath, and consequently there are few characters in television’s history as relatable. But the real star is Gervais’ David Brent, the oblivious, overeager boss who insists on referring to himself as “a friend first, entertainer second, boss third” in between participating in “dance offs for charity” and bar trivia questions about Russian authors. While the American version is funny, and does a good job of not trying to merely copy the humor of the British version, it falls short to the original because a lot of it feels like filler. To put it succinctly- “The Office” is the best comedic program of the last decade because it does what David Brent claims to hope to do- “put a smile on the face on all that [it] met.”

Top Five Dramas:

5. “Dexter”- This show not only put Showtime on the map, but also shot Michael C. Hall into stardom as the most convincing serial killer in recent television history. Hall is scary good as the titular character, a man compelled to kill by his horrific history yet feels a deep obligation both to the police force for which he works and the idea of family his father instilled in him. When the show is flowing smoothly, it plays like a well-structured mix between a cop drama and Dante’s Inferno - action packed, but never straying away from larger, more abstract questions. While the occasional lack of strong supporting characters makes the show drag at times, Hall’s Dexter is a performance for the ages.

4. “Breaking Bad”- The most recent entry on either list, “Breaking Bad” has wowed many who have seen it with its ability to weave the mundane with the extreme in a poignant way. The series revolves around a high school chemist who, in response to being diagnosed with cancer, decides to start manufacturing crystal meth to supply for his family. Cranston (who plays the main character) amazes as a man who is so confused at the brink of death that he feels the only thing to do is to fight in any manifestation possible. While “Breaking” is still in its relative genesis (about twenty episodes so far), it has the “wow” factor- whether it be from a car chase or a demented drug lord’s eating habits- that only comes from shows of the highest quality. I fully expect this to be in my “Best of 2010s” list.

3. “The Sopranos”- If it were not for this program, surely none of these other dramas would have existed. The killing yet loving, womanizing yet protective, understanding yet completely psychopathic Tony Soprano demonstrated first hand to television executives that the protagonists in a program need not be virtuous, but they do need to be likeable (or at least compelling). But while Tony is clearly the focal point of the show, “The Sopranos” is universally loved because of the relationships that the characters establish throughout the course of the program’s narrative. Whether it be Tony’s incredibly tumultuous relationship with all the women in his life, his wife Carmela’s guilt of living a life of ill-gotten excess, or his cousin Christopher’s desire to be a Hollywood big-shot while fighting a heroin addiction, the show’s creators created a living, breathing world unlike any that has been seen before or since in television. While there are some sections that lagged- specifically in the earlier parts of the last season- the show as a whole has maintained a quality most art only dreams of approaching.

2. “The Wire”- Whereas “The Sopranos” succeeded in creating a narrative world, David Simon’s “The Wire” excelled because of its ability to create a city from its lowliest addict to its most prominent political players. It accomplished this by setting the story up much like a novel, with every season being a chapter in the show’s unflinching look at urban decay. From the damaged yet noble Bubbles, to the damaging and unflinching Marlow Stanfield, the show did such an excellent job documenting the systematic flaws of urban life that Harvard plans to offer a course in it by next year. While the show is renown for its scope, it all starts with the dialogue, which is as authentic to Baltimore-speak as it is humorous and dazzling. “The Wire” is one of those rare pieces of entertainment where nothing could have been cut. While I have heard many complain that the longshoremen and journalism angles weren’t as strong as the show’s take on inner-city issues- an opinion I completely disagree with- it just goes to prove the point that “The Wire” was intended as a multi-perspective love letter and eulogy to Baltimore. Every breathless complement and every lauding article is right- “The Wire” transcends its medium quickly and justly sits by all major artistic endeavors of the last century.

1. “The Shield”- If “The Wire” is an almost-academic look at the multitude of issues that plague our cities, “The Shield” is its opinionated, snarling, pissed off cousin. Created in the wake of the Rampart Police scandal that rocked the city of Los Angeles, “The Shield” examines the “why’s” and “how’s” of police corruption. Also much like “The Wire,” “The Shield” examines this plight at many levels- from the arrested criminals to the substantially underpaid cops who are so susceptible to corruption, to the politicians who line their ballot boxes by exploiting the masses. But “The Shield” knows it focus, which is police corruption, whereas “The Wire” never seemed satisfied (or interested for that matter) in investigating just one part of the puzzle. As a result, “The Shield” does not have the quite kaleidoscopic feel that “The Wire” does, but this heightened focus on the police allows for considerably more character development and involvement than Simon’s show does.

Another substantial difference between the two shows is how they approach their subjects. “The Wire” makes a point of dignifying those who are society may deem wretched (such as drug dealers) but makes a point of dirtying those who our culture typically respect. “The Shield,” on the other hand, with its constantly moving camera, is unafraid of calling certain people (on both sides of the law) evil. To be frank, it’s a liberal’s view of city decay versus a cynic’s view.

In the end, “The Shield” is my #1 because it mixes the issue of family in with all the crime issues. Seeing Vic Mackey, as much of a bastard as he truly is, playing with his autistic kids, or in the crushing final episodes seeing the misguided Shane trying to comfort his family as they await their certain doom give “The Shield” an extra layer that “The Wire” rarely acknowledges- the personal. After recently watching the series’ finale again, it became apparent why I like “The Shield” more- it is because “The Shield” is about the fall of human nature whereas “The Wire” is about the fall of a city.