Oh Dave! Now

In my You Really Got Me–Not posting on November 14, 2009, I sent out a distress call for new music recommendations and received many great suggestions for musicians and bands I wouldn’t have discovered on my own. Ones that I’ve enjoyed since then include:

• Muse
• Owl City
• Elbow
• Landon Pigg
• Ben’s Brother
• Ida Maria
• Scott Walker
• Imogen Heap
• Pur:pur
• A Fine Frenzy
• Gregory and the Hawk

In the spirit of being obsessed with a particular artist, I promised to award a CD box set of the artist of their choice to the person who introduced me to a new musical obsession. And the winner is…Miss Melanie! However, being that she’s in her late teens, she opted for a $50 iTunes gift card so she could download music. We both agreed that the CD box sets available aren’t very interesting in terms of current music.  

Congratulations, Melanie, for not exactly introducing me to a new artist but for relentlessly promoting Lady Gaga to the point where I could not ignore her anymore. In fact, I grew to appreciate her talent and her music. And then obsession took over, meaning I can listen to her music over and over again—I do not tend to start dressing like my favorite artists, thank God.

More about why Lady Gaga in a moment. A close second new musical obsession was introduced to me by my friend Michael who has always been a great source for discovering phenomenal new artists, ever since he predicted that an unknown singer named Madonna would become a big star. This time around, he turned me on to Wild Beasts, a four man alternative rock band from the United Kingdom who just released their second album entitled Two Dancers.

Michael saw the video for their single All the King’s Men on the Logo channel’s video program New Now Next and called me to rave about it.

After we got off the phone, I went on the internet and found the video on the band’s official website. The song starts with an infectious bass drum thump and forward moving beat. Trilling guitar riffs not unlike U2 or Coldplay are layered over and then a manly bass-range chorus of “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa” jumps in.  Once the lead singer on the song started, I was hooked by his seductive baritone, not to mention his cute face peering out from under a brown druid/priest’s robe. Many male pop singers have tenor voices which makes it hard for me to sing along. A deeper earthy voice appeals to my ear more.

However, the lead vocals on the album’s songs switch back and forth from Tom Fleming’s baritone on that song and three others to Hayden Thorpe’s high falsetto leading on the rest of the album. When I first heard the falsetto on the song “Hooting and Howling” I wasn’t sure I could get into the band wholeheartedly. But once I got past the initial shock and listened to the entire album, it grew on me. Now I’m completely seduced by how he uses the falsetto for variation and emotional expression. Check out “We Still Got the Taste Dancin’ on Our Tongues” and my favorite song on the album “This Is Our Lot.” Both are songwriting gems that start out with simple vocalizing and instrumentation, respectively. Layer after layer of vocals, guitar, and drums get added, building up to irresistible emotional anthems that let loose vocally without resorting to screaming.

The tricky but also intriguing part of Wild Beasts music is their lyrics. I had a hard time hearing what they were singing at first, partly because the word choices are cleverly unique but also at times colloquially British. Since I downloaded the tracks instead of trying to find their CD in a local music store, I had to go to their website for the lyrics which are alternately weird and fun.  Take the “Fun Powder Plot” for an example of both:

With courage and conviction, in donkey-jaw diction, we cry for the cause because the courts have left us lonely; disowned us daddies like the poopers of the party…This is a booty call; my boot up your arse hole. This is a Freudian slip; my slipper in your bits. [Ed.: "bits" is British slang for genitals.]

On the clever side are the lyrics for “We Still Got the Taste Dancin’ on Our Tongues”:

Us kids are cold and cagey rattling around the town, scaring the oldies into their dressing gowns, as the dribbling dogs howl. What’so wrong with just a little fun? We still got the taste dancin’ on our tongues. When we pucker up our lips are bee-stung. We still got the taste dancin’ on our tongues.

And there’s the sweetness of “This is Our Lot”: 

By smirking prank of fate we wiggle and kick like bobbing bait, and wait for a bite. By the milky light of the mighty moon, find someone to nuzzle to, and waltz from the room.

In the chorus of that song, I thought logically they were singing “we hold each other up heavy with hearts” only to find that what they’re really singing is “we hold each other up heavy with hops.”  So British!

By the time Michael, our friend Stefanie, and I caught the Wild Beasts live in San Francisco at a small club for $16, I and most of the sold-out crowd were able to sing along even to these tongue-twisting lyrics. A great band, great record—time will tell if they take off and become big. We almost hope they don’t and just keep putting out interesting records.

I doubt the Wild Beasts will ever become as hugely popular as Lady Gaga, the pop star gone mad! Michael played Lady Gaga’s debut CD, The Fame, for me after he had bought it in Canada, before it was even released in the U.S.  He was excited about her but at first it sounded to me like throw-away catchy disco pop, another in a long succession of divas like Mariah Carey, Gwen Stefani, and Christina Aguilera, none of whom held any interest for me. He gave me a copy of the CD and I threw it in a pile and never played it again.

Miss Melanie gets her Gaga on for Halloween.

A few months later I was driving with three passengers on a day trip from San Francisco to Monterey, a drive of a couple of hours, and Miss Melanie presented the CD and asked to play it so I did. In the close confines of the car as we ambled along to our destination, we listened closely to each song together, including some singing along. I was surprised and impressed by Lady Gaga’s vocal versatility.  I was familiar with the first single “Just Dance,” a sentiment that I can relate to. The second track starts with a provocative chant: “Let’s have some fun, this beat is sick, I want to take a ride on your disco stick.” But what really swayed me to become a fan was the melodic pretty chorus of the third track “Paparazzi” and that remains my favorite song off her first album. The rest of the CD varies from dance tracks to ballads where the singing is actually pretty good and not cookie-cutter.

However, I didn’t immediately dig out the copy of the CD Michael had made for me. Several months later, in fact, after I had written the blog entry about looking for new music, I taped the American Music Awards show because I wanted to see Adam Lambert’s performance. But the real star of the show was Lady Gaga’s knockout performance of two new singles “Bad Romance” and “Speechless.” It was absolutely compelling and memorable because her dancing, singing and mugging are spot-on. Hot backup dancers, shattering glass and a flaming piano doesn’t hurt either. I realized then that Lady Gaga is a performance artist, not a run-of-the-mill hitmaker. But unlike grating and unattractive—but brilliant—performance artists like Laurie Anderson and Patti Smith, Lady Gaga writes catchy ear worms and uses outlandish and sexy fashion and makeup to make her statements. For example, attempts by Gaga to look sexy and live up to the young, supermodel ideal often end up (deliberately)  looking insane or grotesque, not unlike some celebrities do unintentionally.

Granted, Gaga’s big statements aren’t about politics and anarchy. After seeing her on the AMAs, I pulled out the CD and haven’t stopped playing it. Her themes lean towards fame, money, sex, and materialism, which, she puts forth repeatedly, are meaningless compared to love. “We’re plastic but we still have fun!” is the closest thing she has to a mantra. And she treads the fine line between commenting on the emptiness of hedonism and narcissism and indulging in it herself. Gaga has said in interviews that she represents girls who feel like freaks—her “monsters”—and her gutsy music and far-out fashions consistently stay true to that vision.

Musically, she and her collaborators layer her songs with contrasting rhythms and melodies, vocal sound effects, and droll voiceovers. Her biggest hit single to date is “Poker Face” which was not immediately likable to my ear. At a local soup and sandwich spot that plays a top 40 radio station, the manager remarked when the song came on that he didn’t understand why everyone liked it. I agreed but the more I listened to it, the more I appreciated its creativity and her.

Her mini 8-song EP that came out in November 2009, The Fame Monster, is an addendum to her debut and could be seen as a crass move to capitalize on her popularity. But can’t because the songs are even better. I suspect the two-punch releases in a year were part of her plan for world pop domination, and it seems to have worked. Lady Gaga reminds me of Boy George of Culture Club in that they both got a lot of attention for bizarre hair, makeup, and costumes that tended to overshadow the fact that they’re both good artists musically. (I hope she doesn’t crash and burn from drugs like Boy George did.)

At the Grammys, Lady Gaga’s duet with Elton John of “Speechless” and “Your Song” further demonstrated her similarity to flamboyant pop singers that came before her. The enjoyable pairing and endorsement by Sir Elton may have also boosted her popularity—her debut CD, released near the end of 2008, is currently at number 4 on the album charts after 69 weeks and has sold more than 8 million copies worldwide.

Not that popularity is a reason to like an artist. In the case of Lady Gaga, though, she has the talent to back up her popularity. She continues to work hard for it—just the costume changes alone must be exhausting—and seems to live to perform. She’s gotten the world’s attention and as is the tradition for pop artists can now begin to scale back the theatrics but keep writing and singing songs that I and the world can obsess over.