The Music Court

The results of the poll pointed to “Smooth” by Santana and Rob Thomas as the #1 rock song of the decade. It is a fair choice; the song is a great combination of Carlos Santana’s blues styling and the voice of one of the best rock frontmen of the decade. Yet, like how it has been for the past polls, I must disagree. Personally, I wish I could have just picked all of the songs on the list because each song has its own reason why it should be considered the best song of the decade. But, if I do have to choose one, the one song that has that extra something putting it above the other musical pieces is “Devils and Dust” by Bruce Springsteen.

“Devils and Dust,” the name of Springsteen’s 2005 album as well, was released as a single in March of 2005 and gained critical acclaim immediately. It was nominated for three Grammy’s, including song of the year, and Springsteen took home the Grammy for best solo rock vocal performance. So, yes, everyone does understand that the song is good and gained notoriety because of its success. The question still remains, what makes this particular song better than all of the other rock songs of the decade?

In judging a good song one must ask a couple of questions. Is the song technically sound? How is the vocal performance? Is it catchy enough? Do the lyrics fit and are they beyond normal cliché? Yes, I know, I too just like listening to music and singing along but these are talking points to perpetuate discussions on music and in defending the “Best Rock Song of the Decade” I need to cover all of the qualifications. Let’s look at the music side of it first.

Springsteen’s song begins with an acoustic guitar with both E strings (The high and low) dropped to a D tuning. Briefly, this means that one will get a different sound out of their guitar because of this different tuning. He strums his guitar with a meaningful chord progression that can practically sing the song for him. In the studio version of the song, a string section compliments the acoustic beautifully. The song is a perfect example of a rock crescendo, allowing the lyrics to tell the story and when the words reach a climactic moment the melody does as well. Springsteen then brings out a harmonica and blows the hell out of it to represent the consternation of his protagonist. The loud harp, the strummed acoustic, and strings and drums just work. The song goes above and beyond the musical qualifications.

While the song is immaculate, it is the lyrics that let the song rise above each other hit in this decade. There is a truthful pain that one feels when listening to the song. In a clear anti-war statement, Springsteen tells the story of a person in war who has been put into the situation where he has his finger on a trigger and he looks towards faith for an answer of what to do. There is a constant repetition of God and “Devils and Dust.” The character’s “god-filled soul” is filled with “devils and dust.” What this attempts to demonstrate is that in the heat of war when there is blood and effluvium rising around you, the conflict between good and evil mix and a horrifying confusion rises. The character attempts to reach a conclusion that he has “god on his side” and he is just “trying to survive.” Yet, in surviving a brewing fear that he is doing it while destroying morals rises. The conclusion is reached that “Faith just ain’t enough” because “When I look inside my heart, There’s just devils and dust.”

The lyric is a story about the fear in one’s heart that arises when the conclusion is reached that in war there is no faith and no good. There is only “Devils and Dust” and rightfully these two words end the song. The devil that represents evil and the dust that represents death. It is not surprising that after Springsteen finished his performance at the Grammy’s he found room to say “Bring em’ Home,” referring to our troops.

“Devils and Dust”

I did not steal this...well maybe

Here we go, the last poll. Look, I understand that mainstream rock n’ roll has neither been tremendously popular or…well good this past decade. Hip-Hop, Rap, weird techno music mixes have all surpassed rock n’ roll in the music pecking order. I am not going to complain because this is just how it goes; what’s popular is popular right. But, there still has been some rock that has been popular this past decade. Most of the music that has been marked “popular” is pretty washed down rock with catchy hooks but no substance. What I am going to attempt to do in the choices of this poll is encompass the rock that has been the most, let’s say, bearable this past decade. Well, that is mean, some of it has been good. Luckily, as much as music tastes may have turned acrid over the past ten years, there is still some appreciation for good music and trust me, these songs are pretty darn good.

What do you think is the best rock song of the decade? I understand there will probably be many votes for the other section but I welcome them. There are 7 choices though so…you know…you got a lot of choices.

It is going to be tough defending “The Life of the World to Come” by The Mountain Goats as the best album of the decade. Most readers are probably asking themselves who would name their band after a goat and that is exactly why it is going to be a tough defence. When names like Radiohead, Bright Eyes, Bob Dylan, etc. grace the list of albums and tremendous musical efforts are at a plenty, how can I possibly have the audacity to say a band with only a minimal cult following created the greatest combination of music in this past decade. Well, I do. “The Life of the World To Come,” the most recent release from the Dunham, North Carolina band led by singer-songwriter John Darnielle is the best combination of music released in the past 10 years.

Over the past 10 years, Darnielle and his Mountain Goats have released 9 albums. Wait!?! 9 albums in 10 years. No big deal or anything. The man and his band are music machines. They crank out quality music like an assembly line that has the ability to change their output (so nothing gets repetitive). Darnielle’s lyric is also one-of-a-kind and on “The Life of the World to Come” it shines brighter than any of his other releases in 10 years. Yet, I understand, many bands have released a lot of albums over the past decade. What makes this specific album by this specific unknown band better than consensus #1 picks by magazines like Rolling Stone?

While “The Life of the World to Come” only reached #110 on the Billboard list of top 200 albums and has most likely not even been a thought for best album of a decade, I genuinely believe that most of Darnielle’s music is completely underrated and this specific album is probably the most underrated album of the decade. The unusual album that features 12 songs with bible verse titles (but do not take them literally) is Darnielle’s masterpiece of, in his own words, “12 hard lessons the bible taught me.” What remains so fantastic about Darnielle’s music and especially this album, is that he refuses to settle for a conventional lyric over known beats.

The music on this album is certainly at the top of its game. It is not only Darnielle’s acoustic guitar riffs, but, original piano, bass, drum compositions that make each song catchy and authentic. Yet, the album is brought together in Darnielle’s incredibly real lyric, which, in my opinion, is one of the best lyrical efforts in numerous decades. Before we look at his lyric, let us look at what a lyric is supposed to encompass. Lyric poetry is, in theory, a form of expression that focuses on personal feeling. Darnielle puts astronomical feeling in his music and that is a lot of feeling.

I believe that the closing note of my argument is profiling one particular song and I believe I did this before. So, let me quote an earlier review I did of this album.

“There is something rather shocking about Darnielle’s lyric. He seemingly can take any topic and slow it down for a brief look into human emotion. In “Matthews 25:21,” Darnielle begins the song by singing:

“They hook you up
To a fentanyl drip
To mitigate the pain a little bit
I flew in
From Pennsylvania
When I heard the hour was coming fast
And I docked in San Barbara
Tried to brace myself
You can’t brace yourself”

The story is set. A fentanyl drip is the commonly used opiate for cancer patients or the terminally ill. We can clearly see that the song is about a character finding out that someone near to them is in their last stages of dying of cancer. Darnielle continues the song by saying:

“And I’m an eighteen-wheeler headed down the interstate
And my breaks are going to give
And I won’t know till it’s too late
Tires screaming when I lose control
Try not to hurt too many people when I roll”

This metaphor is suggesting that the character understands that the person will die; yet, he cannot bring himself to cry. He knows it will happen and he attempts to brace himself. And, when the song ends Darnielle writes:

“And you were a presence full of light upon this earth
And I am a witness to your life and to it’s worth
It’s three days later when I get the call
And there’s nobody around to break my fall.”

It is three days later when he learns of the person’s death and no one is there to catch him as he breaks down like the eighteen wheeler without breaks flying off into a visible night. Darnielle is a master craftsman and, once again, he has taken the untouchable topics of life and has molded them into beautiful and emotional music.”

Darnielle performing “Ezekiel 7 and The Permanent Efficacy of Grace”

Be sure to check out the blog later for the summation of our “Best of” decade polls

Name every album in this picture and I will be quite impressed

      Keeping with the theme of last week’s poll, let us explore a slightly tougher question. Judging albums is arbitrary and I know that full well, but, because this is an opinion blog I can make my own decision and no one can stop me (hahaha). Though, in this poll I hope to be unbiased and to outline out six albums that do deserve the title. It would seem like in rock music alone this decade  has witnessed an agglutination of various combinations of genre sampling. What I mean by this is that there has been no unified rock stance like we have seen in decades prior. This list just represents the variety of music that has been played over the past decade and, hopefully, it will put to rest any thoughts that this decade was a wasteland for music. The so-called burning junkyard of rock’n’roll is not so much of a junkyard if you dig deep enough, past the surface of mainstream garbage. You may know some of these albums and may already have listened to the songs, but, listen again, do some research, and let us know what you believe to be the greatest rock album of the last decade. I understand there may be some I left off the list so comment below if you have any other ideas.

Thanks for voting and I am looking forward to your responses. I can assure you that my response and heck maybe even another blogger’s response will be gracing the musiccourt’s pages in a few days. Look up any of the albums on www.lala.com and listen to some tracks from the album if you do not know them.

If you are an electronic Italian dance group and you are nominated for a Grammy you know you have done well. Eiffel 65, whose name spawned from a random computer program and a portion of a phone number, gained this nomination honor at the 2001 Grammy Awards for their defining pop hit and one-hit wonder “I’m Blue.” A song that has become a perpetual mind-boggler for the age group that was 10-30 when the song was released in 1999. Trust me, if I say I’m Blue the involuntary response is da ba dee da ba die.

First, let me begin my defense with the song’s success. The song reached #1 in many countries including Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom, France and da ba dee da ba die (which I will now use in place of et cetera). The success was astronomical and was never seen again by the group. It would seem the only person to not like the song was a magazine. Rolling Stone magazine wrote that the song “blends Cher-esque vocoder vocals, trance-lite synth riffs, unabashed Eurodisco beats and a baby-babble chorus so infantile it makes the Teletubbies sound like Shakespeare.” It also has made it #14 on their list of most annoying songs. Yeah, Rolling Stone writer, all the flowery language and hyphenated comparisons are nice and all but I think you forgot the pleasure of simplicity. The song is fun, catchy and absurd. The lyric is nonsensical but gets stuck in your head like a parasite and, guess what, it will never leave. I still hear this song and feel the need to sing along. I live in a blue house with a blue window. It is impossible not to sing along. This is the reason that it is the biggest one-hit wonder of the last decade. It is quirky, but humorous, catchy, but also a good song. It is a dance beat mixed with a recognizable lyric. It is just a good song that is still liked and played today. And, Eiffel 65, can listen to it and smile because they never released anything of this magnitude again.