House of Heroes is an Ohio-based alt/Christian rock band that’s been around since around 2003. Their album The End Is Not The End dropped today. For a limited time only, you can get an EP of the same name containing three of the album tracks for FREE from Amazon.com.

The EP includes “In The Valley Of The Dying Sun”, which has a delightful bass line. The middle is heavy in a way not often heard in modern music, then goes into church choir harmonies and a lighter melodic section, reminding me of the Beatles “She’s So Heavy/Golden Slumbers” for a moment.

“If”, another EP track, has a bouncy feel and prominent organ. It’s the first non-whiny love song I’ve heard in a long time, a catalog of all the things the protagonist would do or be or be capable of if she were his.

If – House of Heroes

If you like what you’ve heard here, download the EP or full album (free EP only available at Amazon).

You don’t study music as long as I have without noticing some distinct patterns in your own and others’ listening habits. One thing that has been popping up lately is what fans expect from musicians, and what musicians are delivering. There are conflicts between fan and musician, and conflicts between fan groups. (For a really in-depth, academic take on this general subject, please visit It Is What It Is; my post will be concerned only with albums.)

While, in my opinion, the album as an art form has declined from its peak of cohesiveness in the late 60s and early 70s, albums continued to be the major form of music purchase until the digital revolution. Most musicians are still dedicated to the idea of the album, the process of writing (or vetting) dozens of songs before winnowing it down to 10 or 12 that will form some kind of statement about who the artist is or what sort of music s/he is into at the time.

Thus, unfortunately, there is plenty of room for fans to be disappointed.

Noel Murray at A.V. Club recently discussed his method for not being disappointed. He simply doesn’t become a fan of anyone until their third, fourth, or fifth album, thereby not getting so involved in their early work that any later change/growth becomes “bad” to him. This makes sense, as most artists (especially young songwriters) do not hit their stride until after the first few albums.

He explains: “Many’s the time I’ve started to develop an appreciation for a singer-songwriter or band around the time of their fourth or fifth album, only to hear that old defeatist call: ‘Their old stuff was better.’” By leaving the first few albums “on the shelf”, “we can come to them later and have a whole body of work to dig back into, with a greater sense of context for where an act might be headed.”

This is how (mostly due to being born in 1980) I discovered the Beatles and the Beach Boys. I literally started with a tape of Sgt. Pepper, memorizing every nuance, then worked my way backwards to Meet The Beatles, then forward until I caught up to the present releases of archival and alternate-version material. Then I moved laterally to Pet Sounds, backwards and forwards again until I had a pretty hefty collection of vinyl, cassettes and CDs. And books; I am also a reader of biographies both authorized and non.

Then again, sometimes you can’t help but get in on the ground floor with an artist. Blogger and entertainment lawyer Bob Lefsetz received an advance copy of U2’s new album, No Line On The Horizon, and gave it a spin. He’s been disappointed by Bono et al the last ten years or so, but of the new effort he says, “This ain’t no clunker, this ain’t no ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’, it certainly ain’t no ‘All That You Can’t Leave Behind’, this is a complete return to form. I’m stunned.”

Perhaps for U2, this is a good thing. Per Lefsetz, and also per my own listening experience with U2, they have been more concerned with the bottom line than with artistry, churning out what sounded like the same glossy song over and over again, just with different lyrics. Lefsetz says, “Albums are for fans, they shouldn’t be grist for the mill.” A return to the original formula, then, is approved by U2 fans… much like Coca-Cola.

But should fans be encouraged or allowed to wallow in the past, to put artists in boxes and demand their adherence to the sound that made them famous? If fans want both an old sound and current chart success, is this contradictory or delusional?

Taylor Hicks has a new album coming out on March 10. The Distance has already become an object of contention for Hicks’ fans, although to be honest they can always find something to argue about. The full album is available to listen to on Kids AOL (no idea why…) and thus there are vast amounts of fodder for the fans to chew on.

Hicks has only been on the national stage for three years. He has released one album of new music since winning American Idol, 2006’s Taylor Hicks. He has also re-released his pre-Idol music, which a majority of fans seem to consider “the real Taylor” — the post-Idol release deemed too “commercial”. However, despite going multi-platinum, the album has also been considered a “commercial failure”. The fans want Hicks to be successful, to sell many albums, to be a household name, to sell out stadiums. They also want raw, dirty, bar-singer blues and soul, and they want every album to be entirely written by Hicks, preferably without any co-writers.

Does anyone else see how these things might possibly conflict?

Raw, dirty, bar-singer blues and soul has never sold well. Those bluesmen (and women) who became famous only did so when their music was somewhat cleaned up, polished and made palatable to the average white American radio listener. Currently, even hip-hop and hard rock are more pop-like and glossy than their genre-creating forebears. If Hicks is going to sell soul, he’s going to do it in a clean Motown way, not the way he played (and still plays) it in bars. This is and has been a truth of the music industry: there has to be some homogenization if you’re going to appeal to the masses. It’s true of politics, too!

While I have not yet listened to The Distance, preferring to play it for the first time on much better speakers than those built into my laptop, I have read enough of the preliminary “reviews” from fans that I can say with certainty the following: Hicks did not write a majority of songs on this album; the songs are not necessarily blues or soul; there is at least one song that will get a ton of country radio play.

Do these things make this album bad? No. They make it different from his other albums. Why shouldn’t he be allowed to grow, to learn, to write a ton of songs and then decide they suck so much that he needs to record other peoples’ songs in order to have a good album? More power to him, for that! But when people have such narrow expectations — or not even expectations, but requirements — in order to be satisfied, of course they shall not be satisfied.

This applies to all artists, not only Taylor Hicks. Try to keep an open mind. Try to appreciate an album on its own merits; do not hold it up to past albums. If you love Achtung Baby or Under The Radar or Meet The Beatles so very much that nothing that follows can ever satisfy you, then please do not listen to anything new. Live in your vacuum of the past. Stay off Internet forums, too.

For me, I will try to love each album for what it is. I will try to love each artist both for who they were and who they have become, and even for who they may become in the future. Any human who does not learn, change, and grow is a sad, sad person indeed. Why wish that on a musician you claim to love?

Do you like Saturday Night Live? Do you like song parodies? Do you have an inexplicable crush on Andy Samberg?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you’ll probably love Incredibad, a collection of SNL-classic and new songs by Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone as The Lonely Island. Eight videos are included on a bonus DVD; I’ve included a sample below (totally NSFW).

This is a review of Marc Broussard’s newest CD Keep Coming Back, released on September 16, 2008. This album was recorded in just 11 days and marks his debut release on Atlantic Records. First a disclaimer: I am neither a music critic nor a writer by trade.

The first thing that came to mind after listening to the title track, ”Keep Coming Back”, was that Marc is bringing funky back! More on this tune later. This CD is a nice mix of up-tempo, mid-tempo, and ballads…all co-written by Marc Broussard.

Marc Broussard (photo courtesy marcbroussard.com)

Two songs on this CD exhibit a familiar theme for Mr. Broussard….being on the road, away from home and loved ones. “Another Night Alone” is a slow and melancholy tune. I favor “Going Home” which includes the lyric “You know I was born to roam”.

“Power’s In The People” is a social/political song about the state of the world today, the plight of the poor, with a message that people can change the world when they get involved. Marc has some soulful background singers with him here. “Hard Knocks” is a great song, a tale of “earning a degree in the street” featuring amazing guitar work and a nice groove.

Two female artists lend their talents on Keep Coming Back. “Why Should She Wait” features Sarah Bareilles and their voices blend nicely as Marc sings about changing his ways and treating his woman better. I prefer the duet with LeAnn Rimes, “When It’s Good”, which has a soulful country vibe.
The mid-tempo tunes are “Real Good Thing”, “Man For Life”, and “Saying I Love You”. The latter two have a hint of 70s soul.

This leaves my three favorite tracks to tell you about. “Evangeline Rose” is a ballad written for and about Marc’s young daughter. This song contains beautiful acoustic guitar and in my opinion is as lovely as Broussard’s fan favorite “Gavin’s Song” (not on this disc) but not quite as emotional for this listener. I have heard rumblings that “Evangeline Rose” will make a great father/daughter wedding dance song…even if the bride’s name is altogether different.
The title track “Keep Coming Back” is up-tempo funk. The best dance tune on the CD, it is featured on Marc’s myspace page player and filled with fantastic horns! The lyric “…listen while the guitar takes a ride” and others are pure fun. I found it interesting that in the CD liner notes it states which brand of instruments are used. Marc plays Gibson and Taylor guitars.
The best song on Keep Coming Back is “Evil Things”. This tune, more than any other, shows off Marc’s gorgeous vocals…he sounds vulnerable but not weak. The piano and gentle swells of orchestra strings are brilliant. “You try to hold me but I cannot sit still”….this song is the shining gem on this album.

If you like real music with real instruments delivered with soul and meaning, you will like Keep Coming Back. If you ever get the chance to see Marc Broussard in concert, do not hesitate! He gives 110% and you walk away feeling like you got a steal on the ticket price. Real music and talented writing from a man who seems too young to have it all within his heart, mind, and soul.

So, as promised but a bit later because that’s how things always go for me, here is my picking-apart of a song so we can all start learning a bit about the vocabulary of music. I have randomly chosen the Beach Boys’ song “Darlin’” because it happened to come up on my radio station on Pandora.com. (It’s called “get up smiling ” if you want to try to find it.) If you haven’t heard the song, take a moment to listen to it below. I’d recommend listening with headphones if you have a pair handy; it’s hard to hear the bass on normal computer speakers.

Let’s start with a quick structural overview. There are two major patterns to observe: first, the pattern of verse, chorus and other parts; second, the rhyme scheme within each of those parts. The verse-chorus structure is pretty typical for a pop song, with an introductory chorus, alternation between two verses and the chorus, and a short bridge before the final chorus and the fadeout. We can abbreviate this as C-V1-C-V2-C-B-C-fade.

I will get into the chorus in more detail later, but at the moment let’s examine the fascinating rhyme structure of the verse lyrics and the way that interplays with the vocal melody. This song is unique in that each verse consists of six lines arranged as three couplets. This means (in case you don’t remember poetry from English class) that the first two lines rhyme (AA), the second two lines rhyme on a different sound (BB), and the last two lines also rhyme on yet another sound (CC). Rhyme structure is important in pop songs, as it reinforces the ability of the listeners to learn and remember the lyrics. The melody follows this as well: the first two lines have identical melody, as do the second two. The last two lines in the verse repeat the melody of the first two, then launch into the small “joining” piece, “Oh, Darlin’”, which lets us know we’re moving back into the chorus again. This structure somewhat mimics the traditional (gospel/blues/slave) “call and response” structure, except of course it is the solo vocalist singing both parts.

Now for the chorus. It is, at its core, quite simple and “sing-along-able”–the complexity lies in the two contrapuntal lines being sung by the soloist and by the backup singers. As previously mentioned, the introduction to the song is an instance of the chorus, but in this case only the backup singers are heard. This gives us the chance to hear clearly and learn this portion of the melody. The tonal quality (timbre) of the voices mimics the horns in the instrumental lines–while the Beach Boys are primarily a vocal band, their various songwriters were always conscious of the “voices” of the instruments used and there would be plenty of experimenting to get just the right sound. (This gets more interesting when you listen to various live versions of songs, when it wasn’t possible to precisely control both instrumentation and recording practice.) The background part of the chorus is simple lyrically and melodically, but the word “Darlin’” repeats twice, thereby making sure we’ll remember the name of the song.

The solo part of the chorus is higher in the balance of the recording, of course, as we are meant to listen to this part. While the background is punchy (staccato) and hornlike, the solo is smoother (legato) and accurately conveys the depth of love he has for the subject “Darlin’”. The fact that there are two independent yet complementary lines going on at the same time is what makes this counterpoint. By focusing your mind on one or the other, you can hear each clearly, but relaxing your mind you will hear the ebb and flow of the two parts–an entirely different sonic experience.

The bridge, generally, serves to add some variation and keeps the audience’s attention by giving them something different instead of another verse, before the final chorus (and in this case, fadeout). As such, the chords and instrumentation change, as do the lyrics (consisting of a single line and a couplet) and melody (the couplet lines do not have the same melody, as the verse couplets do). Yet it still ends with the “Oh, Darlin’” that launches into the chorus. There is also, at the beginning of the bridge, an upward movement of chords that is not present in the verse, which serves as warning that we are doing something different this time. The lyrics tie in to the previous verse’s final couplet (”Gonna love you every single night / Cause I think you’re too out of sight”) by singing a variation on that line:

Oh, every night, oh Darlin’

Gonna love you every single night, yes I will
Cause I think you’re too doggone out of sight

Lyrically, then, we can tell this is a love song: a man has been rescued from a life without love by Darlin’. Musically, it is also a song of celebration.

It is uptempo, in 4/4 time with a strong emphasis (as is usual in rock songs) on the 2 and 4 beats, a/k/a the backbeat. The staccato horns, tambourine, and rolling piano line keep the song moving forward and upward: no sappy embrace, this song, but a jubilant dance, the kind of hug that picks you up and spins you around.

I leave you with two more versions of Darlin’ (and the recognition that, yes, this might be overkill). The first is a live version from a 70s incarnation of the Beach Boys, and the second is a live version from Brian Wilson and his current band, several years ago.

In recent interviews, the new American Idol, David Cook, has been predicting that his first CD will be “anthemic”. This week he talked to John Melendez of the Jay Leno show, after Cook says that his CD will be a rock record, Melendez asks him about playing with ZZ Top on the AI finale and asks:

is it going to be more that kind of rock, like a bluesy-based… ?

Cook replies,

Nah, It’ll be still kind of anthemic, I think for me, it’s just gonna be a matter of putting out songs that have something to say..

David Cook Tonight Show Interview

Is that an actual genre of rock music? Why does it give me visions of hair bands in large arenas full of my male classmates who thought that “2001: A Space Odyssey” was deep, their bics alight..

In more recent years, think U2, possibly the most pretentious rock band of all time. Or Spinal Tap.

Here’s a definition that doesn’t give me a lot of comfort:

Music is a pretty manipulative art-form at the best of times, but even so, Anthemic Rock is a particularly manipulative musical genre. The whole point of Anthemic Rock is to tug at the guts of the listener: to instil in him or her a peculiar sense of yearning for something that can’t quite be defined. It’s a stirring feeling, but also a slightly queasy one if you stop to think about it too much (as is my wont). But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Anthemic Rock is the fact that, when you actually stop and listen to it, the lyrics are so often working at cross-purposes to the music: while the music of Anthemic Rock is, by definition, designed to be played loud, through speakers, and heard by large groups of people at the same time to create some kind of communal experience, the lyrics are often, in fact, about cutting off the listener from the rest of the world.

Yelling About Music

I thought some more about what makes a rock song anthemic:

Accessible melody, sing-a-long chorus “We Don’t Need No Education”, “We Are The Champions” The simpler the lyrics, the easier the chorus is to learn, the more likely the band will create the massive communal experience that only loud familiar music and lots of beer and/or secondary inhalation of illegal smoke inspires. Power chords and an insistent 4-4 beat are a must.

The lyrical theme must be Serious. No little deuce coupes, endless summer nights or honky tonk women.

Living on a prayer, and Not getting fooled again are fine themes. It’s also fine to sing about “Only Rock & Roll”, “I Love Rock n Roll”, “Rock and Roll All Night” or “Old Time Rock N Roll”.

If it’s a song you danced to at weddings, or made out to in high school, it’s probably not anthemic rock. However, a rock anthem may well have been your prom theme in the 1980s:

If your neighbor played it every night in the dorm while you tried to sleep or study, then it probably is anthemic rock.

I love the communal aspect of rock music. The thrill of classic rock concerts is sitting in a hockey rink with 18,000 of your closest friends, Paul McCartney in the Garden, “Back in the USSR” with that driving beat hardwired into our collective brains, and for three minutes he was just seventeen, if you know what I mean… and so were we. At the beginning we really did think rock music would change the world, because it made us feel like we could.

While I usually like my music with sophistication, funk and groove and soul, or at least an awesome beat, I respect the power of anthemic rock. A few years ago I finally got to see one of my favorite late 60s bands, the Guess Who, with its founding members Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings. Mr. Bachman was also in another major band, Bachman-Turner Overdrive. So naturally the concert included a few of BTO’s big hits including this:

Since TCB was not one of my favorite songs, I didn’t have a personal emotional connection to the song, but a good portion of the crowd certainly did. I couldn’t help but get swept into the party.

I say you can be anthemic without sacrificing the beat and the groove. These are tunes that make you want to dance the night away and kick some butt all at the same time..

So to the Newest American Idol I say, go write some rock anthems, and bring us all together with raucous glorious noise. But remember the words that Emma Goldman didn’t actually say, “If I can’t dance I don’t want to be in your revolution.” Power chord ballads have their place, but you can’t find redemption without a saxophone:

The Greatest Rock Anthem Ever

(embedding disabled)

I was going to write about a different song tonight, but my brain got hijacked, and ended up here.

I was cruising some of the blogs in my bookmarks, and stumbled across a video of Paul Revere and the Raiders on one of those 60s dance shows, either Shindig or Hullabaloo, with the go go dancers, Mark Lindsay staring soulfully into the camera. It reminded me of Where the Action Is, which was Dick Clark’s after school show, and the Raiders were one of the house bands. In my junior high years, I faithfully watched the lip-synched location performances. Our version of MTV Spring Break.

And when I think of Where the Action Is, I think of the most (and no doubt only) amazing thing I saw on the show. A video (and we surely did not know to call them that then) featuring a young woman with dark ethnic features, and a long dark dress, she totally blew my 7th grade small-town Wisconsin mind. I think she was at an amusement park, or on a carousel. This would have been late 66, early 67, before the Summer of Love, when we all learned what Hippies were. She sang “Wedding Bell Blues”, and while I wasn’t ready to understand what I was seeing, I never ever forgot it.

This is the music I heard:

Laura Nyro Wedding Bell Blues – Song – MP3 Stream on IMEEM Music

It was eventually a Number One hit for the 5th Dimension in 1969, who had already had hits with Nyro’s “Stoned Soul Picnic” and “Sweet Blindness”. I grew to love her soul-tinged melodies and chords, sensuous mysterious lyrics and her song book was one of my prized possessions. And it all started with a video on a shlocky lipsynch music show.

I can’t find that video online. But I found this amazing story

Laura Nyro’s father tuned my piano yesterday.

* * *

It took him an hour to complete the job. When he finished, I pulled out my Laura Nyro songbook, the one with Eli’s Coming, Wedding Bell Blues and Stoney End. A thick slab of white medical tape holds the binding together. Growing up, I played from the book constantly, until it was in pieces. He seemed pleased to hear of my great admiration for his daughter.

“Do you want to see a video of her at age 19 singing Wedding Bell Blues?”

“Sure,” I said, hardly believing that he would carry around the video in his bag.

“Do you have a – a – what do you call it?”

“A VCR. Yes, I do,” I said and led him into the room at the other end of my apartment. I felt slightly awkward inviting this stranger into my bedroom, but he stood politely at the foot of my bed, while I popped the tape into the machine and pressed play.

“This was taped in San Francisco. I’ve never seen it, can you imagine? Someone told me about it and then I contacted the Columbia Records people and they found a copy. They just sent it to me.”

Laura Nyro appeared on the screen, dressed completely in black, with a wide-brimmed floppy hat, like the one in the Cat in the Hat book. Her pale skin contrasted with her dark hair and eyelashes. Soon I heard the familiar Wedding Bell Blues.

“It’s dubbed,” he said. “To the record track.” I felt amazed to see this early MTV-ish version of Laura Nyro singing the song that later became one of the Fifth Dimension’s biggest hits.

http://www.lifechallenges.org/people/MeyerJ.html

Certainly that was the video I saw on Where the Action Is. I wonder if Clive Davis has a copy in his packing crates.

New England Soul Patrol has a weekly feature called New Music Tuesday, where we highlight some of the more interesting new music releases for the week. If you click on the nifty Amazon boxes, you can usually sample the music. If you like it, buy it and your Amazon purchase will help defray the costs of NESP and OFTV projects. Many albums can now be downloaded directly from Amazon — no shipping (yay!), no waiting (yay!!) and frequently cheaper than the physical CD. Individual songs can be downloaded as well.

This week’s blurbs are all written by Alicia (ain127 on NESP). She’s great at finding what’s fun and current. If you want to write a CD blurb, send an email to margaux@oneforthevault.com with the Amazon link and your blurb, and I will consider it for an upcoming edition of One for the Vault.

Let us know in comments if you find something you like in our suggestions.
Margaux

The Song of the Day will be the coolest song I hear during the day.  Not every day will have a song..  it’s one of those serendipity things, the song has to present itself.   I am a definite believer in the Oracle of the Car Radio.    Sometimes when you really need to get a message, the Car Radio will deliver.     Sometimes when you just need to smile, the Car Radio will give you what you need.

My car radio is a much happier oracle than it was a few months ago, since I have a new car that came with built-in XM Radio and a three-month trial.    Of course now I don’t know how I lived without it.    And I like just about all the stations.    I don’t care if it’s praising Jesus or having sympathy for the Devil, honky tonk, power pop or grunge, when it comes to music, I’m Universalist and omnivorous — it just has to be interesting.   When I’m bored, I just turn the dial to the next station and wait for the surprise. 

The first road trip with the new radio, before too long I came upon a sixteen-beat piano chord intro that made me think I might be at a Taylor Hicks concert – Traffic’s “Medicated Goo”.  I knew this XM radio was a great thing. 

Best of all, there are plenty of stations that play Songs You Love But Haven’t Thought of In Twenty-Five Years.    For pop, Sixties on 6 is what you always wished your oldies station sounded like.  For anyone who went to college in the 70s, Deep Tracks sounds just like your college dormitory on a Friday night.   

The other day, I came upon a tasty psychedelic jam, guitar, sax, amazing drum solo, with that organ overlay that lets you know it’s the 70s, there was something familiar about it, but it just kept going.. finally some classic riffs revealed the song — “Get Ready”, Rare Earth’s cover of the Temptations’ hit, one of those covers that has surpassed the original as the definitive version of the song.   Rare Earth was unusual, in that it was a band of white musicians signed to Motown.  The 3-minute single peaked at #4 in 1970, but the twenty-one minute album version (that was a whole side of the big round record!) is the one you want to download.  

 Wouldn’t you love to see what Taylor and his boys could do with this tune?

The YouTube is a shorter live performance..