The San Francisco Symphony and PBS (among others) have created a fun, educational website called Keeping Score. You can learn about music through interactive, multimedia presentations of Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, Stravinsky’s riot-inspiring Rite of Spring, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, and the musical biography of American composer Aaron Copland. As a student of music, I can assure you that my classes would have been much more interesting and fun if these resources had been available!

If you like Toby Lightman, you may enjoy “Butterflies” by Saving Jane, released to AC radio a couple weeks ago. This non-album single is a cheerful pop love song from a very diverse band. Top 40 listeners may already be familiar with their 2006 single “Girl Next Door”, which reached #20 that year; country fans may recall Julie Roberts’ recording of the same year.

Butterflies – Saving Jane

I drove to Atlantic City this past weekend to see David Cook perform from his self-titled album at The Music Box at The Borgata. As an avid American Idol viewer, I already consider myself a fan of the Season 7 winner. I arrived a few minutes late and quickly went over to his merchandise table to grab a t-shirt. When I went inside the Box, I heard his opener, indie rock singer and songwriter Ryan Star, already a few minutes into his set list. I’m not too familiar with Ryan having never watched Rock Star: Supernova. My first impression of him was that he was surprisingly pretty good. I enjoyed the rest of his set especially “Breathe” and “11:59”. I decided to purchase his album Songs from the Eye of an Elephant on the way out and met him in the lobby after the show, where a long line had formed because he was signing his CD.

After a twenty minute break so David’s band could set up, the lights went out and the sold-out crowd rose to their feet waiting for a glimpse of the main event. David was on stage with his guitar and he opened with “Heroes”. David was wearing a black and white patterned short sleeve button up shirt with black pants and boots. He had on an orange bracelet, and it doesn’t seem like he is traveling with a hairstylist as his hair looked like he just got out of bed. Next he sang a song he co-wrote called “We’re Only Honest When We’re Sleeping”, with these lyrics:

You’re a broken thing
Your cracks are showing through
Your best attempts
At making nice with the world
So keep on dreaming
Cause someday soon the things that keep you up late
Will fade away
Or so I’ve heard

I really like the lyrics for this song and as he co-wrote 10 out of the 12 tracks on his latest album, I am very impressed with his song-writing ability. Now is clearly his time, but it is a little hard to fathom why we hadn’t heard his name before this reality show. He went on to sing four songs not on his new album, including the Collective Soul cover “The World I Know.” He paused to let the crowd know that the next song was very close to his heart, and he started to sing “Permanent”, which he co-wrote about his brother Adam who is currently battling brain cancer. It was now incredibly quiet as the crowd focused on him and the words seemed to pour right from his soul.

He picked up the mood a little and sang “Declaration,” his newly released single “Come Back to Me” and his first single off the album called, “Light On”. He asked the crowd to help him with the words to “Light On” because sometimes he forgets. He got a few sympathy laughs and everyone seemed happy to oblige. He asked if anyone in the audience had been at the Friday night show and it seemed by the cheers that at least half of them had been. There were glow sticks galore in the crowd and he had a brief conversation with a nine year old girl in the front row who was smiling from ear to ear after he signed her CD. Someone threw a dog collar onto the stage and he went over and picked it up. He explained to people that were seeing him live for the first time that he now has a collection of collars and he really has no explanation for why this started happening. He thanked everyone and said Goodbye and threw out some guitar picks, but everyone seemed to know he wouldn’t be gone for long.

He came out again after a very brief absence and sang “Barbasol.” His band was just incredible and they seem to have great chemistry. Before the next song, “Hot for Teacher” a Van Halen cover song, he introduced them all and they waved to the crowd. He finished for real this time with “Daily Anthem”, which he mentioned was written before his Idol experience. If I had to sum up the whole night in one word it would probably be “effortless.” He came on that stage and just did was seems so natural to him. His album has gone platinum already and if you decide to go and pick it up, you will be glad you did. I plan on going to see him again this summer when he takes part in Musikfest in Bethlehem, PA in August.

Amadou & Miriam have been making music together since 1976. Their latest release, “Welcome to Mali”, dropped today. Their sound is a mix of Afro-folk melodies and rhythms and pop beats. Lyrics are a mix of English and French, but you don’t need to understand the words to enjoy the music! See amadou-mariam.com for more information (French only).

I have long enjoyed my copy of The Fireman’s 1998 release Rushes, which is relaxingly ambient and a bit sexy, so when I discovered last December that they had a new release, I put it on my Christmas list. Santa obliged me, and I found Electric Arguments under the tree.

To my surprise and pleasure, vocals are to the forefront on Electric Arguments. To be specific, they are mostly Paul McCartney’s vocals; he has worked with UK musician Youth as The Fireman since 1993. The tracks are also in a more traditional “song” format than in previous releases. As a longtime McCartney fan, I get the distinct feeling that he is now using The Fireman to release songs he doesn’t feel confident releasing under his own name (even though everyone who listens to The Fireman knows it’s him), as they might not fit what longtime pop-Paul fans like. They are, overall, experimental as compared to his recent solo releases; however, as far as quality, Electric Arguments is at minimum on par with Chaos And Creation In The Backyard and completely blows away Memory Almost Full.

The first single, “Sing the Changes”, is easily my favorite track. The somewhat exotic intro gives way to what I can best describe as a “pop chant”. There is almost no melodic movement, the lyrics are repeated ad nauseam, but it is catchy and I always find myself bopping along to the beat. The video is at right. “Sun Is Shining” is more dynamic but still gives me the same happy feeling. There is a lot of uplifting on this album.

The Fireman have used a bit of harmonica in this release as well, not an instrument that I can recall McCartney using previously (maybe on “Run Devil Run”, a retro rock album). It lends a bluesy tone to “Nothing Too Much Just Out Of Sight” and “Highway”. Where “Nothing Too Much” is a more ambient jam, “Highway” is a blues-rock number that reminds me of several popular early-80s blues bands. The exploration of American niche genres continues with “Light From Your Lighthouse”, a jugband hymn that could easily be re-arranged into a modern worship song.

For those who do love a little dance and/or ambient, skip to the end of the album. “Is This Love”, “Lovers In A Dream”, “Universal Here, Everlasting Now”, and “Don’t Stop Running” are quite enjoyable and make an excellent backdrop for a run around the neighborhood (totaling over 26 minutes, they’re perfect for my short laps). “Don’t Stop Running” actually contains a “hidden” track after a lengthy pause; the last two minutes consist of a bit of spacey synthesized fun.

Overall, there isn’t a track on Electric Arguments that I don’t like. This isn’t going to be for everyone, but if you’re up for a bit of trip (the acid kind) it’s definitely worth checking out.

I am, it seems, the very last fan to hear Taylor Hicks’ new record, The Distance. I deliberately chose, after hearing the early-leaked “What’s Right Is Right” and “Nineteen”, to not listen to any other tracks until the album was released last Tuesday. I did, however, skim some reviews and read the track listing, so I do not come to the record entirely devoid of some idea of what is on it.

After completing my first play-through, in some mixed-up order thanks to iTunes being weird, I can say with confidence a few things. First, which I knew beforehand, the tracks brush several different genres, occasionally within the same song. Second, Hicks may become one of those artists (I am fond of several) whose music far exceeds their lyrics in quality; however, what is cringe-inducing today may become (like many of Paul McCartney’s lyrics) a cause for fondness in the future. Indeed, I already look back on much of Hicks’ Under the Radar in this state of mind.

My challenge in writing this review, as I will gladly confess, will be to strike a balance between forgiving the album’s various sins based on my fan status, and condemning Hicks based on any expectations I may have harbored over the past two years. Should anyone feel I have done either of these things, please feel free to call me out in the comments! On to the tracks…

“The Distance” immediately twangs country at me, the sort of bass-heavy alt-country that I actually listen to. The chorus rings 1970s anthemic. The verse lyric demands attention, a plea for neighbors, countrymen, and all peoples of Earth (here’s where the 70s anthem comes in) to realize we are more alike than not, and thus “The Distance between us fades away.” I do find it entertaining that these sorts of songs are always very musically jingoistic– I rather don’t expect to suddenly hear Arabic melodies and Czech rhythms– but I’m certain it’s meant to be uplifting, and indeed it is. My only question is about the short drumroll at the end. Huh?

“What’s Right Is Right” was the first single, released a month ahead of the album. As noted above, I did listen to it as soon as it was “leaked” (in quotes because it was a marketing strategy). It’s a MOR love ballad with a sax solo in the middle that doesn’t stray too far from the melody. There are some odd vocal phrasings that I am pretty certain are the result of digital splicing in the studio, and they can be jarring to my ear, although I have not seen any other such reactions, so maybe it’s just my hypersensitivity to that sort of thing. What I really like about this track is the Wurlitzer/B3 combo (I am a keyboard geek) and Nathan East’s bass line that seems to be more mobile than in most MOR arrangments.

“New Found Freedom” will be a sing-a-long song at concerts. Again we’re reaching into the anthemic, with a driving gospel chorus. At this point, I feel it necessary to point out that while the song has a lot of energy (may I say I am in love with Nathan East? The bass lines on this album are the shit), Hicks’ vocals only join in that energy occasionally. I realize that his strength is in live performance, and it has been said that he’s some kind of energy vampire that feeds on the audience, but he seriously needed a fire lit under his butt while recording. I’m getting more joy out of the (uncredited) backup singers.

The other early leak, “Nineteen”, is a story about a football player who gets a college scholarship, then joins the Army after 9/11. The last verse, ambiguous in lyric (the soldier he saved gives a speech in his honor, but it is uncertain whether it’s a eulogy, as the Purple Heart may be awarded for either being wounded or being killed in the line of duty), becomes less ambiguous with the slowing-down of the music and the plaintive “He was only nineteen” that ends the song. The song is quite definitely country and should play well on those stations despite our new era of Hope. (For a fascinating read about “cancer country”, which I think needs a co-genre of “soldier country”, try this 2007 Slate article.) It’s a good song, but I won’t be playing it often, since this stuff always makes me cry.

A tame, distant piano intro belies the pop-Latino-Caribbean syncopation of “Once Upon A Lover”. Anyone familiar with Hicks’ concert version of “Hold On To Your Love” will not be surprised at this attempt; however it will certainly confuse the uninitiated. The vocal highlights of this song are the trilled R in “Senorita” and Hicks’ largely sustained high range and falsetto. I also adore Brian Gallagher on flute. There seems to be (and this may just be the digital format) a lack of dynamic range in the vocal, and I hope there will be more along the lines of purring in live performances.

“Seven Mile Breakdown” will likely be familiar to denizens of the Birmingham music scene. A country blues jam co-written by Hicks and good friend Wynn Christian of Spoonful James, “Breakdown” has driving rhythms and a very familiar female backup vocal (Sharon White, as on most of the album, but it reminds me of Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock’s “Picture”). Here is where I finally hear the energy that I know lies latent in Taylor Hicks at all times, perhaps because he has such a strong bond to the song.

“Maybe You Should” is a modern yet timeless broken-hearted piano ballad. It has some absolutely gorgeous chord changes behind a pretty static melody. Lyrically, it is the first-person story of a man who thought he had true love, but perhaps does not. I would rather have seen this as the first single; misery sells, and it’s just a much better song– in terms of songwriting and in terms of recording– than “What’s Right Is Right”. I look forward to hearing it in concert; if Hicks learned to play the piano for it, I would probably die happy.

“Keepin’ It Real” is a fun New Orleans stride piano tune that (finally!) briefly features Hicks’ harmonica and sends up Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, O.J. Simpson, and the celebrity culture in general. One can conclude that it reflects Hicks’ desire to stay either under the paparazzi radar or above the superficial fray, although he rarely likes to actually clarify such things, letting his songs speak for themselves. This one could easily stand on its musical merits, bringing little new to the genre but reviving it for a new generation.

One starts to think, around the time that “I Live On A Battlefield” begins, that Hicks has rarely had a good relationship in his life. This funky groove is an exercise in metaphor, comparing a (mutually) destroyed love to a post-apocalyptic landscape. Hicks’ over-attack of the T’s in the phrase “Now shattered lord and battered/Lie scattered all around” lie in stark contrast to his lazy treatment of the line “My new home is a shell hole filled”, which I could not figure out until I read the lyrics, thankfully included in the booklet. (And he was doing really good on the enunciation until that point!)

If you’re looking for the goofy Hicks, you may almost find him in “Wedding Day Blues”. The enjoyable narrative finds our hero stealing a bride away from her own wedding– well, from the reception, booting the groom from the getaway limo and ravishing the bride…. but not before getting drunk and eating the cake, presumably before it was cut since he was then “asked… to leave”. While I wouldn’t recommend this as a way of getting your girl back, it does make for a good song, and the bluegrass fiddle playing the wedding march in the middle is a nice, if obvious, touch.

Rounding out the “official” album is “Woman’s Gotta Have It”, a tag-team remake of the Bobby Womack song featuring Hicks’ American Idol classmate Elliott Yamin. This old-school R&B slow jam shines, in my opinion, because of Yamin’s presence. Hicks has mentioned in interviews that he had Yamin come into the studio and they recorded together, and you can feel the way they played off each other. Hicks’ voice is more lively, and he graciously takes backing vocals while Yamin takes the lead on the second verse. Their harmonies are engaging and their voices complement each other quite pleasurably. Hicks has mentioned wanting to perform this song live with Yamin; my suggestion would be a co-headlining tour next year.

Hicks has annoyed his dedicated fans by releasing three “bonus tracks” to three different outlets. My download from iTunes included “Yes We Can”, an Allen Toussaint song that coincidentally echoes President Obama’s campaign motto. While I have no doubt that Hicks truly feels all of these happy “come together now” mottoes, and that is why he has included so many such songs on this album, the theme does get a bit repetitive. There is nothing wrong with the song, and the track is actually an old all-star recording over which Hicks has laid his vocal so I can’t complain about the musicianship. However, barring a USO tour (not a bad idea, actually, since Soul Patrollers have been inundating our troops with Hicks’ albums for years now) or a festival involving Willie Nelson or Bono, I can see little but fraternity fatigue for these songs in the future.

I’ve also managed to acquire the Target exclusive bonus track, “Indiscriminate Act of Kindness.” I can only assume that I’m broken, because while everyone on the fan boards seems to be emotionally devastated by this song, I started falling asleep before the first chorus. It stretches on for more than seven minutes. In an attempt to stay awake, I did some research on Foy Vance, the songwriter. “IAOK” was a B-side; the A-side was “Gabriel and the Vagabond”, which was used on Grey’s Anatomy, probably for one of those interminable montage sequences. I’ll grant that Hicks seems to be engaged with the source material, but that’s not enough to interest me.

Finally, I will not be reviewing the WalMart exclusive track at this time, because apparently none of the CDs actually made it to any of the stores. There is a rumor that people who pre-ordered the CD on WalMart.com will be getting their copies complete with “Hide Nor Hair”, but if things do not clear up soon, we may have to consider this a lesson learned about releasing four different versions of the same album. Apparently, I did hear “Hide Nor Hair” at the Baltimore shadow show last month, but I was sick throughout the performance and couldn’t tell you a thing about it. So my impression of the final bonus track will have to wait until A2M and WalMart get their act together.

For those who really didn’t like what I had to say here, please stay tuned for Mac’s review…

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).

Twice recently, songs by Chantal Kreviazuk have come up on my Pandora pop station, and each time I was compelled to look at who was singing. (That’s only happened one other time recently, and it turned out to be Paris Hilton. Oh well.) The second time, I looked because I was certain it was Kelly Clarkson and I wondered why I didn’t know the song already.

Not to say that Chantal sounds like Kelly. “Time” does sound a lot like the sort of thing Kelly would sing, a piano-driven, edgy pop ballad… and in fact, she has written songs for Kelly, Avril Lavigne, Gwen Stefani and most recently David Cook. Pandora says similar artists are Colbie Caillat, Sara Bareilles and Michelle Branch. She’s a Canadian classical pianist-turned-pop star, and you can definitely hear those classical roots on her original songs. She has a pleasant, strong, diverse voice and as I listened to several different videos on her YouTube channel (all embedding is disabled, sadly) and her MySpace, it became apparent that she is an excellent interpreter. My opinion of her songwriting is that she has the skill of Carole King, which is about the best thing I will say about anyone’s songwriting.

You may have already heard her without realizing it. Her cover of “Leaving on a Jet Plane” was on the Armageddon soundtrack, “Time” played over the credits of the movie Uptown Girls, and plenty of other songs and covers have been on piles of TV shows and movie soundtracks. Chantal has been hitting the Canadian charts for 12 years, her debut album sold well in the US back in 1996, she’s been on Leno, and she has an excellent reputation as a songwriter for some of the most popular American acts. Looking at some of her co-write credits on Wikipedia, it’s apparent that she’s been all over everything I love in pop (and, okay, some I don’t love). And yet, I had never heard of her before this week. How do these things happen?

Anyway, I am now making up for it by spreading the love to you all. Here are links to iTunes and Amazon so you can pick up some of her stuff. I already have!