Swedish Chanteusies Make Dance-Pop Stand and Deliver

Turns out my favorite album of '08, Robyn, came out in'05 in Europe. What I knew was a record from the mid-90s, Robyn Is Here, w/ a couple perfect RnB pop tunes, "Show Me Love" and "Do You Know (What It Takes)." Then, she was 15, and all yearning bubblegum sweetness,from Anywhere, USA, for all I knew. Now she's grown up, feisty, perhaps even sweeter for some bitter experience and an absolutely irrepressible heart, and it turns out she's Swedish. No less pop than her 90s classic, her latest is more Robyn, w/ a fan's loving nod to Madonna and Prince and 80s hiphop and robotic electronica, and a pop artist's need and assurance in saying what she needs to say. She has a way of rendering heartbreak with a fierce pride that is exhilirating. It's Robyn's world.



Lykke Li's debut long player, Youth Novels, is not lacking in indie-electronica atmosphere, but feels padded here and there. And, yet, it's these few slinky tunes, "Little Bit," "Everybody But Me," and "Breaking It Up," that worm their way into your head and then wiggle to your distraction. For a young girl barely 20 Lykke makes too many compromises in her life and yet not in her music. When the one catches up w/ the other watch out.



September is very new to me but the final inspiration for this post. I only found her "Cry For You" trolling year-end lists, but I'm loving this throbbing, wailing knockout. She's best in disco guise but this acoustic version of "Cry For You," w/ lackluster backing even, lays bare the sultry grit of her voice. She's no auteur but w/ the right material ohh la la.

So what the hell is up in Sweden?! These three, El Perro Del Mar, Susanna, etc. All these girl singers w/ pop style and emotional gravitas. Is it the Lutefisk?

we voted for who we liked

“You can vote however you like,” sang the kids from Bob Clark Academy of Atlanta, Georgia. And we did. We elected Barack Hussein Obama 2008. This simple fact alone is worth savoring. But the boo birds— critics, bless ‘em— are at it already, of course. One of my faves, Paul Krugman, of the New York Times calls Obama’s inauguration speech muddled, its central argument— we need a return to responsibility, says Krugman— the same milquetoast argument Bush made in 2000. But the responsibilities Obama calls for could not be further from those advanced by Bush, right?! Just review the speech.

Consider foreign affairs first. Rejecting as false a choice between our safety and our ideals, Obama points out that our “power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please” around the world. Instead, the best way to extend our power and provide leadership is by the “justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.” How could he repudiate any more explicitly the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive strike and blundering militarism than with the argument made here? As I recall, this was precisely one of those moments during the speech when the camera panned to Bush with a humiliating wince. The contrast was certainly not lost on Bill O’Reilly and the other leading attack dogs of the right who have been fulminating about the implication of Obama’s remarks since the speech.

On the economic front, admittedly, Obama’s arguments aren’t always so straight-forward. He says of our current economic crisis that it is “a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.” Is he referring to our collective thirst for gas guzzling SUVs and, in general, the failure of consumers to demand the products of a green economy? This is a collective failure, to be sure, but it’s a bit obfuscating to link this directly to our current economic crisis. Government spending to stimulate the sagging economy should do whatever possible to lay the foundations for a sustainable green economy, for future generations, for the sake of the planet. But the lack of development in this direction has little to do with our current economic crisis. This is, literally, the bankruptcy of the deregulating “free market” philosophy that has held reign through republican and democratic administrations for almost thirty years.

Still, again, there is no mistaking Obama’s notions about our responsibilities to the market economy with those of Bush. “Without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control,” says Obama. He continues, “A nation cannot prosper long that favors only the prosperous.” I’ll take this as an acknowledgement of one of the bitterest ironies of Bush’s and supply side economics in general. On the one hand, in the name of his “Ownership Society” Bush actively pushed for policy measures that would increase mortgage lending and home ownership. Such noblesse oblige, every American ought to own their home, right?! Unleashing entrepreneural energies from stifling rules and regulations creates wealth that trickles down to everyone, say supply-siders. Let innovators innovate, let the moneylenders make money. But, on the other hand, like every other Administration in the wake of the Reagan Revolution, the Bushies advocated anti-labor and other so-called “free market” policies that eroded the incomes of average American families. A lack of public oversight rewarded those without scruples to swindle paychecks and gamble wrecklessly with other people's money. Or, in other words, reduced the ability of most Americans to pay for their home mortgages!

Obama seems to get this but it would have been nice if he would have elaborated on his case for a more watchful eye. And, frankly, skepticism about his remarks in this area will remain until actions overcome the fact that most of his new economic advisors are old Wall Street heads (or the proteges of them) who under Clinton promoted more of the deregulations that have bred the gargantuan investment scams that are at the heart of the current economic meltdown.

Finally, culturally, Obama counts our “patchwork heritage” (as opposed to a melting pot of unity) as one of our enduring strengths. The overtures to Muslims and poor people the world over, in an address to Americans, struck me as probably unusual? We cannot ignore suffering outside our borders, Obama says, “nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect.” We may not plan on apologizing to anyone for our way of life, as Obama asserts, but when is the last time a U.S. President has suggested we need to take more responsibility for our consumption of world’s resources?

Sure, Obama appeals to our sense of responsibility and sacrifice, hard to imagine an inaugural that wouldn’t. But I’d say his central argument is that key to America’s recovery from threats abroad and collapse at home is a return to the values of “hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotisim.” I repeat, these are NOT Bush’s responsibilities of "family values" and big business cronyism and shock and awe to any "freedom haters" who might oppose us!

At the risk of perpetuating the inflated analogies with Lincoln, seeing some of the response of the right and left since the inauguration, made me think of how both the abolitionists and slavers were typically reviling Lincoln. This is probably just the beginning.

Be honest, even those of us pulling for Obama did not think this was likely, if possible, one year ago. Whenever politicians huff and puff about America’s great diversity and opportunity I’m always reminded of the incredibly narrow demography of our presidents: every president of the U.S. has been, white, male, and not just Christian but decidedly Angloid protestant, except one. It’s astonishing what percentage of our presidents graduated from either Harvard or Yale. So our first African American president reassures elites with his Ivy League training and protestant church commitments and manly-manness (that Hilary was a scary ball breaker, right!), but, still, seven years after 9/11, the Patriot Act, two ongoing quagmires against Muslim enemies, and this country elects a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama?!

It’s cracked the smooth, hard shell of cynicism of living my entire adult life in the wake of the Reagan Revolution. Ladies like the one who told McCain at a rally late in the campaign that Obama frightened her because he was a Arab, a Muslim. I really thought there were too many of them, or too many of them that voted. But, in the end, even my parents voted for Obama. Don’t underestimate the people. (Too bad Walter Karp isn’t here to see this.)

I’m not saying calls to our enduring ideals cannot feel stale, but if a man “whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant” can’t revive these values as enduring bonds between us, giving us direction and purpose, who then possibly could? I’m aware of the naysaying from some of my favorite naysayers at Counterpunch and Eat The State but I’m not ready to let go of a sense of hope I never thought I’d feel again. This is the moment of a paradigm shift. Is Obama up to the job, I don’t know. But I can’t think of anybody better for the job. Can you?

gran torino

War torn. Crusty curmudgeon. I’ve seen shit you couldn’t imagine. And things ain’t what they used to be and it’s you bleeps goddamn fault! A retired, widowed Archie Bunker. On a creaky porch in a neighborhood of crab grass, peeling paint, and rust. Next door Hmong hill farmers homestead dying Detroit. Where homeboy outlaws act so hard the act is life or death. Beatdowns or be beat down. Cruisin’ the edge of Woodward Avenue. Where soft human feelings scurry, head down, from shadow to shadow. Or gather around warm sunlight backyard havens of spicy food and music to plan a new community center. Listen to the murmur, buzz and heat of their voices. Where old workers douse smouldering regrets with cheap beer and wry disgust. It’s a Western. Forged bonds fending off the wolves of lawlessness. The justice of Magnum Force on Mount Rushmore. Sam Fuller with a Big Heart. A teardrop for a sacrifice given for love and its violent means.

2008: Top 40 Songs Playing At My House

1. “Lost Without U,” Robin Thicke
2. “Who’s That Girl,” Robyn
3. “Poinciana,” Ahmad Jamal
4. “Don’t Take Me Home Until I’m Drunk,” The Wedding Present
5. “See You Again,” Miley Cyrus
6. “We Carry On,” Portishead
7. “New Romantic,” Laura Marling
8. “Baby On My Arm,” The Broken West
9. “I Get Around,” Draggonette
10. “Don’t Let It Bring You Down,” Adam Kolker
11. “Be Mine!,” Robyn
12. “No Time For Tears,” Ashlee Simpson
13. “Cry For You,” September
14. “Paper Planes,” M.I.A.
15. “Committed To Memory,” Tom Brosseau
16. “Little Bit,” Lykke Li
17. “A Milli,” Lil Wayne
18. “Spaz,” N.E.R.D.
19. “Please, Stop Dancing,” The Magnetic Fields
20. “Little Miss Obsessive,” Ashlee Simpson
21. “Closer,” Ne-Yo
22. “Breaking It Up,” Lykke Li
23. “Cherry Lee,” Gowns
24. “You’ll Find A Way (Switch and Sinden Remix),” Santogold
25. “Free The Bee,” The Cave Singers
26. “Lights Out,” Santogold
27. “Mykonos,” Fleet Foxes
28. “Lip Gloss,” Lil Mama
29. “Sun Is Out,” Apples In Stereo
30. “Bringing Home The Rain,” The Builders and The Butchers
31. “Old Folks,” Terrell Stafford
32. “Apartment Story,” The National
33. “Segu Blue (Poyi),” Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba
34. “This Loneliness,” El Perro Del Mar
35. “Shower Of Stones,” The Constantines
36. “Let The Beat Build,” Lil Wayne
37. “I Can Barely Breathe,” Manchester Orchestra
38. “There’s No Home,” Jana Hunter
39. “I Kissed A Girl,” Katy Perry
40. "Strange Weirdos," Loudon Wainwright III

Always a song-guy, I’m not ab to lament the death of the CD or Long Player. The MP3 has afforded my ears access to more tunes than any time since I stopped getting biz freebies in the early 90s. Besides, it’s the CD/LP guys who nixed production of singles in the first place. My sources for "new" music aren’t what they used to be: friends, aging rock critic faves, a little radio. (Hell, three or four songs on my list I heard first on TV!) But I had no problem entertaining myself w/ music this past year. My favorite way to listen is iPod mixes for my walk to work, jogs, housework, etc. I love it when I can’t hear enough of a particular song for a week or two. So it’s year-end list time, I couldn’t resist. This is my hitlist for 2008. Sure, a few songs were “officially” put out in ’07 but I didn’t hear them until ’08, okay. Choices reflect my year, no doubt, an end to a tortuous five year relationship (begin as "Strange Weirdos" and end "Lost Without U," sounds ab right!), song mixes are soundtracks afterall, but looking back over my list I’d say rhythm, melody, an alluring voice, poignant hooks, and winning grooves dominate, as they always have. W/ good music there is always a way.

Swallowed By The System

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/us/27detain.html?th&emc=th

We will “scour this budget, line by line, eliminating what we don’t need, or what doesn’t work, and improving the things that do,” intoned the President-elect the other day. Undoubtably, it's a refrain repeated by every Pres since the guy on the dollar bill. But let's take the new Pres at his word. (Why not?! It actually feels possible and when is the last time we could say that, really?) So, as a program that doesn't work, and is morally appalling to boot, may we suggest to start by eliminating this 6 billion dollar plus program to disappear half a million "illegal immigrants" into a "private" jail system w/out any recourse to "due process" rights. Here's one of those programs that has mushroomed as a displaced demogogic sop to post-9/11 security fears. It's shameful. Cut it, please.

Bush Shoe Epitaph

What will be the fate of the Bush Doctrines, the stuff Palin thought was some book she hadn’t read, of “unilateralism,” “preventive war,” and “democratic regime change” once Bush is gone?

Unfortunately, unilateralism has been a feature of U.S. foreign policy for awhile, b/f W. The U.S., during Clinton Administration, Bush the Elder, etc has refused to sign or ratify hugely popular international agreements on climate change, landmines, and the rights of indigenous people. People often forget when Clinton bombed locations in the Sudan and Afghanistan in 1998, in retaliation for the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Kenya, and w/out any UN Security Council authorization. During the campaign Obama said w/ reliable evidence he’d strike against Bin Laden or Al Queda with or without the authorization of the UN or even Pakistan. Unilateralism and preventive war remain the prerogatives of superpowers for the foreseeable future.

But, at least, with this shoe episode can we agree that the tragically preposterous proposition of imposing “democratic regime change” by military invasion is once and for all dead? During the campaign McCain hammered Obama for not conceding the success of the surge strategy in Iraq. Obama remained mum but Biden, by proxy, made the essential point that surge was tactical. Meaning, the goal of the surge was to reduce the violence so that Iraq’s leaders could come together politically. Have they? McCain and the Bush Administration, missing this point, remain mired in the arrogant imperialist delusion of the military solution. But they lost.

So has the regime change by military invasion strategy lost, too? Some argue the right’s surge success argument is a setup so that when all hell breaks loose when the U.S. does finally pull out it’ll be blamed on Obama and the Democrats. Thus, reviving that old Vietnam canard that we “lost” b/c we didn’t support our troops to victory. Gawd.

Apparently, the Iraqi shoe guy, Muntander al-Zaidi is a Sunni, Iraq’s Muslim minority; a former Baathist, Saddam’s political party. What is going to happen when we stop “occupying” Iraq? Will the Shia, Sunni, and Kurds find a way to cooperate that has eluded them so far? Will the Shia majority draw closer to Iran? How will the rest of the Sunni Middle East react to an Iraq-Iran alliance?

And how will all this impact the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Israel’s right to exist in the Middle East? The Palestinians full human rights in Israel or an independent Palestinian state? It’s not clear but it is clear that a military solution is no solution at all, right? Right?!

I’d like to think al-Zaidi, an Iraqi, got the last word, so to speak. Must say, though, it was scary, impressive how Bush maintained his composure, no? He drops his signature smirk for barely a second. Bush is lucky it was only a shoe. But has five years of “occupation” and a couple of shoes been enough?

A Christmas Present from The Wedding Present

Lifetime achievement award time. Maybe it’s my lingering breakup dumps but I can’t think of another indie outfit outside Yo La Tengo that goes back to the 80s and is still making music as emotionally vital and melodically satisfying as The Wedding Present.

But then what I think is vital others might call a rut. Certainly, after over twenty years, head Weddoe, David Gedge, is still writing about the girl who got away— and others he’s yet to lay! You’d think he might have figured out this predictable pattern by now but instead it would seem he’s adopted the lovelorn cad persona as a lifelong career choice. To his credit, he’s not without a sense of poignant humility. “I said I thought I could fall in love with her/she said I like you too,” he confides on El Rey, his latest record. It’s not the witty perfection of 69 Love Songs but everyone has been there at one time or another. And, frankly, with this much romantic disappointment it’s an inspiring wonder this guy can still risk his heart and fall in love at all.

And besides, let’s face it, it’s the guitar and how Mr. Gedge makes it serve the song that keeps you coming back to The Wedding Present. Those jaunty, peeling, careening, ecstatic tempos, the bright, banging chords, the heavy-hearted riffage. I’ve heard some old timers find the addition of strings on the latest records some sort of let down. To me, they’re a natural extension of Gedge’s considerable melodic gifts. Some might also carp that the Weddoes catalog uses too small a palette of musical colors. But, to me, it’s like Gedge found the history of pop music in “Sister Ray” and decided to spend the rest of his life working out the possibilities in that one song. And what possibilities! Even if at this point the idea of a guitar band seems kind of quaint, if BB King can sustain a career into his 80s or Neil Young into his 60s why not Mr. Weddoe into his 40s and beyond?

I’ve compiled below a chronological list of my Wedding Present favorites. Contrary to some reports, I’d say after their brilliant debut, George Best, album-wise the Weddoes lost their way a bit during the grunge years. Their strong middle period starts with Watusi and ends with Saturnalia. Then after a nine year hiatus they’ve comeback, the same but older, more orchestrated, less pell mell; more beauty, less noise. Three hours plus of music. Not bad for two decades of music making. I’d eventually like to whittle it down to an 80 minute CD-R mix but this a starting place. Let me know if you’d like a copy. And fans and completists, please, advise.

“Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft,” George Best (’87)
“A Million Miles”
“All This and More”
“You Can’t Moan Can You?”
“My Favorite Dress”
“Nothing Comes Easy” (’88)
“Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm”
“I’m Not Always So Stupid”
“Getting Better”
“Pourquoi Es Tu Devenue Si Raisonnable?”
“Brassneck,” Bizarro (’89)
“Kennedy”
“What Have I Said Now?”
“Take Me!”
“Dare,” Seamonsters (’91)
“Lovenest”
“Dan Dare”
“California,” Peel Sessions (’92-’95)
“So Long, Baby,” Watusi (’94)
“Click Click”
“Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah”
“Gazebo”
“It’s A Gas”
“Catwoman”
“Hot Pants”
“Waiting On the Guns,” Singles (’95-’97)
“Go, Man, Go”
“Love Machine”
“Conertible”
“Real Thing” (Acoustic)
“Sports Car”
“Sports Car” (Acoustic)
“Where Everybody Knows Your Name”
"Real Thing," Saturnalia ('96)

"2, 3, Go"

"Dreamworld"

“I’m From Further North Than You,” Take Fountain (’05)
“Mars Sparkles Down On Me”
“Don’t Touch That Dial”
“Queen Anne”
“Perfect Blue”
“The Trouble with Men,” El Rey (’08)
“Don’t Take Me Home Until I’m Drunk”
“Model, Actress, Whatever”
“The Thing I Like Best About Him Is His Girlfriend”
“White Christmas,” Holly Jolly Hollywood (’08)