Bright Eyes - Cassadaga

Conor Oberst, the prolific songwriter behind the ephemeral Bright Eyes collective, is growing up, and it's not clear whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

On one hand, his latest work is his tightest and most musically proficient to date. On the other hand, it's his least interesting. Pick up his band's brand new album, Cassadaga, if you want evidence – Oberst's latest collection of songs may be his best-crafted and most capable, but it also lacks the emotional depth and immediacy that made his seminal work so compelling. This means that Cassadaga is simultaneously the best and worst Bright Eyes album ever written.

Let's start with the good stuff. Oberst is one of the best American songwriters alive today, and his talents still shine as bright as ever. Cassadaga is, without a doubt, his band's fullest and most confident effort to date. This is partly due to the album's polished production, which nicely complements Bright Eyes' cleaner, tighter sound. For example, the lush orchestral flourishes in ballads such as "Make a Plan to Love Me" and "No One Would Riot for Less" add a pleasant degree of depth and warmth.

Oberst's lyrics are as strong and evocative as they've ever been, even as he moves on from his iconic self-degradation to harsh criticism of both religion and government. Advance single "Four Winds" is unusually and insidiously catchy for a Bright Eyes song, and thus has the potential to win over a throng of new fans.


Bright Eyes - "Four Winds"
In spite of Oberst's clear maturation as a musical craftsman, however, Cassadaga won't please every Bright Eyes fan. Don't pick up the new album with hopes of hearing any of Oberst's signature off-key pleading or compulsive musical indulgences – he's cleaned up his music quite a bit. While Lifted-era Bright Eyes was best played in the lonely seclusion of your high school bedroom, Cassadaga's sultry inoffensiveness could easily find a home in your mother's stereo.

Around the time of I'm Wide Awake, Conor figured out what his limits were, and Cassadaga works well within those boundaries. Before that point, Oberst pushed and strained with overly ambitious ideas that were just beyond his grasp, leading to the fevered, imperfect masterpieces Fevers and Mirrors and Lifted. To many Bright Eyes fans, the pitched failures on these albums only accentuated the brilliant successes and gave Oberst's music a refreshing degree of humanity. Imperfection is inherent to all of us, and Oberst once embraced this fact more than any other popular musician.

Of course, this is exactly why many people never liked Bright Eyes to begin with. His ambitiousness was frequently written off as overwrought pretension, and many found his cracking adolescent yowl endlessly annoying. Those critics will be pleasantly surprised by Cassadaga, as Oberst has shed those aspects of his music. Cassadaga is less a reflection of Oberst's heart and more a reflection of his musicianship.

The ironic thing is that as Oberst gains more confidence in his musical ability, his work loses the neurotic insecurities that earned him his earliest fans. It's depressing to think that at the tender young age of 27, Oberst is already losing his edge.

Nonetheless, Cassadaga is a solid entry in the Bright Eyes discography and has a good chance of winning Oberst even more fans than he had before. Be sure to recommend this album to your mother, but that kid with the black eyeliner has doubtless moved on to the next underground emo sensation.

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2007/apr/19/bright-eyes-cleans-up-his-sound-but-loses-his-edge/

Fall Out Boy - "Thnks fr th Mmrs"

Ostensibly, the music video for Fall Out Boy's "Thnks fr th Mmrs" is about the band's growing disillusionment with the record industry. Music executives, represented by orangutans and chimpanzees, manipulate and compromise the band throughout the entire video. But is Fall Out Boy really worried about losing its image to the corporate world? Blatant product placement for body sprays and cell phones suggests otherwise.

Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWHf_vYZzQ8

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2007/apr/12/the-pulse23936/

Timbaland - Timbaland Presents: Shock Value

Between Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous" and Justin Timberlake's three #1 hits, 2006 was a banner year for Timbaland's slick, futuristic production. In fact, you could hardly turn on the radio without hearing one of his latest hits.

Given this astronomical success, you can imagine the excitement of major-label executives when Timbaland announced his first solo disc in nearly a decade. Not only does the disc feature his incredibly popular beats, but there's also an all-star cast of guest vocalists. Everybody from 50 Cent to M.I.A. to Justin Timberlake to Fall Out Boy to Nelly Furtado to The Hives to Elton John was willing to spit on his tracks. Holy shit! Is Top 40 radio ready for this?!

Indeed, when it comes to popular music, Timbaland Presents: Shock Value delivers on its promise. Almost every last one of Tim's latest tracks could, conceivably, be a hit. Were the album's tracks divided into individual singles and slowly released over the course of the next two years, it's likely that almost all would worm their way into the Billboard 100.

Listening to all these songs at once, however, deadens their individual impact. At first listen, it's difficult to tell one song apart from the next -- Timbaland's consistent musical aesthetic makes each track sound much like the last. This is particularly problematic in the case of Shock Value, which features no fewer than 17 tracks in a row. It may require several listens for one to appreciate each track's individual strengths and weaknesses. Luckily, such efforts are worth it. Shock Value finds Timbaland's production skills to be in top form.

There isn't a weak beat to be found on Shock Value, though some songs will certainly stand out from the pack. "Way I Are," in spite of its atrocious grammar, is easily one of the most danceable songs released so far this year. Advance single "Give It to Me" showcases one of Timbaland's most seductive club beats to date. "Bombay" is an excellent and surprisingly successful fusion of traditional Indian music and slick hip-hop. "Apologize" is an oddly compelling combination of melodramatic Coldplay-pop melody and a catchy R&B rhythm section. "Bounce" is a fuzzy power-bass monster that will doubtless shatter a few dance floors in the future.


Timbaland - "The Way I Are" (feat. Keri Hilson & D.O.E.)
Still, Shock Value will never sit quite right if you take the time to listen to the lyrics. Timbaland's slick, well-realized beats do little to mask a dearth of lyrical content. No matter how good a song's production is, there is almost nothing that can mask the worthless nature of lines like "Bounce/ like your ass had the hiccups", or "I piss and take a shit on your beat for fun."

In fact, most every line in Shock Value is cringe-worthy. Timbaland seems to have nothing to talk about except sex and how endlessly awesome he is compared to everybody else. Sure, it's great to hear Justin Timberlake stutter, "If sexy never left/ then why's everybody on my shit?", but that single amusing line hardly compensates for the rest of the schlock that permeates Shock Value. Then again, we live in the era of "Fergalicious." These days, the message behind your music is hardly a factor in your success, and it's not going to hold a power producer like Timbaland back.

When you finish listening to the album and peel your headphones off, it becomes apparent that Shock Value is a bit of a misnomer. Timbaland's latest doesn't really shock at all. Rather, it's the kind of album that you'd come to expect from one of hip-hop's greatest connoisseurs: a collection of catchy, radio-friendly tunes. Somewhere, an Interscope executive is getting a raise.

Originally published for the Cavalier Daily:
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2007/apr/12/a-slew-of-catchy-hits-but-little-shock-value/