Hell is for Children -- The 2020 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Class

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, that beacon of overindulgence, has struck out once again.

This year’s inductees, with all due respect to Nine Inch Nails, are the wonkiest group ever selected by the increasingly out of touch voting board. Along with NIN, the Hall will induct singer Whitney Houston, rapper Notorious B.I.G, Depeche Mode, the Doobie Brothers and T. Rex.

One of the most important aspects that should be considered by voters is range of influence. Any band that heralds in a new branch of genre should instantly get in. Nine Inch Nails took the destructive power of metal and added to it gothic overtones and self-loathing to solidify industrial rock into the mainstream. He mixed in dub beats and soundscapes to heavy riffs and his aching scream.

Nails’ head, Trent Reznor, has quietly become this generation’s most influential artist, second only to maybe Thom Yorke of Radiohead.

Trent Reznor. Photo courtesy Spin.com.

While Nine Inch Nails has become a touring institution, Reznor has expanded the group’s sound with releases like Ghosts I-IV, Hesitation Marks and Bad Witch and won an Oscar and Grammy for one of his many Hollywood soundtracks. He’s even responsible for the two wimpy guitar strums on the intro for that goddamn song “Old Time Road” by Lil Nas X. (Banging my head on the desk trying to wipe away the image of Reznor inducting little Nas X into the Rock Hall in 2025.)

T-Rex is an obvious lock, conceiving glam rock. Depeche Mode carved their spot at the top of moody synth-based rock in the 80s and are one of those groups with intense fandom.

 

Then we turn to Whitney Houston and the Notorious B.I.G., the acts furthest from the ethos of rock.

Can't help but think they were largely included for their sensational untimely deaths. But I also wonder if they were picked simply to appease the growing calls of "more diversity" that rages from all quarters of Twitter when awards season rolls around. Not against all-inclusion in any sense, but what about these two artists have anything to do with rock and roll? 

The Notorious B.I.G. Photo courtesy of AnswersAfrica.

Houston’s big hit song was for a soundtrack. Her career went cold for a decade before overdosing on cocaine at a pre-Grammys party. Cocaine overdose is pretty rock and roll, but surely not the reason she’s in. B.I.G. was one of the great lyricists of rap’s heyday, an unmistakable delivery, but other than his murder being a Dateline episode I don’t see the rock and roll connection. But, hey, he’d be a first-ballot entry in the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame, which should expand beyond a museum.

Rappers in the Rock Hall was always a big question leading up to the late-70s eligibility period.

Should they or shouldn’t they? The first hip-hop entry was Afrika Bambaataa--the innovator DJ spinning records in the Bronx in the late-70s when NYC was engulfed in punk, disco and new wave. The Beastie Boys started out as a punk band and used rock, metal and punk samples in a way that had never been done before. Their first album is basically rock with some drunk shouting over it. Run DMC deserves the honor for sampling “Walk this Way” by Aerosmith and collaborating with the band. These early acts all have some significant tie to rock music’s history. It pretty much stops there, but every year there’s representation of the genre.

And if this induction garners more significance posthumously, like it seems with Houston and Biggie, then where is the love for Motörhead, MC5 and Thin Lizzy? Motörhead started out in England mid-70s and took what Black Sabbath was doing and sped it up. “Lemmy” Kilmister was the grisliest frontman and clenched the title until his death in 2015.

MC5 live. Photo courtesy of Riot Fest.

MC5 was part of the Detroit-area proto-punk scene of the late-60s, early-70s.

Like Hendrix or the Stooges, they were only around for a blip, but their influence has wide reach. Lead singer Rob Tyner and guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith, who married Patti Smith, both passed in the early-90s; bassist Michael Davis, in 2012. From Dublin, Ireland, Thin Lizzy wrote some of the best drinking-on-a-Saturday-with-friends music in the 70s and were productive with 12 albums before bassist and lead vocalist Phil Lyncott passed in 1986.

The other nominees this year were Kraftwerk, Rufus featuring Chaka Khan, Soundgarden, Judas Priest, Dave Matthews Band, Pat Benatar and Todd Rundgren, who was nominated for the second consecutive time. What’s the hesitation? Rundgren didn’t only have some of the strongest hits of the 70s, he formed the prog-rock group Utopia, produced classic albums, wrote “Bang the Drum All Day,” and has experimented with his sound ever since.

Todd Rundgren live. Photo courtesy of Guitar Tricks.

The Doobie Brothers are a total throw-in, but in this group appear to be the only current live band, along with Depeche Mode.

So it’s 2020 and we’re celebrating rock and roll with the Doobies as the main act? Hopefully their cruise ship will dock in time for the show. Nothing against the group, they’ve kept at it over 40 years, but maybe the Hall should have a second annual show that is just every great forgotten act of the 60s and 70s.

Each year becomes more of a hodgepodge of acts that have little to do with each other. Eligibility for the nomination is 25 years from an act’s first official release. That currently puts us in the year 1995. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Radiohead, Metallica, Nirvana and Pearl Jam have been inducted, but were sort of the resident 90s act each time.

How cool would it be to have a year with Sonic Youth, the Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins, Soundgarden, Beck, Kate Bush and Rage Against the Machine all enshrined?

It’d be such an iconic representation of a slice of music history instead of this fucking amalgam of artists from all over the decades. This would bring back the spectacle of collaboration that used to be the Final Megajam. Maybe this year we’ll get the Doobies doing a yacht rock take on “Head Like A Hole,” with Reznor shouting, “I’d rather die than give you control.”

Oh well, it’s all bullshit anyways. Hope the winners have a ball on Jann Wenner's last dime.

REVIEW: "ANTI" by Rihanna

Rihanna Turns in a

Near Classic With ANTI

Meanwhile, in another part of the pop stratosphere, RiRi season has begun. The eighth album from Rihanna, ANTI, arrived quietly in late January. There was more written about the nauseating album cover with a Chloe Mitchell poem printed in braille. The music’s pretty good, too.

   ANTI opens with "Consideration," a loose neck-swiveler that sets the tone for the album's first half. It's nice to hear Rihanna give the assist to SZA, a sister-in-arms and a singer equally deserving to reach the same heights. Their voices move around each other in an uneven orbit. SZA bellowing beautifully bent notes. Rihanna soaring in an upward swing.

   A soft muted organ clambers on "James Joint," a loosie before things get serious. "Kiss It Better" chisels through the speakers. I can picture Rihanna walking down a black staircase in black heels and black skirt to the opening. Fireworks sparkle in the background as stunted Eighties rock ballad lead guitar burrows into your head. Rihanna sings about a relationship where the bad gets swept under the bed. Emotion pumps from her voice no how many times it's processed and layered. 

   The first single, "Work," has made its way across the oceans with two different videos and a saucy performance on the BRIT Awards. Love the song. Though, I barely know what Rihanna's singing, or if she's singing anything in any language. Not sure, but it gets catchier as time goes on. It's one of her best singles. Drake is usually good for a guest verse and here he gives the necessary phrases. "Work" is their third single together following "Take Care" and "What’s My Name?"

   "Woo" reminds me of the Bjork song "Pluto" off Homogenic. Rihanna sings against a coarse electronic tremble that does not let up the entire song. I'd love to hear her move more in this direction. Maybe let Trent Reznor put her voice through the greater. Then, just when you think it can't any more vicious, Rihanna screams, "I don't mean to really luh you / I don't mean to really care about you no more." 

   Next, on "Needed Me," she gets cold with an ex-lover over a simple beat and an expanding wah-wah. When Rihanna sing, it's in a downward spiral. "Didn't they tell you that I was a savage? / fuck your white horse and your carriage." Somewhere an ex is crying in his beer in a dark bar. "Yeah, I Said It" resets the tone. The breath of Rihanna's vocals cloud both speakers in daydream tripping fantasy. 

   Then comes the curveball: a painfully straight-forward version of Tame Impala's "New Person, Same Old Mistakes," off 2015's Currents. Retitled here as, "Same Ol' Mistakes," this version is so similar I wonder if Rihanna didn't just kareoke over the instrumental version of the original. The band gets production credits, so who knows. The song's decent enough so, fine, but somehow, it’s even longer than the original. 

   Coupled with the next song, "Never Ending," the album begins to drag a little. The final few songs are big syrupy ballads. Her vocals soar to such great, soul-baring heights and while, there's nothing wrong with that, it's just not my mug of wine. 

   ANTI is an almost-classic from Rihanna. From song-to-song it dips and crashes through many different styles, some all her own, some borrowed. It's been billed as a break from form for the Barbadian singer and it mostly is, but the second half of the album plays it safe. I long for her powerful voice to find its way into the very outer extensions of where R&B can go.

Key Tracks: "Work," "Woo," "Needed Me," "Consideration," "Kiss It Better"

source: http://imp

Review: "...Like Clockwork" by Queens Of The Stone Age

QOTSA get hard and soft on rock and roll classic

     God, it feels good when that first strike of sludge guitar hits on Queens Of The Stone Age’s new album, …Like Clockwork. First track, “Keep Your Eyes Peeled,” travels at a lowly lurk, like carefully stepping through a graveyard at night. Frontman Josh Homme takes deep painful stabs on his downtuned guitar while distressed ghouls crank away in the background.

     It’s been a while since QOTSA have released new music. Since 2007′s mighty, bare-knuckled Era Vulgaris, Homme has been driving, red-eyed and burnt, through the California desert. He fronted the superb, eye-gouging Them Crooked Vultures with Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones and old pal Dave Grohl on drums and dropped a third Eagles Of Death Metal record.

     Now, Homme returns with old Queens’ players in tow, but has lassoed an army of friends, old and new. Grohl is here performing on a majority of the songs, founding bassist Nick Oliveri returns for one and Mark Lanegan, Homme’s wife Brody Dalle and Trent Reznor all contribute, while Jake Shears from Scissor Sisters, Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys and, yes, Elton John add their heft to the record.

     The tempo shifts from song to song. The second track and head-bobber, “I Sat By The Ocean,” is the most overtly Queens-sounding with those slithering, braying guitars. “The Vampyre Of Time And Memory” slows way down, each measure strung together with ominous keyboard and fat synthesizer. At first “Kolpsia” throws the listener for a loop, sounding like a pasty dream, but then flaps open into a hotbox of feedback and 90′s riffage. A beautiful melody is pitted against Homme’s gnarled scowl and somewhere in the mix is Reznor on vocals, but it’s hard to pick him out.

     Homme’s drugged, careless snarl is in full effect on the record’s best song, “If I Had A Tail.” “I wanna suck, I wanna lick, I wanna cry, I wanna spit. Tears of pleasure, tears of pain, they trickle down your face the same,” he sings along to the bump. An undeniable boogie is at work here. It instantly picks the body up and soon you’ll be reaching for a bottle of whiskey and car keys.

     A great clamped-down energy controls “Smooth Sailing.” Homme finds himself at the bottom looking upwards, not giving two fucks about what comes next. “I’m burning bridges, I destroyed the mirage,” he sings, before offering a classic line only he could erect: “I blow my load over the status quo.” Lyrics like that, well, they just don’t come very often. The album then descends into the spectral “I Appear Missing,” where lost souls go hammering back into the dirt.

     It’s devastatingly obvious Grohl and Homme are on the same rhythmic wavelength. One of the greatest drummers playing today, Grohl, holds these songs down with his consistent punch and full force rolling crescendos that just fucking explode through the speakers. The results of these two rock and roll hemoglobins is achingly satisfying. As a drummer, it’s impossible not to air drum wherever you are.

     A steady, plodding piano from John finishes out the record on the title track. It brings out an emotional response heavier than any other Queens song before it. “Everyone it seems has somewhere to go,” Homme swoons, “the faster the world spins, the shorter the lights will grow.” It’s not all drug-taking, car-racing, lip-smacking, but down in the dirt reflection, too.

     As the title may suggest, this album is another chip off the ol’ Queens Of The Stone Age block. It begins and ends with the grave, with slight detours in the middle of spirits rising and circulating. Homme feathers his vocals a little more and soundscapes creep in, but once it begins to sound too pretty, there is an off-note, a pinged sharp, that uglies it. …Like Clockwork is a borderline masterpiece of swampy rock and roll.

Key Tracks: "If I Had A Tail," "Smooth Sailing," "I Appear Missing," "My God Is The Sun"

from: Independent Music Promotions