The Severed Cortex

I'm way behind on all the music I've bought. At this point I think I'm at least a dozen CD's behind and while these two releases deserve a post all by themselves, I've come to the conclusion that if I'm going to write about all of them I should group them into logical chunks. The only things logically linking these two releases is that they both came out in 2007 and both made my top 5 best CD's purchased last year. Well, then again both releases do have a wide range of song styles that each pull off amazingly well, which is probably the main reason these two get grouped together by me.

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga by Spoon

Terrible title for a CD? Perhaps. Great name for a band though, since the name Spoon connotes a lot of different meanings. Perhaps even a plethora of meanings. And from that plethora of meanings comes a plethora of songs of various genres. I have to admit that in the past I've never really gotten Spoon. They've been around for almost 10 years now, but every time I've tried to listen to them I've always come away empty handed. For me, it seemed like they were just trying way too hard to create that one magic pop song and 99% of the time they came up short. I expected the same thing when this was released mid 2007, but the first thing I heard from it, You Got 'Yr Cherry Bomb, perked my ears up. Here was a meaningless throwaway pop song, which is what pop songs should be if you ask me, that had all the characteristics of what it takes to get a commercially successful single, which isn't necessarily a benchmark one should strive for if you again ask me. But then again despite my deep seeded need to know about bands that you've never heard of, I do think that commercial success should be given where it's due and not just doled out to the moronic stuff that seems to fill the radio airwaves. And then after Cherry Bomb I heard nothing else. OK, so Spoon managed to get one decent pop song out of the hundred or so they've released and no one paid attention. It happens all the time right? Decent songs get overlooked for the latest American Idol runner up drivel. And had that been the end of it I would have never looked at this release again.
But a couple of months ago I happened to catch a SNL repeat where Spoon was the musical guest. During the music segment they came out and played The Underdog, which I thought was an even better pop song than You Got 'Yr Cherry Bomb. How could this be? Why hadn't I heard The Underdog before? It had great hooks, it was over and done with in the requisite 3 1/2 minutes or less (roughly), and the lyrics had a much deeper meaning than one might guess from a throwaway pop song. Oh yeah, and it had horns too, which is a sure fire way to get me to like a song. I was more than intrigued so I gave it the once through. What I found is that every song on this release is a gem. Ok, maybe the iTunes issue 'bonus track' is a stinker, but the other ten songs are fantastic. In fact, I think Black Like Me and the dub/reggae infused Eddie's Ragga may be the best two tracks, the former sounding more like the Spoon I've heard before except that you can feel that their soul is inspired, something I personally found missing from their previous stuff.
So what's the difference in this one? For me it just seems like they didn't nitpick the songs to death, a sentiment I've felt in their past music. Of course, I have no empirical evidence to back that up. Simple seems to make the best, longest lasting songs and these songs aren't what I would call your typical 3 chord simple, but it does seem like they didn't labor for hours and hours trying to tweak and add layer after layer. They had an idea, they built a form, they recorded it and then moved on without sacrificing the feeling that the songs were hastily slapped together. I look forward to their next release, but in the meantime I'll be playing this one a lot.

The Blakes by The Blakes

This release blew me away. Of course when the first song starts out with the sound of plugging in to an amp that's about to be pushed to its limit, and also contains the lyric You Think I'm Two Time Doin' You Wrong (with) Cocaine, and Drugs, and Alcohol, you know it's going to be a fun rock and roll ride. I knew very little about The Blakes and honestly I don't know a whole lot about them now. What I do know is that without Jack White and his main musical vehicle The White Stripes, a band like this wouldn't get many looks. But everyone is wise now to the gems one can find while panning through those artists whose music flows much closer to the channel of what rock and roll truly is. Those who 'get it'. While The Blakes are derivative of that (insert label: garage/roots/punk) genre of music, they certainly have carved out their own niche within. You can make rock and roll whatever you want it to be, but the core of it remains in the loud, simple, rebelliousness from whence it came, be that Country/Blues/Bluegrass/etc. Simple is good. And in your face is good too. And a lot of times when the two are put together you might forget that bobbing your head up and down to the beat makes you look somewhat Neanderthal. Or restated, simple.
Don't think that you're going to get a lot of deep topics here. Nothing is more rebellious than sex and drugs and rock and roll, and no matter how many times I'm told I never tire of hearing it. The Blakes repeat theat mantra throughout the whole release with plenty of overt references to the all of the above; sometimes in the same song and especially so in the first two. From there the band shows its chops by bending different genres and doing them well. Seventies psychydelia punk is represented on Magoo, replete with goofy, nonsense chorus lyric. Run and Lint Walk seem, to me, to be an homage to the early works of one of my all time favorite bands, The Cure, and every time I hear them I feel as if I've just been dropped into a John Hughes movie circa 1986. Commit has a post punk early 80's feel to it, and I could go on ad nauseum (as if I haven't already) with my interpretation of songs. The point is that The Blakes are indeed derivative. They're derivative of the type of bands that have seemed to spring forth from nowhere like Interpol, or The Strokes, or The Hives (before they found commercial success to be more to their liking). But once again you can't say The Blakes are directly copying these predecessors. They borrow from it and put their own stamp on it as if to say, Hey, cool, but you could also play it like this too.

Eponymously named releases are supposed to capture the basic spirit of what a band is about rather than the sound they might have during a given period of time or a concept on a full length. If that standard is held to, and rarely does it ever seem to be, you always know that an eponymous release gives you a little bit of everything. Despite the fact this is The Blakes first and only release, this is one of the rare ones that might be named correctly. So, ten years from now when you hear a Blakes song on whatever horse shit commercial you're desperately trying to TiVo through, you can come back to this release to get an idea of what the band is all about.