Review - Simpsons Oral History by John Ortved

By now The Simpsons is among the most predictable institutions in America. Not in the sense that the show is boring or unsurprising – though many will argue that it is – but predictable in that, after two decades, it’s still on the air every week with new episodes Sunday night at eight o’clock. Like baseball or the Ramones, The Simpsons has come to be synonymous with America.

That wasn’t always the case, obviously, and when the series began it success was anything but assured. That hectic period is at the heart of The Simpsons: An Unauthorized, Uncensored History, a 300-plus page oral history that began two years ago as a Vanity Fair piece. Drawing from extensive interviews with cast members, current and former writers (including Conan O’Brien, Wallace Wolodarsky, George Meyer and others) and loveable Aussie billionaire Rupert Murdoch, the book was also done without the participation of principals such as Matt Groening, James L. Brooks and Sam Simon, forcing Ortved to rely on outside sources (primarily quotes from print and broadcast interviews) and the word of the dozens of others interviewed for the project.

While several other books have catalogued the show’s impact on television, culture and American life (as well as multiple other topics), the focus here is almost entirely historical. Ortved goes to great pains investigating the relationship between Brooks, Groening and Simon and how that led to Simon’s departure from the show after Season Four. Also of note are the extended sections detailing the differing dynamics of the show as run by Simon, Al Jean and others.

This being a history, however, readers should note that the material is infinitely more detailed on the early seasons, with the last decade barely glanced at in comparison. (The Simpsons Movie gets a moderate amount of ink, but less so than one might expect for a project that took more than 15 years to make it to the screen). As Ortved says at the outset, if you’re looking to learn about what happened behind the scenes during Season 16, you’ll be better served by DVD commentaries.

The book loses much of its steam in the second half but, to be fair, an upstart show on a fledgling network that’s successful beyond anyone’s wildest dreams is an inherently more interesting topic than an established commodity. Even so, Ortved’s account is remarkably thorough, witty and stands as likely the best Simpsons volume we’ll see for some time to come.

(Originally posted to Under The Radar, 12/16/09)

Best of 2009

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Best of 2009, in no particular order:

Woods - Songs of Shame
Monsters of Folk - s/t
Telekinesis - Telekinesis!
Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications
Morrissey - Years of Refusal
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - s/t
The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Communion
Faunts - Feel.Love.Thinking.Of

Honorable Mention:

Flight of the Conchords - I Told You I Was Freaky
The XX - xx
Regina Spektor - Far
Bishop Allen - Grrr...
Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
They Might Be Giants - Here Comes Science
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Built To Spill - There Is No Enemy
Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band - s/t
Real Estate - s/t

2010...
**new Spoon album - it's great!
**full-length from Brown Recluse! buy their EP now and get in on the ground floor!
**even more Susan Boyle! (just kidding!)
**as always, some bullshit i've never even heard of but will fall ass over feet in love with!

Album of the Decade: The Strokes - "Is This It"

The very notion of a hyped band means said group is unlikely to live up to that hype, and few bands in the last 10 years received more of it than the Strokes. Eight years after the release of Is This It, the buzz may have faded and the band may have splintered a bit, but the music remains as compelling as it was in the fall of 2001.

Perhaps no band since the Beatles has served as such a template for the way in which popular music was perceived throughout the rest of its decade. In the initial years after that first record, nearly every upstart group of bed-headed would-be garage rockers was positioned as Strokes disciples: The Hives? Swedish Strokes. The White Stripes? Bluesy, sibling Strokes. Kings of Leon? Southern Strokes. The Bravery? Synth Strokes. (And that's not even going into the untold numbers of blatant rip-off artists pilfering the New Yorkers' sound and style that have since been forgotten.) Sure, a lot of that was journalistic laziness, but the band still served as a critical template (and high-water mark) for the way much of the garage-influenced rock spewed forth circa 2001 - 2005 was perceived. Seemingly every new rock band came to be seen as either a vindication of the Strokes' back-to-basics style and/or a repudiation of the late '90s rap-metal jackassery that carried into the new decade.

If there's a prevailing mood on the disc, it's a mix of disenchantment, disengagement and old-fashioned just-don't-give-a-shit. None of that's a surprise considering the late '90s/early '00s culture that preceded the record's release - and the opening title track conveys that with its hazy chorus and middling pace. Hell, the disc opens with an exasperated "Can't you see I'm trying?" But, like their forbearers in the Velvet Underground, the Strokes set their fuzzed-out malaise to inescapable melodies and arrangements, like the radio-ready "Soma" or the bouncy, oldies-tinged "Someday," all while accompanied by guitar lines pulled from the Television playbook. By the time "Take It or Leave It" rolls around to close out the album - with frontman Julian Casablancas straining his vocal chords in hollering out the final chorus - you can almost feel the exasperation. It's tiresome business, after all, trying to give a damn - especially when you just don't have it in you. Still, a bad attitude rarely sounded so good.

It's been recently announced that not only will the Strokes start touring again in early 2010, but they may release a new record as well. At this point, nobody expects them to save rock 'n' roll - and, really, isn't rock 'n' roll the kind of thing that's beyond saving anyway? Would it be any fun if anybody actually did? - but at least they'll still be around to show the next anointed savior just how it's done.

(Originally posted to Spectrum Culture, 12/14/09)

Review: Paul McCartney - "Good Evening New York City"

Regardless of your budget, Paul McCartney seems determined to stuff himself in your stocking one way or another this holiday season, either by way of The Beatles: Rock Band (which will set you back about $50), Fab Four reissues (running about $18 each) or Good Evening New York City, a two-CD/one-DVD set averaging $15.

Showcasing McCartney's opening shows at New York's Citi Field, Good Evening is pretty much what you'd expect; a lengthy greatest-hits retrospective chock-full of a whole lot o' Beatles (more than half of the entire set and the entire second disc). The whole affair is billed as historic, what with the Beatles' epic '60s Shea Stadium performance, and there's certainly merriment here to mark the occasion, but one has to wonder how much this varies from any other McCartney show - does he not put out nearly three hours of classics at any other show?

In spite of its virtues, it's by no means a perfect set, in part because McCartney's voice isn't near what it used to be and has a strained quality for much of the recording. Some Beatles tracks - in particular, showstoppers like "Hey Jude" and "Get Back" come off strong, whereas many songs suffer from overly beefed-up arrangements. Just because of the way four decades wear on and tear at vocal chords, much of the more recent material comes across better, almost to the point where it'd be nice to get more Wings and recent solo material. Ironically, the records he's ostensibly promoting - 2005's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard and 2007's weaker Memory Almost Full - get little more than a cursory glance. Then again, who goes to a McCartney show to hear new songs?

In addition to three fully-loaded discs, the package also comes with notes by veteran music scribe Michael Azerrad (Our Band Could Be Your Life). All told, it's a solid set and certainly a value, considering the low asking price. And if you can't afford to give McCartney concert tickets - and, in this economy, who can? - then this is at least a decent substitute.

(Originally posted to Spectrum Culture 12/14/09)

Review: "The Essential 'Weird Al' Yankovic"

If you’re inclined to look down on the concept of “essential” “Weird Al,” don’t.

In a career spanning nearly 30 years, Weird Al has surpassed the Dr. Demento show that spawned him as a cultural institution; survived and thrived while the artists he’s parodied have faded to obscurity; stayed consistently funny while SNL continues to tank; and become a modern musical icon to rival just about any other of his time, so widely recognized that even your mom knows who he is.

So why not an Essential collection, then?

The two-disc set – selected entirely by the man himself – comprises 38 tracks from across Weird Al’s career, wisely splitting the difference between straight-up parodies (“Another One Rides The Bus,” “Fat,” “Canadian Idiot” and more) and originals and style-parodies. It’s a smart move, since two discs of non-stop parodies would quickly grow stale. The chronological sequencing also gives a fairly nice overview of the past 30 years of popular music (filtered through Al’s distinct sensibility, of course).

There’s certainly some notable omissions here, but mostly on the early end of his career – it’s disappointing not to see “Ricky” (originally Toni Basil’s “Hey Mickey”) and slasher movie tribute “Nature Trail To Hell” left off, while tracks like “Bedrock Anthem” (originally the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give It Away”) and “The Saga Begins” (Star Wars, to the tune of Don McLean’s “American Pie”) made the cut.

Among the standouts, however is “Don’t Download This Song,” a “We Are The World”-style screed against filesharing that serves as essential listening for anyone who thought Weird Al may have jumped the shark. Nice to see that three decades into his career he hasn’t much changed the formula. Then again, there’s little need to reinvent yourself when mocking the changes in popular music is your job description.

(Originally posted to Under The Radar 12/8/09)

Review: Chuck Klosterman - "Eating The Dinosaur"

After a collection of previously-published essays and taking an ill-advised stab at fiction, Chuck Klosterman’s latest offering gets back to what he does best, but it all feels a little too familiar.

In Eating The Dinosaur, Klosterman once again takes the position of all-encompassing cultural commentator, riffing on Abba, Garth Brooks, Kurt Cobain and David Koresh, time travel and more. Composed of a collection of un-related essays, Dinosaur ostensibly replicates 2002’s Sex Drugs & Cocoa Puffs, inexplicably Klosterman’s best-selling title to date (as he himself admitted in a 2008 Borders.com interview). If the book is “about” anything at all, it’s a dual treatise on the nature of authenticity and the way we as a society make meaning out of shared media experiences.

The problem, among others, is that Klosterman is at his best when sticking to one subject and following that thread throughout a book, as he did with hair metal in Fargo Rock City and dead rock stars in Killing Yourself To Live.

Despite some successful moments – particularly essays on time travel and Garth Brooks, respectively – the book unsuccessfully tackles some pet projects rather than sticking with what’s tried and true: the introductory essay on the nature of interviewing falls flat and belabors its point, and the author twice delves deep into sports – a topic he admits much of his readership doesn’t give a shit about.

There’s enough winning moments here to make it worth a read, but at this point Klosterman is enough of a known quantity that he can do just about whatever he wants (see: Downtown Owl) and his fans will still buy it.

(Also posted to Under The Radar, 12/7/09)