Piano Got Back

"I like piano baselines and I cannot lie ... you other brothers can't deny..."

In general, I love the songs from the Top 40. But through the years I’ve also developed my own Top 40 list, with a few songs deviating from the norm. In general, these are songs which feature an aesthetic influenced by the piano. A song with a strong piano background will stay on my charts for weeks, months or years longer than it stays on the Top 40, if it was ever there to begin with.

Ironically, I don’t always like the songs that much, but a strong piano part can make up for a lot. Here are some of the most notable that have won their way to my heart:

Listen to Your Heart (DHT)

Bad Day (Daniel Powter)

Boston (Augustana)

Piano Man (Billy Joel – Duh)

Walking in Memphis (Marc Cohn)

The Scientist (Coldplay)

How to Save a Life (The Fray)

Poker Face (Lady Gaga’s acoustic version)

Someone Like You (Adèle)

Give Me Everything (Pitbull, Ne-Yo, Afrojack & Nayer)

Not Over You (Gavin DeGraw)

Give Me Everything is one song that I don’t even like that much, but I love the fact that it starts off with heavy piano chords. A good baseline covers a multitude of sins.

Listen to Your Heart, Bad Day and How to Save a Life are three favorites that had a lot of influence on my musical education. I took piano lessons until I was 15, at which point I stopped and began teaching other kids in the neighborhood because it paid better than babysitting. I stopped learning new songs on my own, somewhat burned out after 8 years of lessons. But when I started tuning in to the songs on the radio featuring this aesthetic, things changed. I started searching for the most challenging sheet music versions of these songs and polished up on my technique. My little brother and I would give concerts together, he singing the high parts (yes, this was before his voice changed) and me working through the sheet music I’d downloaded for $3.95 in a gleeful online shopping spree.

My little brother, who has always had more talent for picking a tune out by ear, began learning the piano parts for songs we couldn’t find online, such as The Scientist, after he stopped lessons. In fact, he got more excited about studying piano only after he stopped his lessons, due entirely to his surging interest in artists like Coldplay.  

The piano fascinates me because it can create such a wide spectrum of sounds and thus play such different roles in popular music – at one extreme it serves as the soft and contemplative accompaniment to a simple song like in Listen to Your Heart, or complementary to Daniel Powter’s crooning in Bad Day, and at the other end it’s a slightly more organic version of the synthesizer, providing the beat and the baseline at the same time.

Of course there’s a whole world of Classical music written for the piano, and at some points in my life that has also inspired me to pursue my musical education further, but contemporary Top 40s have always had a much stronger pull on me than anything I’ve overheard squeaking out of my dad’s Bose headphones.

I always tended to worship the artists who appreciated the piano more than other members of pop culture, although now I wonder how many of them truly intended for the piano to play such an important part, or if it’s just a result of mediation. With songs like The Scientist, it seems much more authentic than in Gavin DeGraw’s Not Over You. Regardless, I still enjoy and have always enjoyed a strong piano riff in my personal Top 40s. 

Time After Old Time

Right before the school year began, I had the opportunity to attend the world’s oldest and largest Old Fiddler’s convention in Galax, Va. This year’s bluegrass and Old Time music festival was the 76^th annual, and like every year before it was held in Felts Park, in the center of a tiny Appalachian foothills town.

I’ve always been a fan of toe-tappin’ music of any kind, and bluegrass has been in my home for many years, especially since my younger brothers started to learn to play the fiddle from an Old Time fiddling enthusiast. But going to this convention opened my eyes to the culture that creates bluegrass.  Like all musical scenes, old time fiddle draws deeply from its geographical home, which is centered in the area between Pilot Mountain, N.C. and Galax.

Old Time music is unique in that by definition, the songs played must be part of the canon of recognizable tunes that have existed for centuries. Thus for Old Time musicians, the concept of authenticity is skewed. It’s not about creating a new tune from the 12 available tones; it’s about displaying your skill and personality through your performance of a familiar old tune.

I hadn’t really learned to appreciate this aspect of Old Time music until arriving in Galax – seeing hundreds of RVs and tents packed into a 28-acre athletic park with every spare inch turned into a temporary home. Checked table cloths covered picnic tables surrounded by folding chairs encircling portable charcoal grills. We didn’t have cell service, which meant we had to rely on primitive communication methods and planning – imagine that – only adding to the feeling of stepping back in time.

As I walked up and down the cozy aisles with my brothers as they looked for their teacher, the chilly air was filled with banjo, fiddle, dobro, guitar and dulcimer music blended with scratchy voices singing lyrics that have been passed down through generations. From overhearing my brothers’ lessons I recognized many of the tunes, and was able to appreciate the variations in style and instrumentation among the different jam sessions scattered through the park.

Although I was only able to stay for two days of the festival and thus only saw the youth competition, which my brothers competed in, and the mandolin and dobro competitions, I gleaned a lot about this musical scene that I never appreciated before. For starters, the very fact that at the world’s largest old time fiddle convention there is a youth competition for those under age 14 impressed me. Youngsters of any skill level stood up on the same stage that fiddle masters and world-class old time and bluegrass bands would take later in the week. The audience, although only a fraction of the size it would be later in the week, still paid the same respects to the novice banjo players as it would to a veteran who had played on the back porch for 30 years.

This level playing field and sense of equal opportunity for all old time music lovers was really heart-warming, and telling about the music. Galax demonstrated that every old time artist has something to bring to the table to enhance the musical tradition, be it is the barest plucking of a basic tune from a banjo or a medley bowed at breakneck pace on a fiddle.

Surrounded by plaid, overalls, long scruffy beards and chewing tobacco, it was hard to believe anything about this scene could have looked any different 30 years ago. And for that matter I doubt it will look any different in 30 years. The town will hopefully eventually get cell service and the McDonalds’ might also be joined by a Wendy’s, but the music will stay the same.

Karaoke culture

Every Tuesday Night at Kildare’s Irish Pub, a local musical community congregates to participate in a therapeutic ritual. The conductor: a greasy DJ. The choir: harried college students and uptight professionals. The occasion: karaoke night.

Seeking to escape from the highbrow tastes of academia, this community finds respite in $2 drafts and timeless tunes belted at the top of their lungs.

The twenty-or-so attendees spread out through the bar, keeping a safe distance from the faces they recognize from the stage, but with whom they have not yet breached the acquaintance wall.

They’re all here for the common purpose of more deeply interacting with the music they love in a no-strings-attached environment. They’re more preoccupied with picking their next song than thinking about it, but they’re all here to enjoy an unmediated, purely authentic musical experience, because karaoke champions the delusional kid who tried out for American Idol because his mama never told him he couldn’t sing along with the quiet student in the corner who has performed more times than she can remember. At karaoke, the former punk rocker stands equal to the shower diva. Where there’s a will, there’s an untrained rendition of Don’t Stop Believin’. What said performance lacks in refinement, it makes up in gusto.

Unlike its cousin Open Mike Night, karaoke relies solely on sampling, but provides an unparalleled opportunity for completely unaspiring artists to practice innovation, improvisation and freestyle as they adapt the tunes and lyrics to their abilities and to please their supporting friends, who will stand by even the most tone deaf of the group.

This past Tuesday, the mood swung from angst-ridden to buoyant, with each artist bringing his or her personal situations to the scene, with no reason to be anything other than purely authentic. As the tweeters ping-ponged from genre to genre, the audience rode the sudden switches without the slightest hint of whiplash.

Abby, a senior with a mind to scourge her ex’s soul from 150 miles away, sang her own version of Adele’s Someone Like You, pouring her heart with all its tangled emotions into every note. Never mind that she couldn’t quite hit the highest tones; this brotherhood of minor-league minstrels has been touched by her voice, cracking with anger and regret.

A duel of sheer lyrical prowess ensued next, as a patron attempted Eminem’s Lose Yourself and was nearly upstaged by the one member of the audience who could sing every word from memory, but who confined the show to her friends and close neighbors at the bar.

Another regular stepped up to the mike, but started Zac Brown Band’s Toes in the wrong key. The audience didn’t mind too much, recognizing their own faults as performers, but relaxed when a friend came to the rescue.

The night wound down with a horribly off-key and painfully loud rendition of Third Eye Blind’s Semi-Charmed Life sprinkled with self-deprecating lyric-improvisations and laughs by yours truly.

There’s something magical about an environment that celebrates song for the pure joy of song, with zero ambition. The singer feels no outside pressure to conform to the desires of the public in order to succeed in life, and thus the performances are always honest and live in the most true sense of it.

What does karaoke represent for me? It’s a full-immersion in the music I love, it’s a tribute to the artists I respect, it’s an experiment in an art-form otherwise inaccessible to me.

Karaoke thrills, disappoints, and sometimes is downright painful. But it’s undeniably an overlooked, but powerful piece of the popular music puzzle.

Boobies oopsies

If you can equate the controversial with the groundbreaking, then one of the most groundbreaking performances the world – and I literally do mean the world – has ever seen came from Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake at the 2004 Superbowl.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npF1lkKEM9o

Immortalized as the “Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction,” this performance merits closer study as a premeditated, defining moment for both singers. I unapologetically reject the claim that Timberlake accidentally ripped off part of Jackson’s clothes because of the statement the artists were making through the whole performance, the major stylistic shift from previous performances and because of the long lasting effects of the gesture.

Jackson unfairly took the huge share of the blame, with many critics calling it a publicity stunt to help promote her newest album at the time. I agree that it was a publicity stunt, just not in the same sense. Jackson needed a new public persona, one that would be associated with breaking convention and defying social norms and would stand for the values of independent women. She looked at the culturally accepted and condemned practices and determined she could create a new form of art through an outrageous, but simple gesture. Through her intense costume, Jackson was presenting a more masculine image of herself and her performances than ever before in her earlier work.

Timberlake, who escaped the public’s wrath nearly scot free, was making an equally significant statement to the world viewing the Superbowl. In this performance Timberlake solidified his public image as a grown up artist with a lot to offer independent of *NSYNC and the guts to be outrageous. By collaborating with a powerful and beautiful female singer and showing he could hold his own in front of television’s largest audience of the year, Timberlake established his coming of age, and successfully broke free from *NSYNC’s dead-end teen idol image.

This performance was remarkably different than any previous performances by either artist. Jackson and Timberlake exemplify all the best elements of liveness, defined in this class as that sensational feeling of being wrapped up, bodily, in a musical performance. The show is riveting, from the intensity of Jackson’s costume and style of dancing to Timberlake’s posture toward her. They do a phenomenal job of playing up the sexual tension between them, creating a simple, but powerful narrative through song and dance. Jackson clearly took embodiment – defined in this class as the way a performance involves the body of the performer, audience, and the relationships between them – to a whole new level, and I don’t just mean that as a bad pun. Clearly the wardrobe malfunction involved the body, specifically the bare right breast, but Jackson also makes a statement with the movement of her whole body through her provocative dancing. Going through with the plan for the song all the way to the exposure at the end showed courage (although it wasn’t perceived as that by the world) and follow-through to the extreme. In that moment Jackson took the fullest advantage of the opportunity every live performance offers by presenting herself completely in the raw and unmediated. A similarly rebellious stunt in a studio recording would never have made it past the record company’s censoring.

For Timberlake, the performance was carefully crafted to be a huge turning point in his career. Starting with his casual but mature clothing, everything he did on stage was a way to distance himself from his teenage heartthrob days. The song’s lyrics (Rock Your Body) showed a capacity for moving on beyond the boy band days of lamenting heartbreak and lauding revenge.

This performance greatly impacted both Timberlake and Jackson’s careers. Timberlake successfully reinvented himself, going on to win two Grammy awards that year thanks to his newly created identity. For Jackson, the stunt evoked an unprecedented reaction from the audience (both in stadium and worldwide via the live television coverage and the miracle of YouTube). The sheer force of the public’s reaction presents the question of whether this powerful public statement was appropriately suited to the audience. Obviously the FCC thought not, but I’m talking even more specifically in terms of how well the audience helped Jackson achieve her goals. I would argue that it did not, since the world focused more on finding someone to blame for the blatant disregard for standards in mass communication, rather than on the new persona Jackson had created for herself. While Timberlake has managed to keep himself relevant and stayed in the public’s good graces, Jackson has largely faded out of the public eye, rather than becoming the symbol of women’s liberation and counter-cultural rebellion.

This breakthrough performance provides a great case study for the importance of the worldwide audience’s collaboration for an artist to achieve his or her goals. For Timberlake, the massive audience was the perfect test group for the new JT, but for Jackson, the public outcry nearly negated the effects of her incredibly bold move.

The 'other' music

I am fascinated by the alternative genre of popular music. Just for starters, I find it curious that a whole collection of artists are comfortable being defined by a synonym for the word “other.” The other question I’ve always wanted answered is what is this genre “alternative” to? As in other contexts where the word “alternative” is used on its own (Alternative Spring Break, alternative apparel), the word is used to refer to the binary of the mainstream sound versus the sound that deviates from the mainstream. I’m going to assume, for the purpose of this blog post, that alternative music is defined largely in contrast to rock and pop. I also think that it’s impossible for artists to not be affected by the connotation of the word “alternative.” Thus the concept of creating music in contrast to the mainstream rock and pop genres is very much a goal for alternative artists, and that’s what I want to explore with this blog post.  

If you look at a list of alternative artists from the last 30 years, you’ll see that it encompasses a huge variety of types of music, and it’s often hard to believe they can all be classified under the same genre.

For example, all of the following artists are considered alternative:

Arcade Fire

Augustana

Beck

Imogen Heap

The Goo Goo Dolls

Iron and Wine

Lifehouse

MGMT

Alanis Morisette

Neon Trees

O.A.R.

The Offspring

Muse

Mumford and Sons

Relient K

U2

… are just a few of the more well-known alternative artists. What I like most about this genre is that it usually features: 1) lyrics that engage the mind, rather than just the hips 2) puns 3) a willingness to break away from the magical “four-chord-song” 4) satirical criticism of commonly accepted practices 5) complex vocals. Because of these elements, I think alternative music is usually represented more fairly than other genres by critics, but it is still worth examining. From the list of artists above I have found examples of the five aspects of alternative music that I listed above, and I’ll tell you why they keep me coming back for more.

Lyrics:

One of mine and my roommate’s favorite verses by Mumford and Sons comes from their song “Winter Winds.”

And if your strife strikes at your sleep/ remember spring swaps snow for leaves/ You’ll be happy and wholesome again/ when the city clears and sun ascends.

The alliteration with the letter‘s’ in a verse so hopeful and encouraging just thrills me to the core. But unfortunately, the artistry reflected in these lines is often taken for granted. Rock and pop songs don’t often present such carefully crafted lyrics. The authenticity of the artists shines through in work like that of Mumford and Sons, whereas it’s often hard for the lyrics to stand out amid the haze of stimulus overload (from heavy use of electric guitar, drums and synthesizer) typical of many rock songs.

Puns:

“And it just kills me how they get away with murder” – “Mood Rings” by Relient K. This pun is simply a classic, and it’s featured in a song playfully pleading the case of every man baffled by women’s ways, but it does so in a clever and respectful way with an infectiously catchy tune. Puns seem to have pervaded alternative music of the last decade much more so than in past decades, as audiences get tired of the same old pick-up lines used over and over in popular music, but can still savor a tongue-in-cheek verse like an inside joke with an old friend.  

Musical creativity:

With every Tom, Dick and Harry learning a couple chords on the guitar to impress his girlfriend these days, artists need to do a little more to distinguish themselves.  Beck stands out with the variety of sounds blended together to create a generally pleasing overall sound, especially in the song “Where it’s at.” The artist ignores the guitar entirely, demonstrating the potential of the keyboard and throwing in some unconventional sounds such as the record scratching.

Social criticism:

U2 lead singer Bono exemplifies the popular singer who has taken up advancing a cause as his personal mission through his music. The song “One” might sound at first like a song bemoaning the difficulties of one-on-one relationships, but Bono reaches deeper, asking the hard questions of why people hurt each other. At the concert I attended in Raleigh, Bono dedicated this song to Aung San Suu Kyi, and delivered a powerful social message through the juxtaposition of her life story and this song’s simple message.

Vocals:

I can’t think of any song that better shows off the emotional power of the voice when it’s allowed to carry a song than “Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap. Alternative music has the room to cast off the chains of dependence on fancy fretwork to cover vocal inadequacies, or appease the masses with a drum solo, as many rock and pop songs resort to doing. 

Making 'Something Beautiful'

Critical Record Review – The Outsiders, by Needtobreathe.

I chose this album because I think it is a masterful work of popular music, from the soul-searching lyrics to the almost omnipresent piano chords gently guiding the choruses. Also, it has helped me get through every late night paper writing session for the past two years – it’s mellow enough to softly compliment my studying, but inspirational enough to help me push through the last three pages even after 2 a.m.

Produced by John Alagia, who is best known for his work with Dave Mathews Band and John Maher, two folk-pop artists with a feel that sometimes parallels Needtobreathe, this album is the third from the four-man folk-rock band.

To be clear, the classification of Needtobreathe as folk-rock is my own. Typically the band is identified as an alternative rock or Christian rock group, although their lyrics are not explicitly or exclusively Christian. I plan to make an argument for why the group fits my understanding of the folk-rock genre better than any other.

When I say folk, I’m referring to modern or contemporary folk, which relies heavily on assemblage, which creates something new out of old cultural artifacts and practices. Needtobreathe’s overall sound is heavily influenced by their acoustic work with instruments typical of old-time music – the guitar, mandolin and banjo. 

(Trust me, I’ve been to Galax, the country’s largest old-time fiddle convention – the only way to get a banjo out of an old-time music lover is to pry it from his cold, dead hands.) Needtobreathe’s emphasis on vocal harmonies unites them with other artists in vogue right now (look at how quickly Mumford and Sons, another folk-rock band, shot to star status). As far as the band’s particular version of the folk aesthetic goes, they’ve got a strong beat driving the tone of each song with a rocking rhythm. Even the slower, easier listening songs are grounded by a steady, lullaby-type beat.

Needtobreathe easily fits the rock description as well, with their electric guitar and synthesizer accenting many of their songs, especially at the bridge, when the tension has built to the breaking point. Their use of piano, which is near and dear to my heart as the only instrument I’m proficient in playing, also puts them solidly within rock’s genre. But you can’t deny their reliance on folk heritage, which is why I classify them as folk-rock.

For a little bit of context, you should know that brothers Bo and Bear Rinehart, two of the group’s members, are “pastor’s sons who hail from the rural South Carolina town of Possum Kingdom,” according to the band biography on needtobreathe.net. Seth Bolt and Joe Stilwell round out the quartet.

On the surface, I am interested in how inspirational and thoughtful the lyrics are because they resonate with my beliefs, but they also have a wide appeal because they speak about the great themes in life that we all are interested in, regardless of religious beliefs (finding purpose, joy in trial, finding love, finding one’s place in the world).

But what I love about this album is how it shows the depth of the folk-rock genre far beyond that which artists like John Mayer and Dave Matthews Band have tapped. Folk is usually rich lyrically –  featuring poetry layered with meaning intrinsic to the singer’s beliefs, and the Needtobreathe boys have created works of art with their lyrics that resonate with anyone facing challenges or looking for something more in life. Which is everyone, right? Except maybe Paris Hilton.

Needtobreathe appeals to multiple audiences, but especially to college kids, because we’re at that crossroads in life where the themes I mentioned above are so poignant, but people at all stages of life can still appreciate those themes.

The larger audience Needtobreathe serves is the youth culture. Needtobreathe isn’t yet mainstream, so they have to reach out to the audiences who will reach back, that is the ones who do their own digging to find great music, rather than passively letting DJs feed it to them. Because of that special relationship, the artists can stay more true to their original desire, rather than letting a producer take their music on a different path than they had in mind.

The band’s authenticity comes through in the earnest vocals and honest lyrics. On their website, the band talks about their intentions for their music:

“We wanted to make an important record in the way that people used to make records. Bands rarely have the time that allows them to create a game-changing album like Born to Run, Rumours, or Damn The Torpedoes. So we said, ‘Let's set ourselves up to do that. Let's believe in the songs enough that we're willing to take the time they need and really push ourselves. It may sound naïve, but we still have a dream that we're going to make a record that's going to change everything for us.”

Although they were speaking specifically about their fourth album The Reckoning, released just last week, I think they had the same mindset when creating The Outsiders. And the wonderful thing is, while believing in their songs and staying true to themselves, they still produced a product with wide ‘of-the-people’ pop appeal. According to the website, The Outsiders hit No. 9 on Billboard’s Rock Albums chart, and held down a top 20 spot on the Top 200.

Well done boys, well done.

I Can't Live...

Live music review:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZtsEY7AVMg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McwdN9E86So&feature=fvst

I’m going to review U2’s With or Without You as performed during the 360 Tour. I’ve chosen two videos of the song, the first as they performed it at the Rose Bowl and the second at a stadium in Sao Paolo, Brazil. The Rose Bowl video is professionally done and uses the audio feed from the mics, while the Sao Paolo one is filmed by a member of the audience in the nosebleed section.

I’ve chosen this song because I was at the U2 concert in Raleigh and had the time of my life. I was seated in the lower section of the stadium and sat enthralled the entire time. It was the first concert I’d ever been to, and it blew my mind.

A lot of my friends from UNC went as well and really enjoyed it, but I have heard some critics claim that it was too much. I want to use these two videos to explore that idea because I think it brings up a lot of questions about Bono’s style and ability as a performer to keep multiple generations entertained.

The first thing you should know is that this is the song the band closed out almost every show with on this tour. It was their final encore at Carter-Finley and it was the same in Sao Paolo and in Pasadena. In my experience, you can always expect something a little different in an encore.

Aside from the complaint that the huge stage, the screens and the hoopla surrounding the show were just too much, I’ve also heard people complain how Bono intentionally changes or ‘messes up’ the vocal timing on this song whenever he performs it.

I think the Rose Bowl video illustrates just how Bono intended the performance to be received. The giant screens allowed for close-up shots of all the band members even from the nosebleed section, so in many ways you did feel a sense of intimacy, which is what the Rose Bowl performance is all about. It’s true Bono does change the vocal timing -- he makes you hang on every word by missing the beat he’s supposed to come in on just slightly ever time. And before I’d ever been to a concert, whenever I heard recordings of live performances, I would get annoyed. “They always mess up the songs -- it’s stupid!” I would say. But seeing U2 live changed my view on that.

While I still am not a huge fan of listening to concert recordings, what I realized at this show was that if he didn’t change it up, you would get bored and feel like you were just listening to the original record. What Bono managed to do with this and many other songs in the show was keep everyone’s rapt attention, simply with his voice, and mesmerize them with the unbelievable set.

The Sao Paolo video gives a much better idea of the scale of these performances, which brings me to the issue of whether or not Bono tried to do too much. Did the band overestimate the size of their own personalities? Was a huge set required just to fill their egos? I’ve heard people say Bono is just too full of himself. But I totally disagree.

One of the most spectacular things I’ve ever seen was when Bono told everyone to hold up their cell phones and turned Carter-Finley into a miniature galaxy. The giant disco ball that you can see reflecting off the entire stadium in this video comes in at a close second. And as I mentioned before, the giant 360 screen gave you a sense of intimacy that’s actually kind of hard to believe you could feel from so far away.

You can’t deny that Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. must all have a pretty high esteem of themselves in order to dream of a stage so huge and a set-up so self-glorifying, but I think it’s pretty fair to say they’ve earned it. They were a huge favorite of my parents’ generation and they’re still well-loved by my generation -- and that’s quite a feat considering how diametrically opposed those two groups of people are.

I think this performance accomplished everything Bono set out to accomplish with it -- he satisfied an audience of epic proportions screaming out for one more song, and he put a spin on it that kept everyone holding their breath, wondering what he would do next, all the while appearing approachable and accessible.