Sound Bites

 

Green Day “International Superhits” Warner
Bros. Records

Better than therapy. Green Day’s newest album, a
compilation of its commercial successes entitled
“International Superhits,” is a great way to recapture
the hormonal turmoil and pubescent angst of those days in middle
school when you just had to play “Longview” loud
and repeatedly. Drawing from “Dookie,”
“Insomniac,” “Nimrod” and
“Warning,” the album sounds the breadth of the Green
Day that post-Berkeley has come to expect. With “Welcome
to Paradise” and “When I Come Around,” the
troublesome threesome demonstrates post-punkish rage. Later,
in an especially kitschy version of “Good Riddance,”
Green Day’s sentimental words and pop melody reminds
fans that they have feelings too. Green Day is one band
unthreatened by the need to evolve. The liner pictures show that
Billy Joe is still anti-establishment-dreamy, that Tre’
Cool can’t not look stoned, and that Mike Dirnt is a
geek. If you are looking for quality, there are better CDs out
there, but if you are looking for
quantity, “International Superhits” has 21 songs
that will make you feel 13 again.

Kelsey McConnell

Dan Bern “New American Language” Messenger
Records

 

Music lovers who have been passing the folk aisles, wary of the
dry singer/songwriting have a new reason to shop folk. Dan
Bern and his newest album “New American Language” rock
very hard. Bern, AKA Bernstein, has put together a series of
meaningful lyrics set to tweaked folk music with a serious
hook. In a landmark career move, Bern’s sound is now
more Tom Petty than the Bob Dylan sound of his early years, but he
is still delving into his usual exploration of love, love lost,
religion and religion lost. Bern’s lyrics are both poetry and
prose as he tells his stories with honesty, sensuality and an
immediate relatability to modern culture. The tempo of his album is
slow, but not gentle. As the CD plays, Bern rocks harder and
harder, climaxing in “Rice” and “Thanksgiving Day
Parade” with a satisfying edge. The requisite folk elements
are there in “New American Language,” with: the central
guitar, the emphasis on lyrics that actually say something, and a
slightly new-aged interest in the human condition. But the
magic of Dan Bern is that he can do the old in a new way that makes
it impossible to take his CD out of your player.

Kelsey McConnell

Boney James “Ride” Warner Bros.
Records

 

Boney What? Boney Who? Boney James taking a ride out to the East
side with his bling bling and gleam gleam”¦ Or, maybe not.
Boney James is, sadly, not the younger brother of Crazy Bone, or
T-Bone, or James Taylor, or even Scary Spice. On the inside cover
of his latest CD, “Ride,” Boney James reveals himself
to be a middle-aged white man with fluffy, curly, brown hair (on
his head as well as his chest), with a sinister seductive half
smile and an earring in one ear. His name is Boney James, and he is
a perpetrator of Smooth Jazz. “Ride” contains a
collection of songs mellow in their demeanor, redundant in their
progression, and anti-climactic in their execution. Boney Original?
No, no he’s not. The sound of the album, is something like
this: Dooo oooobeeedooooo, repeated over and over again for nearly
an hour. Boney James creates a sound on this record, which incudes
manufactured drum beats, technical sound horn solos, and a nap. It
is commendable in a world that pushes uncreativity to its bankrupt
limit that Boney wrote most of the music and plays most of the
instruments on the record. It is also commendable that some people
are still not afraid to embrace their musical leanings, however
void of vivacity they might be. Boney Oh Yeah! “Ride”
might not be groundbreaking but at least it’s not offensive,
which is more than can be said for some things these days. It gets
an extra half a paw for the name of its maker. Boney James,
orthodontists everywhere salute thee.

Anthony Bromberg

Garbage “Beautiful Garbage” Interscope
Records

 

There is nothing in this world so sweet and tasty as a little
garbage. Or at least that seems to be the idea on the recently
released album, “Beautiful Garbage,” by the Scottish
band named after the junk at the bottom of the receptacle. The pop
wonder abounds on the unpredictably sunny album. It appears that
the band that burst onto the scene only a few short years ago
epitomized by the angst and anger ridden passionate lead vocal of
Shirley Manson has traded in their high-heeled stomping boots, for
some high-heeled dancing boots. Oh sure, on many of the tracks
there is an air of gloominess and cynicism to the lyrics and
Manson’s voice, but the brutal guitar riffs that once
accompanied that has been replaced by wafting and bleeping
electronic noises that sound more operatic and cold than scathing.
Though Garbage has never sounded like a raw garage band, the
production level on this effort is especially high. It sounds as
though Shirley Manson went into the studio with a couple of
producers from the Britney Spears and Madonna camps, respectively,
and then let her band tool around with it a bit afterwards. This,
however, produces many of the album’s most enjoyable moments.
Not the least of which occur on the two advertised singles,
“Androgyny” and “Cherry Lips (Go Baby
Go!),” both of which could easily make it into a DJ’s
set at any club that spins pop music. Garbage, here, does their
best work within the contradictions they have set up for
themselves. The “Beautiful Garbage” has its roots in
everything from ’80s pop to electronica, to the boy and girl
groups, to older Garbage material. In “Cherry Lips”
Manson about says it all, as she sings sounding strangely like a
young teen queen, about what sounds like a teen queen, except
somehow it’s a boy whose blonde curls and blue eyes can turn
on all the men as he’s mistaken for a girl. It’s the
wittiness, above average lyrics, and obvious fun that saves the
record from the low brow triteness of other pop acts. Other titles
might be “Splendidly Trashy Fluff,” or “Catchy
Bubbly Not-Quite-Recyclables.”

Anthony Bromberg