Musings from the Back 9: Music Edition XIII

If it were not for Limp Bizkit’s fifth attempt at being relevant again, Fall Out Boy may have been the most unwanted comeback of the past year. Even worse is they called their album Save Rock and Roll (so when you look at the album, you will see Fall Our Boy Save Rock n Roll) even though they along with their whiney contemporaries destroyed the genre (good riddance My Chemical Romance, the world will not be anticipating your inevitable reunion at Coachella 2020). Apparently the band did not watch the Grammy’s this year which featured Mumford & Sons, The Black Keys, Jack White, and Fun., four critically and commercially successful rock albums, all fight for Best Album.

But I am not a Fall Out Boy hater, a couple of their songs made my Best of the Year lists. Despite the first single My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light em Up) and its pretentious long title the band is known for, Save Rock n Roll is the band’s grown up album. Besides Light em Up, the rest of the album has “normal” titles and less tongue in cheek lyrics (Courtney Love spoken word diatribe on Rat a Tat notwithstanding). This album reminds me a lot of Blink-182’s “grown up” albums, they may have been musically better, but their songs where they would make prank phone calls about sodomy were more entertaining. Same for Save Rock n Roll where the album may sound better, but the most entertaining song is the one that sound most like their older work.

Save Rock n Roll gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.


Taylor Swift set up the template for country cross-over success. Hook in that country crowd then slowly creep closer and closer to pop music with every subsequent album until you are making crappy dubstep songs with Max Martin. It look like The Band Perry is copying that blueprint to a T. Much like Taylor did with Teardrops on My Guitar, Kimberly and her brother released a “Pop Remix” of If I Die Young to pop and adult contemporary stations. And that turn to the mass center continues on their sophomore album Pioneer which dips one toe into the country pool and the other in the pop world. The album starts off with their best song to date, the banjo infused Better Dig Two which is as much pop-rock as it is country. They continue to go back and forth and combine the two for the rest of the album, but none of it is very memorable. Maybe the true key to Taylor Swift's successes is dating and writing about douchebags when they inevitably break her heart.

Pioneer gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.


Last year I became obsessed with who the record companies would try to pass off as the “Next Adele.” First out the box was internet lightning rod Lana del Ray who was maybe the most prepackaged “indie” act ever with her devil may care attitude, thin voice, pretentious lyrics that wanted you to think they were much more important than they are, and music that borrows as much from retro sounds as it does modern day hip-hop. Though we never did get a Next Adele (at least until Emili Sandi manages to break out here stateside) you could call Jessie Ware the Next Lana Del Rey but Jessie comes off much less pretentious, less annoying and has a slightly better singing voice. The music is still draped in as many rap references while it borrows from music from the sixties (Wildest Moments is the best here which will grow on you with every new listen) but most songs come off as a little too sleepy and boring. But that is what makes her debut Devotion a great bedtime album, whether that is a good or bad thing may depend on how much Ambient you take on a monthly basis.

Devotion gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.