The Edge of Glory

I hated Lady Gaga at first. I think I just didn't get it. She seemed like maybe she was trying too hard. But then "Bad Romance" came out and I could no longer fight it. That shit will suck you in no matter who you are. Even Evil Rob loves "Bad Romance."

But now the backlash is beginning, with her newest album. Critics like it or even love it, but the more casual fans are all, "What the hell is this crap?" and the hardcore fans seem a little confused. So allow me to break it down for you: It's an exploration of and tribute to her musical influences. Also, Gaga loves hard rock a little more than you might have cared to admit.

"The Edge of Glory" is a kick ass song.

No, it really is. It totally sounds like something Lita Ford might have come out with if she'd just stuck with it and not given up. And that Clarence Clemons saxophone solo is sublime. It conjures up every single outstanding 1980s sax solo all in one simple 30-second riff. Mostly it reminds me of a combination of the sax solo in Glenn Frey's "You Belong to the City" and George Michael's "Careless Whisper" and Rod Stewart's "Downtown Train." Only it's better, because it's not in one of those shitty songs and stuck in the 1980s, it's in a Lady Gaga song from 2011. It's cool, and it doesn't sound like anything else on the radio right now.

I think that's where people get confused: they want everything to sound the same. Bland and predictable. And Lady Gaga was getting overplayed for two years and then she did something a little different, mixed things up a bit, and people don't know what to think because it doesn't fit in with fucking OneRepublic and Train and Bruno Mars and the newest made to order hits by Katy Perry and Britney Spears (who, don't get me wrong -- you know I loves me some Britney but her newest song is such a snoozefest!). This is a summer without a jam and it's been really depressing.

"The Edge of Glory" though -- it perks things up a bit. The other thing that's cool about it is that she doesn't do ANYthing in the video. She just prances around a fire escape in a weird outfit and up and down a rainsoaked street showing off her ass. Which -- there are worse things in life than 5 minutes of looking at Lady Gaga's ass. Here:



Yeah. I'm a little put out by that part where she kisses the pavement because that's really unsanitary and conjures up images of a real New York City sidewalk covered in old chewing gum and black dirt from cars and the bacteria left behind by a million pairs of shoes. But whatever. Also, I bet Clarence Clemons totally loved seeing as much Gaga ass as he did, filming that video. And the part where she's all snuggled up next to him -- she's like a little pocket Gaga next to The Big Man.

I dunno. I dig it.

Bars Are Dark and Lonely

I don't write about music very often. This is because I love music, probably just as much as I love life itself. And what music does to me is nearly impossible to put into words. It would just sound trite: the right song in the car on the way to work can change my outlook for the entire day. The right song on a road trip can make even the most boring of drives a beautifully hued memory. Like the time a few years ago that we drove straight throught to Florida, and intellectually I know I thought it was horrible at the time, but because of the accompanying soundtrack, I've been tricked into believing that it was fantastic from start to finish, and something to laugh about now. Some songs take me right back to where I was the first time I heard them, or to a time in life when they were in heavy rotation, and can bring me to my knees with nostalgia.

I'll listen to nearly anything. I'm not terribly fond of jazz or country, but give me the right jazz, the right country, and I'll listen to that too. I'll hate a musician with a passion, but then they come out with "Blow" or "What the Hell" and I can't look away. Evil Rob gives me shit about this, because he intellectualizes music too much; in fact, he'd probably make a really good writer for Paste magazine. He thinks good music should be deep. I disagree -- I think good music can be deep, but it doesn't have to be. Not always. Sometimes you don't want deep, you just want "Bad Romance." Also, this from a man who listens unironically to Tenacious D. Right?

But I digress.

We are fans in our house of this new folk-rock sound. I think I described it to my friend Betty last night as "folk-country-jam-band-rock" or something like that. This was specifically to describe My Morning Jacket, but it could also apply to Fleet Foxes. Mumford & Sons are more bluegrass-rock. Seryn, my newest favorite, are folk-bluegrass-magical-rock. Anything with a ton of traditional instruments being used to make what is essentially rock music -- that's the folk-rock sound. With some magicianship thrown in, where the music steals you away for a bit and when you come back, you're sitting in your car at a red light somewhere in the middle of the suburbs and you're not quite sure how the hell you got there.

Or maybe that's just me.

When Evil Rob and I got married, we had a really hard time narrowing down the music for the ceremony and for slow dancing at the reception and stuff like that, because we had what felt like a million songs that meant a lot to us. So we decided to choose a careful selection of songs to be played in the half hour leading up to the ceremony, and then there were a couple of songs during the ceremony, and then there was the one at the end, and then there was our first dance, and we put all these on a cd that we gave to our guests as a party favor -- since little boxes of candy stamped with the bride and groom's faces are dumb. Hell, maybe our cd was dumb too, but I've had a lot of people tell me they really loved it, and they seemed sincere, so I'm just going to continue to take that at face value and believe our cd was cool.

And one of our songs was "Golden" by My Morning Jacket. This is a band I was first introduced to in the (awesome) Cameron Crowe film Elizabethtown. They played the cousin's band Ruckus, and whenever I see them on television or someplace now, I shout out, "Ruckussss!" I'm going to do this when we see them at Red Rocks this summer. Just to be an asshole. They had a couple of songs on the (also awesome) soundtracks: "Gideon" and "Same In Any Language." Evil Rob got hooked on them after we got together and he heard these songs for the first time, and that was all she wrote. So this song "Golden" became one of our songs. Basically it's a song about how hard it is to meet someone, and when you do meet someone special, you want to be there for them forever, "if it falls apart or makes us millionaires." For better or worse, basically. It's a beautiful song about commitment, realistic commitment, not this starry-eyed bullshit fairy tale crap that so many people seem to go into their relationships with.

So I was all excited last night when My Morning Jacket were the latest band to be featured on VH-1's Storytellers series. And the second song they played was "Golden," and Jim James, the lead singer, told a really long story about it, about how he got one of the signature lines from his Grandma, which made it all even more perfect somehow. And after he told this somewhat rambling story, they played the song, and OH. MY. GOD.

It was literally one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. And this is a song I've heard hundreds of times in my life. It took my breath away for a minute, and I felt like my heart was going to break, and then it did break a little bit, and then my eyes filled with tears (just as they are right now as I tell you about it), and I realized that this? This feeling? Was IT. The reason I love music. The reason I love the music I love. The songs I go back to over and over and over are the ones that break my heart a little bit.

Not in a bad way, no. In a way that makes me feel alive, and like I'm part of the universe and everything and everyone in it. Yeah, that's cheesy. But it's so easy to forget that, as we go through the routines of our daily existence. I cherish my routines, and knowing where we'll be from one moment to the next. But every now and then, you need a reminder that you're part of something bigger. That it's not just about you.

That's what music does. Not just for me, but for anyone. I feel sorry for these people who never listen to music, or who claim they don't like music. I honestly think they're broken inside. I give people shit all the time for listening to boring music or music I'm not a fan of, but it's lighthearted teasing -- everyone loves what they're going to love. It can't be helped. I myself have an unfortunate soft spot where Britney Spears is concerned.

And this? This is why I don't write about music.

Here's a link to the video of "Golden." I can't promise it will be life-changing, but I can promise it's a really killer song.

Now we're going to hate on Taylor Swift? Seriously, people?

So last Sunday night at the Grammy Awards, someone sang out of key. And now the whole fucking world is going to spin off its axis! Batten down the hatches...

Look, I am 39 years old, going on 40 in a couple of short weeks. Out of my 40 years, I have seen approximately 26 or 27 Grammy Awards shows. On those shows, there have been an average of 10 live musical performances per show. Of those performances, roughly half suck. So that's 130 sucky performances in the last 26 Grammy Awards shows -- and trust me, I'm being conservative. The main sucking point is usually that the band is playing in a key far different than the lead singer is singing in. In general, it's because the quality of the talent isn't that high. But more often than not, there is an OBVIOUS issue with sound, and the singers clearly can't hear the backing music. Presumably, too, there's a lack of rehearsal time. Some of these people have a lot of other things going on. And sometimes, good bands and good singers just have an off night, on national television.

What's interesting is that, until now, no one ever calls them on it. But now we're going to hate on Taylor Swift. Because she sang poorly during a duet with Stevie Nicks. Who is apparently a perfect goddess who has never sung out of key a day in her life (10 years of cocaine abuse notwithstanding, apparently Stevie Nicks is so magical that she was a perfect performer throughout).

I have news for you, people: Stevie Nicks was ALSO out of key during the very same Grammy Awards performance. Her voice is definitely not what it once was, and she was struggling. Also? The Black Eyed Peas were out of key. And we've seen them in concert, and they were freaking awesome, and totally not out of key. And yet no one is going on about how crappy Fergie is for singing out of key on one night. Also? Green Day. Not quite in tune. But I guess they get a pass because it's totally punk rock to not be in tune.

What disgusts me though is the overall tone of the picking on Taylor Swift. This tone of she's only won all her awards because people felt sorry for her after the whole Kanye West incident.

Um, no. Just because some of you were living under a rock and didn't notice that she had the biggest selling album of 2009, or the biggest video of the year (Single Ladies dances moves notwithstanding), doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Just because you failed to notice doesn't mean that Taylor Swift hasn't connected and touched a nerve with a massive audience. And THAT is how you win awards. Awards don't go to the best technical singer, or the band with the most proficient drummer, or the guitarist with the most amazing and original riffs. Awards go -- and have always gone -- to the people who lead the music industry at any given time. And whether you like it or not, Taylor Swift is currently leading the music industry. It would have been shameful NOT to give her all the awards she's been getting, and trust me -- people would have bitched about that instead.

She's not a powerhouse singer. She isn't a Beyonce or a Jennifer Hudson. Never has been. Her thing is music and lyrics. Her voice is more akin to the pop singer-songwriters, like Ingrid Michaelson or Sara Bareilles (ew) or Norah Jones. Since her thing is country, it is easy to forget this, and to assume, having never heard her sing before, that she's going to come over all Faith Hill or Martina McBride (who, incidentally, has sung out key, in public, on national television, on more than one occasion). But that's not who she is.

When you listen to her songs, if you really know how to listen, you'll hear that the backing vocals are always from bigger voices than hers. Hers is the smaller voice out front. She's never belting out giant notes. She's just sharing her thoughts and strumming her guitar. If anything, she's the victim of the overproduction that characterizes today's mainstream country music.

With the popularity of American Idol, suddenly everyone thinks they know some shit about music and singing and what it's like to do it and what it's supposed to sound like. Even NPR has entered this debate about Taylor Swift. Personally, I think NPR has better things to do with their time, but whatever.

Consider this: She already knows she's not the very best singer in that room. She's 20 years old, and still nervous about how people she admires perceive her. She also suffered the embarrassment of the Kanye incident -- sure, he did a douchebaggy thing but what if he was just saying what a bunch of other people were thinking? And she's singing with a legend, Stevie Nicks, someone who gets a free pass because she's been so admired for so long. And to top it all off, the sound quality onstage isn't great, and she can't hear a damn thing.

You'd sing off key too.

Yes you would.

But in the end, Taylor Swift is a nicer person than probably 80% of the people slagging her off. She has more going for her. She has millions of fans who believe in her. She writes awesome songs. She isn't some mental case wannabe prostitute who's going to have a nervous breakdown in the middle of Sunset Boulevard 8 years from now. She has grace and style, something most people know nothing about (see: aftermath of Kanye incident, where she refused to indulge in name-calling or the vilifying of Kanye). She doesn't really need your approval.

If you don't like her, fine. Get over it.

But for fuck's sake. Don't pretend you actually know anything about music. You'll only hurt yourself.