When I saw Dan’s predictions, I felt compelled to follow up with a batch of my own.  But I knew I had to one-up him somehow, so I went for the old snazzy-synonym-in-the-title trick.  Works every time.  I’m gonna classify these as “Temerarious (But Not Lunatic).”

I predict that, in 2012…

1. Five different dance albums will reach the number-one spot on Billboard, and one of them will hold it for two (or three) weeks.
2. The video game industry — and reviewers — will take Naughty Dog’s challenge seriously and begin building a new age of story-based gameplay.
3. If there’s a slow news day and no elderly royals are on their deathbeds, Kate Middleton will divorce her husband.
4. In the mode of Rocky Balboa and Live Free or Die Hard, we’ll receive word of another manly reload in the making with a title that distracts from the age of the franchise.  I’d probably guess Lethal Weapons if it weren’t for this, which may or may not end up with a number in its name.
5. Equestrian events at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London will be delayed to the point of infuriation by rainfall and fog.
6. There will be a movement on Twitter and Facebook suggesting that Americans should be allowed to cast their votes for president via Twitter and Facebook.  Many will sign the online petitions, but none of those who do will get out of bed on election day.
7. Six months in, Ashton Kutcher will reveal that his starring role in Two and a Half Men is all part of an elaborate prank for the premiere of a new season of Punk’d.
8. A few progressive American high schools will make available loaner copies of e-books in place of the hard copies for English students with Kindles and Nooks.
9. Taylor Swift will not attempt a nationwide summer tour as she focuses on her acting, which will earn her no accolades whatsoever.
10. Within Q2 of FY2012, Apple will finally top last October’s stock prices and continue rising as Tim Cook finds the secret notes Steve Jobs left hidden around his office: “Northern European indie music,” “All-black exterior,” etc.
11. The minimum latitude at which a person may admit to following NASCAR will jump up to 43 degrees north.
12. Lady Gaga will, by sheer concentrated mystique, form a supergroup including Stevie Nicks, Don Henley, Meat Loaf, and Afrika Bambaataa, but still will not produce a single track as compelling as what Ke$ha recorded into her laptop mic while alone in her bedroom with the lights off.
13. Simon Cowell will leave The X-Factor before its second season to rejoin American Idol, simply because he can no longer abide Steven Tyler as his replacement.
14. “Greece Voted Out of EU” will appear in millions of Google Reader feeds right below The Daily Bunny.  One of those things will be forwarded by thousands.
15. I’ll be one of about 500 people who notice when Spock’s Beard goes into studio with their new lineup; one of about 5,000 who buys tickets to a brief Gatsbys American Dream tour, hopefully with a stop on the eastern seaboard; and one of about 500,000 who hear about it when Eve 6 releases their fourth album.

Look, Jews et al., any occasion you can come up with is fine — Scientologists have Freedom Day to look forward to on the 30th — just find a reason and make sure you’ve got The Whole Shebang ready to tap on New Year’s Eve.  This is the 2011 release from Audiostrobelight, a bunch of energetic speakerbusters from Virginia Beach, and it is going to stay up all night with you.  Remember fun?  Remember loud, dance, party, and rock-out?  Those guys remember you too, and they want you to buy Audiostrobelight’s album.

If you’re too busy to read this article, just check out the band’s own promo.  (Also, quit your job, you’re wasting your life!)  You’ll hear immediately what you can expect from The Whole Shebang: driving pop-punk that’s stuffed to the liner with hype, and not the empty kind.  Every song has that classic tug-of-war between fast, danceable rock and half-time breakdowns when you get to jump up and down and pump your fist and taste the sweat flying off the girls and guys all around you.  Did you see in the promo when they dropped the balloons on the audience, or the confetti and streamers?  If you aren’t into that, we can’t be friends.

“Okay,” you say, “Mr. O.,” because you and I aren’t on a first-name basis, “but the fast electronic dance-rockcore pop-punkadelia scene came and went, and hasn’t been heard from since 2005!  So why make such a big hubbub about one on-the-rise revivalist band?”  Two reasons off the top of my head.  First, I wasn’t done with that scene yet when it died.  Second, Audiostrobelight fits into the leading edge of that movement, not the middle, and looks set to evolve it into something more expansive.

Just check out their line-up:

• Bass, guitar, guitar/keys, drums.  (Ho-hum.)
• Dual vocalists.  (Okay, standard fare for the genre.)
• Electric violin/mandolin.  (Now we’re talking!)

And, since you mention Yellowcard, that’s an apt comparison.  Some of these songs would’ve fit perfectly on Ocean Avenue, and Audiostrobelight also gives us plenty of Fall Out Boy’s Infinity on High, Cartel’s Chroma, and the rowdiest bits of Simple Plan’s No Pads, No Helmets… Just Balls.  But we also get rhythms that sample the escapist banner-waving of Less Than Jake’s ska-born Anthem and the alt-metal demolition drive of The Receiving End of Sirens’ Between the Heart and the Synapse.  Variety is packaged in to keep your body parts moving four or five different ways every song, which adds significantly to The Whole Shebang‘s replay value.  Plus, Yellowcard didn’t have a mandolin.

Combine this ability with the kind of live show that the band themselves describe as “ridiculously debaucherous,” and you can see how, on the strength of their State of the Art EP from 2009, these guys have developed a ravenous fan base who gives them a run for their money in passion.  Along with Warped Tour credentials, Audiostrobelight has opened for Cobra Starship, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Anberlin, and the aforementioned Fall Out Boy, to name a few.  While they’re not national headliners yet, take them seriously when they sing, in A Fifth of Feelgood, “This town won’t be the death of me!”  (“This town” being VA Beach, which fits nicely when you remember how Less Than Jake was always repping Gainesville, FL.)

Hey, is that the first lyric I’ve dropped?  Let’s open up these seven tracks.  Because it’s always worth mentioning when a band starts their album with a song called You’re Not Funny, You Stupid Clown.  It’s well positioned: when Audiostrobelight makes it big, you’ll be able to listen back to this one and hear “Give me the chance / Give me the time,” “We ain’t on top but we ain’t bottom,” and “We’re gonna reach for the stars / We’re gonna look past mountains.”  I’d love to see that premonition come true.

A Fifth of Feelgood lays all their cards on the table.  Keys are featured, the violin is used as an effective instrument and never a gimmick, and we get smacked in the face repeatedly by the JE-JUN, JE-JE-JE-JUN, JE-JUN in the bass and drums.  They’re singing the same adolescent dreams that we were crooning along with half a decade ago.  Whether they’re giving a friend a long hard send-off in Anchors Aweigh or begging for another chance with an “old flame” in Argyle, the constant in Audiostrobelight’s pushes and pleas is emotion.  All the bands they learned from used to be called “emo,” didn’t they?

While Drop the Act is the most anthemic shout-along, those last two songs I mentioned might be my favorites.  Argyle gives the band the chance to show that they’re perfectly capable of bringing things down and singing sweetly; they’re just happier when it’s all about “Going pound for pound / I bring the noise like your nightmare sounds.”  And the album closes on a fade-out at the end of Anchors Aweigh with three layered vocal lines carrying three strands of feelings.  Two-man harmonies assure “You’re better off without me” while the lead undercuts the sentiment with “I never want to trace this back / And let the record show I’m happy once again” and the gang vocals chant “Anchors aweigh, my friend!”

Where the f*** are they???

Audiostrobelight caught my attention by throwing back to beloved bands gone by, but what really hooked me was the depth of The Whole Shebang.  Every turn on my iTunes shows new traces of a band I didn’t know they had in them.  Excellent arrangements reward a careful listener, who will find every instrument playing a carefully crafted role to make you answer the call: “Let’s go / Let me see you put ‘em up right now / Tonight we’re gonna have some fun!”

Do yourself a favor this holiday season and pick up a copy for yourself.  The Whole Shebang also makes a great gift for anyone on your list who doesn’t suck.

In 2009, shortly before being absorbed into the same media conglomerate that runs Kim Kardashian’s website, PureVolume gave a big bump to a couple of kids from Tacoma, Washington playing under the moniker He Is We.  Twenty-four hours and tens of thousands of plays later, Rachel Taylor and Trevor Kelly were on someone’s radar.  Because no matter how many indie/emo kids “graduate” and start putting PureVolume in a corner, the leaders of the music industry always save it a dance.  In December of 2010, He Is We’s debut album My Forever was released on Universal Motown.

They go with a modern casual-meets-dirty-hippie look.

For me, it’s tough knowing whether to appraise My Forever as an album or as a collection of songs.  Not that every record needs a unifying concept; but artists are made great in my eyes by their ability to produce a cohesive whole in which it sounds like all the parts grew in the same garden.  He Is We displays a precocious knack for arrangements that bring out the best in every song, with the drawback that the differences between songs are all the more pronounced.

Let’s start with commonalities, to give you a basis.  Lyricist and vocalist Rachel brings a Sara Bareillesque strength and a rock sensibility, like a modern-day Michelle Branch.  (I’m being told that Michelle Branch is still making music.  We’ll see how that pans out for her.)  Tie that in with all the romanticism of a Colbie Caillat or a Taylor Swift and you’ve got… you know, for all the chicks out there on the mic, Rachel might be fitting into her own little slot!  That’s certainly true of her quick poetry: it flows like water, better than anyone else on the pop market.  Rachel’s voice is what defines the sound of He Is We.

The music is based around straightforward, classic song structures featuring whatever instrumentation works on a song-by-song basis.  You’ll hear some songs with a deeper bass than you’d expect, including “And Run”, where the bass is featured and foundational.  Guitars and pianos vie for playing time across the album while multi-tracked vocal harmonies float in the background more often than not.  The use of orchestral strings is effectively tied to the drama of each piece.  Occasional timpanis and concert bass drums give you the impression that there’s actually an orchestra involved, not just a bunch of session violinists.

As much as the diversity of sounds enhances each track, it’s where I start to wonder about the cohesion of My Forever as a whole.  “Love Life”, a slow-and-fast break-up ditty, brings in a brass section for the final minute.  There is exactly one duet, “All About Us”, in which Underoath’s former drummer and “clean vocalist”, Aaron Gillespie, passes verses back and forth with Rachel.  Poor Aaron was replaced when, in August 2011, a new version of the song was released featuring Owl City singing the boy parts.

From the charming lovey-doveyness of “Forever & Ever”, “Everything You Do”, and “Happily Ever After” to the frustrated adolescent stirrings of “Blame It on the Rain” and “Fall”, the overall quality of the writing and production maintains a ready-for-radio standard.  Normally I’d expect track 2 or maybe 3 to be the anchor, ready to hit shelves as the lead single.  Here it’s not so clear.  If anything, I’d expect the sing-along “Happily Ever After”, a manifesto of hopeful love if ever there was one, to be the fan favorite, but it’s all the way back at track 5.  And the bonus acoustic track – which I admit was an eyebrow raiser for me on a debut album – is a reprise of track 4, “And Run”.  It’s hard to grasp the logic behind the sequencing, though I guess it’s a moot point if each song is terrific individually and most iPods are tuned to Shuffle anyway.

So let me get to the one song that is just from a completely different place from the rest.  Right in the middle of the album, before the tunes about being single and after the tunes about being adorable, is a song about a double murder.  “Kiss It Better” tells a story of a vengeance kill after a man’s wife is shot, from the perspective of the surviving subject who is sharing a prison cell with his overwhelming memories.  No reason for the initial action is given.  If we can handle the lyrics, the music itself alternates between sparse acoustics and haunting full-orchestra crescendos.  My impression of the album as a whole would change radically if this emotive elegy were the final track and the final thought we were left with, so different from all that came before.  As it is, the mood it creates so tangibly is difficult to shake when we return to tra la las and oh, oh, ohs.

We can’t know for sure who’s responsible, but I’d like to credit the atmosphere and musical realism of “Kiss It Better” in part to producer Casey Bates, whose work with Pacific Northwest bands like Portugal. The Man and Gatsby’s American Dream I have loved for a long time now.  Casey worked on “Blame It on the Rain” and “Fall” as well.  Aaron Sprinkle, another of Washington’s best producers (see his work with Eisley, Anberlin, Acceptance, etc.), did his magic with “All About Us” and “Prove You Wrong”.

I’m still not sure where Rachel and Trevor were coming from as they pieced together My Forever.  Their artistic focus is something we might get to see develop over time.  But their ability and quality is already ahead of their age.  To find out for yourself, go ahead and stream their whole album for free off MySpace.  Or take a look at their PureVolume, where they’re streaming 40 tracks and giving away eight and where, at the time of this writing, they’re getting ready to ring the bell for their 5,000,000th play.

To the founder of our feast: a piano ditty written at age 16.

Forget everything you know about Vanessa Carlton.  Realistically, forget the one thing you ever knew about Vanessa Carlton – the “da-da-da da-da-da dum” song from those five-year-old Zales commercials.  The voice you heard in “A Thousand Miles” belonged to Carlton, as did the melody; but the orchestra, the overproduction, and the publicity that made us love the song all the way to three Grammy nominations were largely handiwork of hitmaker Ron Fair.  Now forget everything you know about Ron Fair.

What would it sound like if Vanessa Carlton made her own album?

Answering that question required a transformation. Carlton spent two years as a recluse, she says, absorbing and moving internally but not creating much of anything.  Then came the instrumental pieces “that probably no one will ever hear.”  Only when a personal reflection chanced to grow into a fully lyrical song did the veil draw back and the possibilities of a return to the album format as an artistic outlet become possible.

She determined to fund this “arts & crafts” project herself to avoid any label’s influence until it was done.  Under the guidance of voices from the 70′s, she sought to record the entire thing to tape to enable a true classic vinyl experience.  All of the songs were written and arranged by Carlton herself explicitly for this album and never drawn from a well of old material.  This was to be the album she had always wanted to make.

The names and places who contributed to the recording are a cabinet full of gems.  The producer is Steve Osborne, who brought to life Doves’ “Catch the Sun”.  Musicians Patrick Hallahan (My Morning Jacket) and Ari Ingber (The Upwelling) appear as players while the legendary Stevie Nicks – Carlton’s friend, mentor, and occasional collaborator – sequenced the tracklist.  Most of the work was done at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, while the world-famous Capital Children’s Choir worked at Abbey Road to lend their talents to four tracks.

I guess by now you might be wondering what the album actually sounds like.

Art by Jo Ratcliffe.

Rabbits on the Run kicks off with an unassuming piano line and soon echoed, multitracked vocals are layered on top of it.  Track one is the single , “Carousel”, which features hopeful lyrics, plenty of uplift in the chords, the soft heartbeat of a bass drum, and just a little bit of Osborne’s mellotron that is absolutely flute-like.  At the bridge, “Carousel” opens into a grand canon led by the children’s choir with many of the instruments taking up their parts.  It comes off as charming that this song is centered around a hook that is nothing more than an ascending C-Major scale.

Later songs like “Hear the Bells” build an unabashedly creepy atmosphere.  A rich darkness surfaces and resurfaces throughout the ten tracks, always receding again to a more driving melodic sensibility that faces forward with its chin up.  Gone are the childish attachments and dependencies that haunted older material like “Pretty Baby” and “Rinse”, replaced wholesale by stories of acceptance: of wrongs, of destiny, and of the unknowable.

While an ambient spirit claims the early and late tracks, the same lyrical approach is taken to more rocking and romping tunes in the middle, especially the infectious “Dear California” and follow-up “Tall Tales for Spring”.  “Get Good” stands out to me as a campfire song that begs for a country-style cover.  I’d pay good money to hear what Tim McGraw and his missus could do with that sheet music.

Through the album’s progression, Osborne’s mastery of expansive and engrossing soundscapes shines.  His own instrumental contributions match Hallahan’s in their cleanness and frequent subtlety.  Carlton herself has an effortless, almost conversational voice that is however not the most pure.  (She once said she used to smoke and drink whiskey just to make her sound more “leathery.”)  Some listeners may wish they could hear the vocal qualities of a Carole King or a Norah Jones on some verses, myself included.  But her speech, like her songwriting and fingerwork, is not lacking for beauty; and this is, after all, her record.

Stevie Nicks must have had an easy time choosing the closing track, “In the End”.  Musically, it is a slowed-down sample from “Tall Tales for Spring” that glows with an eerie electricity.  What few words there are come out muted, buried ominously beneath the sounds.  The dearth of lyrics is unsettling in itself, as if the songwriter abandons us to groaning emptiness as the album “disintegrates back into nothing.”

The creative process behind the album fed on inspiration from Richard Adams’s Watership Down, Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time, and the Tolkienian mysticism of the village of Box, Wiltshire, where Real World Studios is located.  Carlton has had an occasionally uncomfortable time promoting the immensely personal album; making the late-night talk show rounds was visibly less enjoyable for her than conducting one-on-one interviews with people who actually remember who she is, and you can see a back-and-forth between these modes in her brief appearance on Fox’s “Good Day LA”

The experience of making Rabbits on the Run was a gift for Vanessa Carlton.  But the album itself was intended for anyone who likes to be wrapped in a blanket of beautiful music; for anyone who misses the classic approach to analog recording; and, of course, for the fans who have stayed with Carlton through her fall from the spotlight and even through her quietest years.  She has a special name for these last ones:

Dear Phantom Friends,

The album, the collaboration, the arts and crafts project that is Rabbits on the Run, is a vault of melodies, philosophies, and questions that will forever preserve the past three and a half years of my life. A chunk of time that has reshaped who I am and has humbled me. The process of making the record was restorative and prickly and shook me out of a ten year slumber. It was also magical. I made this record with a group of artists that I never thought I’d get to work with. On the eve of this release, as I type in to black buttons, and stare at a glowing screen in my hotel room, I feel grateful that I’m able to create music and send it out into the world like some sort of ship on the sea. It is how I connect. It is how I stay alive. I realize now that this record isn’t mine anymore, it belongs to the hearts and brains of those that connect with it. And I humbly hand it over. I hope that it brings you to life in the way that it brought me to life.

Love

Vanessa

And he completely won me over last night. From the broad perspective I’d gained by hearing “Come on Get Higher” on the radio a few times, I was sure he was a pretty boy with a guitar in the vein of, let’s say, Rob Thomas in his solo years. One night in a room with Matt and a sold-out House of Blues full of his best friends has convinced me that he is about as far from that as possible: he’s actually the second coming of Rob Thomas in his Matchbox Twenty years.

Look how sweet he is.

Here’s why I use that comparison. I’ve always felt that the reason Matchbox Twenty enjoyed the enormous success they deserved (with their debut album achieving certified Diamond sales) is because the lead singer and his lyrics were totally swoon-worthy for the chicks, but the band rocked hard and had the respect of men; and with their cross-generational appeal, nobody had any reservations about listening to this band. I believe that Matt Nathanson fits that mold. The female fans aren’t hard to capture when you have such a cute beard and you like to spend your days crooning about love to the tune of your own nylon strings. The boys will sign on for the hard-hitting songs that, to my delight, apparently pervade his body of work, and for his hilarious crowd interaction. Getting the old and the young to come together at table… well, that falls out of a classic pop sensibility in the songwriting.

Matt’s understanding of his diverse musical roots was built into his show. He and his lead guitarist managed a spot-on cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Boxer”. When playing expandable bridges, he gave nods to past and present influences alike by sampling Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, Cee-Lo Green, Demi Lovato, and others, always bringing the crowd along with him. When the whole band was in acoustic mode for a two-song mini-set, Matt decided to scrap whatever was supposed to be the back half in favor of attempting an impromptu rendition of Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” just because he had heard the crowd singing along with it in the set break after the opener. None of his band had rehearsed this song – it’s not in their repertoire – but they played the entire thing, including all lyrics (with full crowd support!), and the lead guitarist was clever enough to put down his instrument, pick up something electric, and completely nail the major solo. It was incredible.

Part of what made that possible, and what makes Matt’s music so much better than I expected, is that he has a band. I have a sort of superstition that I’ve built up overt ime where I avoid artists who play under their own name, because that’s what you do when you “make your own music” and use session players and touring musicians instead of a band who has input into the material. Matt had a bassist, drummer, keyboardist, and guitarist, each of whom played interesting parts. They were not collectively relegated to simple background material designed to put the focus on lyrical melodies and not take too long to write. When the band went into acoustic mode, the bassist went to string bass (which was totally sick on Whitesnake) and the percussionist walked out to the front of the stage and whipped out an everloving djembe.

The inter-song banter was lengthy, made worthwhile by the fact that it was always entertaining and by the full two hours that Matt spent on stage, accounting for only a two-minute turnaround before the encore. He discussed the suggestive nature of a crab singing “Darling it’s better down where it’s wetter”, talked about what it’s like to wake up on Sunday morning next the person you love and realize you’re lying on their devil tail, and dedicated a song to Kim Kardashian’s ass. And I was serious about his hips. The man has a dance-happy lower half, and his legs were wigglin’ and booty was shakin’ through all of his own songs. He even used hip thrusts to help the audience time difficult clapping patterns.

It’s hard for me to remember exactly what I heard, because I was unfamiliar with all of his material before I heard it live last night. (Wikipedia tells me he has seven albums!) But I know that every time I tried to imagine Rob Thomas singing the words, I was pleased. Matt’s voice is a little higher, and in truth his words are less bitter – if he has a “Push”, I’d love to hear it – but his sound is just as edgy and he has the band to back it up. I think he suffers from the fact that there is no “alt” scene anymore, so he gets listed as a pop rock artist and doesn’t get played on as wide a range of stations. But he should.

See, even his former self and bandmates are ashamed to look upon him now.

The bottom line is that this guy is one Santana collaboration away from making me a life-long fan. A song co-written with Mick Jagger à la “Disease” wouldn’t hurt either. He just needs to deny the bright light that will someday call him toward the cozy-as-a-cloud profitability of Adult Contemporary music, try not to ditch his band, and avoid becoming a hollow shell of his former self. Because, you know, I know this one guy who did that.

Yes, you read that right: my list is mathematically sound. All rankings are strictly by the numbers. Now, there are a great many statistics I could’ve used to compile the list. I have gleaned the record books looking for songs and albums matching any or many of these criteria:

1. Spent at least 5 weeks at #1 on the Mainstream Top 40, based solely on radio airplay
2. Spent at least 5 weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, based on a combination of airplay and sales
3. Sold at least 3 million copies in the United States (“Triple Platinum”)
4. Sold at least 5 million copies worldwide
5. Was the best-selling album of the year in which it was released, as reported by Nielsen SoundScan
6. Won a Grammy for Album of the Year, Song of the Year (for great songwriting), or Record of the year (for great performance in studio)

I have combined scores from each of these categories through a complex Sabermetric formula to produce a final score for each song and album, a score that I call the Coltonic Quotient. No, not really, but that would be pretty sweet, right? I just made a big graph of those six values and looked for artists who stood out. Enough with the exposition, let’s jump to the winners!

10. Norah Jones

“Top ten artists of the decade, huh? Then why does the first one have me scratching my head?” If that’s how you feel, I understand, and that’s why this soulful young songstress barely made it in. But her accomplishments cannot be ignored. Her success was both immediate and staggering and went arguably unmatched in subsequent years.

At the age of 21, she debuted on the mass market with 2002′s Come Away with Me and lead single “Don’t Know Why”. These won her the Triple Crown of Album, Song, and Record of the year, a feat achieved by only one other artist in recent memory: the Dixie Chicks in 2006. Come Away with Me also happens to be one of only five RIAA-certified Diamond albums from the aughties, which means 10 million copies sold domestically. Worldwide, 20 million men, women, and children own a copy of that disc, making it the best-selling album of the decade, straight up.

And, just for kicks, Norah Jones claimed another Record of the Year title two years later for her collaboration with Ray Charles, “Here We Go Again”.

9. Taylor Swift

While we’re on the topic of immediate success, here’s a spunky pop princess who certainly hasn’t escaped your attention. When 16-year-old Taylor Swift dropped her self-titled debut in 2006, over 4 million American fanboys and fangirls rushed to pick it up for her. Five singles went Platinum and the country world was hootin’ and hollerin’. (Over the years, her crossover success has changed their tune a bit as true blue country people find themselves facing down a new generation of pop-a-matic Carrie Underwood sing-alikes, inspired by Swift, who can’t tell steel strings apart from nylon.)

Swift was impervious to sophomore slump as critics and consumers alike cheered 2008′s Fearless to a Grammy for Album of the Year and a sales record for 2009, overshooting 6 million copies in the US. The lead single, “Love Story”, tallied nearly 7 million sales worldwide. With Speak Now just sneaking in at the end of 2010 and already Triple Platinum and counting, and with Swift now not only legal but of drinking age, we shouldn’t expect her fanbase to cool off anytime soon.

8. Eminem

Who would’ve thought it. A white rapper! Honey, tell the neighbors, I just saw the strangest thing on tv… wait, what did he just say? Kids, bedtime, now!

We’ve been through it all a long time ago. But, far from wearing out, Marshall Mathers has remained an ever-present part of our collective consciousness. Yep, there’s a little bit of Slim Shady in all of us. And while his numbers don’t make your eyes pop out the way Taylor Swift’s do, he gets credit in my book for sheer longevity. Our part of the story begins in 2002 with The Eminem Show, which outsold every other album that year and gave us all the words to “Without Me” that we still remember. Months later, a little track that wasn’t ever on an Eminem album managed to top the Top 40 for 7 weeks and the Hot 100 for 12 weeks. “Lose Yourself” might have singlehandedly accounted for a fair portion of 8 Mile‘s success (grossing $240 million at the box office), but I’m not one to speculate.

As proof that Eminem is still relevant, since The Eminem Show he is 3-for-3 on getting his albums to Multi-Platinum status, and in 2010 spent 7 weeks on top of Billboard’s Hot 100 with “Love the Way You Lie” f/ Rihanna.

7. Ke$ha

Oh yes. Say, why don’t we all take a quick break from all this reading and go watch “Tik Tok” on YouTube. Don’t tell me it’s overplayed. You love that song. I love that song. Everybody loves that song. “Tik Tok” is #9 on the list of best-selling singles, worldwide, of all time.

Deep breaths.

It’s true. No Beatles song, no Elvis song, no Eagles or Michael Jackson or Norah Jones song has sold to 12.8 million people, but “Tik Tok” has. (And it came out August 2009! The Beatles have had 40 years to move their product!) With two other Platinum singles off her only LP to date, Animal, and a 6-week reign atop the Hot 100 on Flo Rida’s “Right Round”, that dirty, drunken blond slut (I don’t think Ke$ha would mind me saying that) is evidently a force to be reckoned with. And I, for one, welcome our new skank overlord.

6. Justin Timberlake

J-Tim, as nobody calls him, is a true child of the aughties. Lest we forget, he was once a part of *NSYNC, sister group of the Backstreet Boys, and as such gets credit for the Quintuple-Platinum 2001 release Celebrity. Shortly after that release, *NSYNC went on what is technically still a hiatus. J-Tim was always the one with the starpower and he quickly wound up spending 6 weeks at #1 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart when he was featured on the Black Eyed Peas’ “Where Is the Love?” in 2003.

Everyone already knew his name, and some high school girls still carried his face on their lunchbox, but I don’t think there’s much question that 2006 set a new high-watermark for J-Tim. In chronological order, that year saw him star in Alpha Dog, top the charts for a month and a half with the Triple-Platinum “SexyBack”, support Samuel L. Jackson with a leading role in Black Snake Moan, and finally captivate the world as the featured guest in a little SNL Digital Short known as “Dick in a Box”. That last one was of great importance – since the end of *NSYNC, some fans had questioned J-Tim’s egocentricity, and “SexyBack” did little to quiet these thoughts. “Dick in a Box” cemented him as a man of the people.

It’s something of a shame that we haven’t heard new material from J-Tim since FutureSex/LoveSounds in 2006 since he’s been busy with his acting career. I do hope that he’ll get the chance to break out some sweet dance moves in one of these roles sooner or later.

5. Katy Perry

Let me tell you some things you pretty much know about Katy Perry. In 2008, she released One of the Boys and immediately spent 7 weeks on top of the Hot 100 with the Triple-Platinum “I Kissed a Girl”, which was only the second-best-selling single from the album, behind “Hot n Cold”. As her low voice, which I personally am wont to describe as boyish rather than sultry, left its indelible mark on our brains, she found herself invited to work with 3OH!3 on their Platinum hit “Starstrukk” and with Snoop Dogg on “California Gurls”, her most successful release to date. “California Gurls” was one of three Multi-Platinum singles spawned by 2010′s Teenage Dream within the decade.

Now let me tell you some things you don’t know. In 2004, before her big break, Perry recorded vocals for the self-titled debut album from The Matrix, a production team responsible for penning such gigantic successes as Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated” and Jason Mraz’s “The Remedy (I Won’t Worry)”. The Matrix, the album, was held back at the last minute and only hit the shelf in 2009, released in confidence following Katy Perry’s skyrocket ascent to popularity and fame.

But here’s the gold nugget: Katy Perry’s first album was actually a self-titled Christian rock release under her birth name, Katy Hudson, featuring songs with titles like “Faith Won’t Fail”. This was, evidently, prior to her discovery of the joys of bisexual experimentation, through which we came to meet her. Katy Hudson once called up Bryce Avary (a.k.a. Christian recording artist The Rocket Summer) to let him know how much she liked listening to his song “TV Family” while she was making out with her boyfriend, Matt Thiessen, frontman of punk rock’s favorite Christian band, Relient K. And for that, Katy Perry, we salute you.

4. Alicia Keys

It’s okay if you’re surprised to see Alicia Keys so close to the top of the list; at least you all know who she is. Perhaps another writer wouldn’t have put so much stock in longevity, but I do – dominating throughout the decade goes a long way toward dominating the decade as a whole – and in that department Keys excels. The 2001 Grammy for Song of the Year went to the then-20-year-old soul sister for “Fallin’”, a heartfelt and moving piece that, to my surprise, capped out at a Gold certification despite spending 5 weeks at #1 on the Top 40. In fact, while Songs in A Minor sold over 6 million copies, Keys would have to wait until 2007′s “No One” (from her third LP, As I Am) to experience the thrill of her own Multi-Platinum single.

You could alternatively argue that “her own” first Multi-Platinum single was “My Boo”, a 2004 collaboration with Usher. Between the three songs mentioned thus far, Keys had a set a trend of landing 5-week spans on top of the charts once every three years; but the next song in the pattern came a little early. It was 2009 when Keys played and sang on her best-selling single to date: Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind”.

Amidst her consistent string of musical successes, Keys has graced the silver screen with her characteristic passionate composure in films such as The Secret Life of Bees and has contributed to movie soundtracks as well, perhaps most notably joining Jack White to perform “Another Way to Die”, the theme to the 2008 Bond film Quantum of Solace.

3. Kanye West

Between February 2004 and November 2010, Kanye West released five LP’s that have all gone Platinum or better. I don’t care who you are, that’s productive. His most impressive streak begins with “Gold Digger” f/ Jamie Foxx in 2005, which gave us 10 weeks to get to know Kanye better while he presided over the Hot 100. Two years later, “Stronger” went Triple Platinum. In 2008, it was “Love Lockdown” that sold 3 million copies domestically. And after that, “Heartless” did even better in the States while making it to 5.5 million in worldwide sales.

At this point I’m starting to wonder if you’re suitably impressed or just drowning in numbers. If I’ve still got your attention, let me make it clear that the monotonous drone of domination represented by these highlighted artists is far beyond what anyone else managed to achieve in the last decade. When I say that a single went Triple Platinum, keep in mind that only 41 songs over the last 10 years made it that far. Out of all the music makers in the world, if Kanye West accounts for 3 of those 41, I’d say he’s doing pretty darn well. “Gold Digger” was one of only 10 songs since 2001 to make it to a 10th week on top of the Hot 100. (Only three songs locked up 10 weeks on the Top 40: Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together”, Nelly’s “Over and Over” f/ Tim McGraw, and Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me”.) And “Heartless” was among the top 25 singles of the aughties in terms of worldwide sales.

With all that in mind, I could also bring up Kanye’s success as a producer for himself, Jay-Z, Common, John Legend, etc. But let’s keep it simple.

2. Beyoncé

Pop quiz: how long has Beyoncé been flying solo? How long ago did Destiny’s Child call it quits? Okay, those are two different questions, but the answers are probably “Not as long ago as you think.” Destiny’s Child, including Ms. Knowles, found Triple-Platinum success with Destiny Fulfilled in 2004, three years since the somewhat more profitable Survivor. It was in between that the solo debut Dangerously in Love hit the market, bringing us 8 glorious weeks of “Crazy in Love” f/ Jay-Z leading the Hot 100, followed by 9 glorious weeks of “Baby Boy” f/ Sean Paul doing the same.

Since focusing exclusively – in the musical realm, anyway – on solo work, Beyoncé has steadily picked up power like a juggernaut. In 2005, it was “Check on It” f/ Slim Thug that topped both the Top 40 and the Hot 100 for a month and change while selling a million copies. “Irreplaceable” just about doubled those marks in every department the next year. And the capstone, at least so far, has been 2008′s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)”, which managed Quadruple-Platinum sales here, 5.5 million accumulated sales here and abroad, and a Grammy for Song of the Year. If I may speak from the heart, there have hardly ever been more deserving recipients of that award than the team who wrote that gem.

Beyoncé has been married to Jay-Z since 2008, making them approximately a gazillion times richer, more beautiful, and more successful than you and your deadbeat boyfriend will ever be. (I mean, I ain’t sayin’ you’re not pretty, but… come on.) That makes the aughties a true red-letter decade for this empire with legs.

1. Fergie

So, did you guess that? Did you see #1 coming? It’s tricky to argue that the success described below should be attributed to the Dutchess herself rather than to the Black Eyed Peas at large, but hear me out. Before Fergie, those other guys were nothing. Nobody has ever heard of Behind the Front or Bridging the Gap and they were both put out before 2001 anyway. In 2003, Elephunk introduced us to Stacy Ann Ferguson and all of a sudden the band sold 2 million albums and held #1 on the Top 40 for 6 weeks with “Where Is the Love?”. Besides, this way I can make the interesting and contentious claim that the top ten artists of the aughties were all individuals and no bands! (Did you notice?)

Anyway, around the middle of the decade, Fergie went rogue. All by herself, she released The Dutchess and watched 3 million of her fans pay for it while five of its singles went Platinum or better. Five! Fergie had us wrapped around the only real part of her body: her little finger. And how did she abuse this power? Ever a gracious mistress, the Dutchess merely rejoined forces with the good guys: will.i.am, apl.de.ap, and Taboo.

In 2005, the Black Eyed Peas saw their group effort Monkey Business come up empty. The only successful single was, to nobody’s surprise, the oversexed Fergie feature “My Humps”. By contrast, 2009′s The E.N.D. was a veritable goldmine. From that decade, “Boom Boom Pow” was one of only six Quintuple-Platinum singles. “I Gotta Feeling” was the only Sextuple-Platinum single. Each spent at least 6 consecutive weeks atop the Top 40 and 12 consecutive weeks leading the Hot 100, selling 7-9 million copies worldwide. Oh, and there were a couple of other Multi-Platinum singles off The E.N.D., but can we just sit in awe for a minute? Two of the top 10 selling singles of the last decade were on the same record. If there is a manual for success in the music industry, the Black Eyed Peas must have written the dang thing.

They’re not done, either. Fergie and the Fergettes managed to push through another release just before the buzzer. The aptly named The Beginning didn’t have time to set any sales records within the decade, but could usher us into a new era in music. If the Black Eyed Peas can match their previous success – not necessarily with this album, but ever – then they’ll probably find themselves on top of this list when we look back on the teens ten years from now.

Agree? Disagree? What loser did I put on a pedestal?  What lord or lady did I snub?  Hit me up in the comments!

When I was first invited to submit content to Earn This, I saw it as an opportunity to express some of my worldview and to attack personal hotbutton issues in the context of discussions about arts and entertainment, specifically music.  My eagerness led me to kick things off with two didactic soapbox stands in a row.  These truly represented my most ardent beliefs at the time and still do so.

First, I spelt out as best as I could my understanding of what biases are most important for the sake of interpreting critical reviews.  Again, my focus is on music, but I have a hunch that a similar argument could be made in other areas of aesthetics.

Jupiter Sunrise, Band X, and the Wooden Beam in Your Eye (8/27/09)

Next, I attempted to express just how broad the span of “music” is.  By using frequent examples as stepping stones, I hoped to encourage readers to investigate something outside of their ken.  Adventuresome music inspires me personally but often garners little fame since it lies outside the mainstream, which naturally consists of those musical forms thoroughly practiced until they occupy the most favorable and deepest ruts.  And there’s nothing wrong with that.  Still, I would be listening to rock radio for the rest of my life if nobody had ever shown me the extreme variety available elsewhere, so I give importance to the task of exposing others to the same.

The Borders and Frontiers of Music Itself (9/4/09)

Beyond those lectures, my best discussions have all sprung from captured moments of surprise.  I can point you to three particular instances of my mind expanding.  These are the exciting discoveries in life that keep me seeking new adventures in music.

Aurally, my favorite experience was the pre-concert demonstration of instruments and methods invented and modified by NiCad, a squad of curious European virtuosos.

NiCad: In Search of Sound (9/9/09)

Visually, my first Goo Goo Dolls concert takes the cake.  Only after writing the review did I allow myself to read up on the band’s history, members, and discography.  That led to more hilarity for me, because, as knowledgeable readers will recognize, some of my assumptions about the group were… a little misplaced.

The Goo Goo Dolls Experience (4/22/10)

Finally, defying categorization was my reception of the new, old, or forthcoming album May the Box Burn Down Around You.  I would call that day unforgettable except that it’s not even a memory yet: as of today, the whole thing still has not been explained and there have been no enlightening updates via Jupiter Sunrise’s (shockingly active) Twitter feed.

Jupiter Sunrise: Comeback from the Future (2/4/10)

Here’s hoping the future is full of discovery!

But two particular bands dear to me have each announced their impending demise in the last two weeks: Mae and As Tall As Lions.  Neither is a pet band of mine, in that I don’t own a full discography worth of music from either.  I’d only be able to sing along to half of their songs at a show.

For that reason, my comments below will be largely from the gut.  I offer a eulogy for each band as the fan that I was, without actually pursuing the extra research that would be appropriate for a proper review of their careers.  If you’re in my age bracket and someone told you Counting Crows was splitting, you might feel sad and go listen to “Mr. Jones” on repeat for fifteen minutes, but you wouldn’t run to the record store and buy Hard Candy to see what you missed when you had the chance.  Just so, I’m encapsulating the experiences I already have with these bands for now without yet mixing in full knowledge of their careers.

Mae, originally or apocryphally an acronym for Multisensory Aesthetic Experience, is an indie band proudly hailing from Norfolk, VA.  If I remember right, they formed as students at Old Dominion University, a stone’s throw from my own alma mater.  Though never admitting to be anything more specific than “spiritual” as individuals and in their music, Mae was often cast as a Christian band due to the contract they had with Tooth & Nail at the time of their rise to fame.

Frankly, I have never been swayed much by the quality of a frontman’s voice, be it glorious or abysmal.  So the Dave Gimenez’s thin quality on Destination: Beautiful, which I picked up blindly on a girlfreind’s recommendation, was easy to ignore next to the album’s credible arrangements and cheery sing-along choruses.  (Want to know the secret to good arrangements?  Get a good bass player.  Every indie kid wants to play guitar.  If the last step of assembling your band is asking around to see who knows a bass player, it shows in your records.)

Destination: Beautiful was not a breakout hit.  Over many years, it grew on me.  Every time a Mae track came up in my random playlist, I liked it a little more than before, which I guess just means the album was “greater than or equal to average” paired with “my kind of music.”  After the release of Mae’s sophomore LP The Everglow, a few of those new tracks snuck their way onto my hard drive somehow.  The production value had leapfrogged to the point where Dave Elkins’s voice suddenly seeemed remarkable in a good way.

Oh, and Dave Gimenez had changed his name to Dave Elkins.  I don’t know which one is his real name.  I probably should have asked him when I got the chance to say hi after Mae played at the College of William and Mary back in early 2008.

Left to right: this author, Dave "Gimenez" Elkins, and the girlfriend who first recommended Mae

They played in an awful space on the second floor of the student center after opening act Tokyo.  Still, there’s little better than soaring in a crowd full of voices during the swells of anthems like “The Ocean,” “Suspension,” and “Anything” – though I’ll admit there were fairly few in attendance who actually knew Mae’s songs.

Even at that point, Mae had released a CD that I didn’t have.  I still don’t.  I did pay occasional attention, at least, when Mae undertook a “12 songs in 12 months” project that involved releasing a new song every 30 days that could be downloaded from their website for a donation that would go to charity.  Those offerings I streamed all sounded as high-quality as I hoped, but I never bought any.  Those 12 songs, along with an equal amount of otherwise unreleased material, composed a series of three EPs: (m)orning, (a)fternoon, and (e)vening.  How cute!

It was only within the last few months that I bought The Everglow and heard the album in its entirety.  My first listen was revolutionary.  The cohesion, range, and emotional force ranked immediately in my upper echelon among all LPs.  The conceptual design of the album is perfect in construction as the listener is walked organically through the course of an education in love.  The execution is entrancing if you’re willing to “fall into it.”

And now that I get it… it’s over.

In July 2010, Mae foreshadowed their oncoming departure from the scene, promising a “Goodbye, Goodnight” farewell tour.  The last two weeks brought the tour schedule, enumerating the band’s final shows, with the grand finale back home in Norfolk.  Amazingly, despite a line-up change that followed The Everglow, the band has reassembled in its original form for this grand seeing-off.  One lucky venue will even be treated to a cover-to-cover performance of The Everglow live.  Then, on November 28, the band will start “hiding away, embarking on new adventures, trying out life’s opportunities as individuals with freedom and anticipation.”

My involvement with As Tall As Lions was more brief and pointed.  They were an accident – the just-so-happens opening band at an Rx Bandits show.  I heard murmurs before the band came out from fans who had traveled far to see them without any fondness for the headliners.  The name “As Tall As Lions” meant nothing to me and my initial survey of their MySpace had left no impression.  I might have even been confused as to why a ferocious prog-punk-reggae-ska outfit like Rx Bandits would be touring with what looked like a bunch of low-key electric jazz musicians whose only use of a trumpet was for eerie feedback loops.

No such thought crossed my mind that night.  As Tall As Lions conquered me with a frenetic, tightly-woven opener named “Circles” that involved most of the band playing drums of one kind or another under a thick, milky vocal melody.  Go listen to “Circles” right now.  If you don’t like it, listen to it again tomorrow.  Also, you’re crazy.

Rx Bandits played a stellar set, but I bought As Tall As Lions’ You Can’t Take It With You that night instead of Rx Bandits’ new Mandala.  Days later, upon a spin, I felt betrayed.  Live, As Tall As Lions convinced me that they were a prog band of remarkable intelligence and texture.  My computer speakers were playing straight-up jazz fusion back at me.  (Albeit jazz fusion of remarkable intelligence and texture.)  You Can’t Take It With You got buried and I have never dug deeper into their past records.

Naturally, plays from a random playlist have accumulated since then, and a love equal to most of that original dumbstruck spark has been restored.  You don’t need to remind me that the line between prog and jazz is nonexistent.  These guys fill up the whole center of that Venn diagram.  They also make beautiful music.

And their bassist's face looked goofy as all get-out.

Word from headquarters is that these boys are calling it quits.  Thankfully, like Mae, their announcement had more dignity than a simple “Dear John”: three final concerts were announced for three major US cities, all right before Christmas.

The looming end makes me think about all the good times.  Remember that you’ve got to take the chance to love these guys while you’ve got it.  Remember that one ticket sold for a show benefits the average band far more than one CD sale.  Remember that it benefits the fan more, too.  I won’t be able to catch As Tall As Lions (ever) again, but I’ve got my ticket to see Mae in a couple of weeks so that I can say “Goodbye, Goodnight” to some brilliant musicians who couldn’t keep this up forever.

]]> http://earnthis.net/2010/10/the-end-of-two-eras/feed/ 0 http://earnthis.net/2010/06/spocks-beard-x-2010-riding-high-on-a-second-wind/ http://earnthis.net/2010/06/spocks-beard-x-2010-riding-high-on-a-second-wind/#comments Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:30:22 +0000 Colton O. http://earnthis.net/?p=988

Americans today don’t give a hoot about progressive rock.  Our parents grew up on Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd; the lucky ones collected vinyl from Kansas, ELP, and King Crimson.  Those heirlooms have clearly not trickled down yet here the way they have in experimental music havens scattered around Japan and Northern and Western Europe.

That makes it hard for Spock’s Beard, the international superstars from L.A. now in their eighteenth year, left standing as the proverbial prophets not accepted in their homeland.  Things seemed even bleaker in 2002 when frontman and brainfather Neal Morse departed from the group after six albums.  But now, with the release of X, the stalwart boys look to reclaim their crown as kings of the formerly-and-elsewhere-beloved genre.

Naturally, as their tenth album, X references their fifth: V.  Having run out their record deal last year, the band opted not to re-sign with any label just yet.  Instead, they funded and produced the album themselves and with the help of established friends in the industry.  Most of the money for the endeavor came from hopelessly devoted faithfuls like me who willingly shelled out up to $200 for various pre-ordering options offered before any recording took place.  Now that the finished piece of work is in our hands – 10 months later – was it worth it?

Ha.  “Worth it” would be an understatement.  This is the first post-Neal album that merits favorable comparisons to the band’s earlier work.  And that is the highest praise available.

Understand that this brand of prog comes with intricate time signatures, some eccentric keyboards, and long songs.  (The 8 tracks on X add up to over 78 minutes, near the capacity of an audio CD.)  Neal Morse was primarily a singing keyboardist, so, upon his departure, resident Moog master Ryo Okumoto attempted to maintain the key-centric attitude of the band to mixed results.  Drummer-cum-replacement-lead-singer Nick D’Virgilio then spent an album pretending he was a rock star before the guys managed to find their feet post-reconstruction.  This new album shows them gelling like never before and finding excellence as a fundamentally bass-driven band.

Two featured 16-minute tracks on the record are subdivided into movements.  Both “From the Darkness” and “Jaws of Heaven” are odd in that they forego the sort of blazing introductions or overtures that the band has historically employed to signal an incoming epic.  They hop right into things, the former beginning with a hard rock feel and the latter as a mournful western ballad.  At four movements apiece, though, the songs have plenty of time to pass through various moods and genres.

“From the Darkness” suffers slightly from a cut-and-jump approach to transitions that, while not disorienting in execution, leaves one feeling that they have just listened to four disconnected songs.  The abstract and vague lyrics (arguably a problem on half of X‘s tracks) don’t imbue any greater sense of unity in the story D’Virgilio spins.  Vastly superior in this regard is “Jaws of Heaven,” whose segues are fluid and whose movements feel related by recurring motives while each exhibits a unique musical character.  The third movement is particularly compelling: stirring far-off drums complement sparse guitar strokes and a soft voice, all held together by the persistent and understated bass.

Both suites conclude in powerful fashion.  Either would have been perfectly suited to end the album, an honor granted to “Jaws of Heaven.”

Four-stringer Dave Meros contributes his writing talents to “Edge of the In-Between,” a modest tune at 10 minutes long.  While not demarcated into sections, the song moves through a progression of passages with entrancing continuity.  The listener is never jilted by the undercurrents moving from a rollicking 4/4 chorus to an expansive 7/4 jam to a slowed-down bridge that alternates between dainty piano and sludgy bass.  The recapitulation that follows is reminiscent of the grand effect captured in “At the End of the Day” on V, a compliment not to be taken lightly.

Meros on bass and D’Virgilio on drums click so well that it’s easy to get the impression they are featured in every song on the album.  Soaring keys and crunching guitars are thus enabled to reach their full potential on every lick.

A strong case can be made that the standout track is “The Emperor’s Clothes,” nearly the shortest at under 6 minutes, beating out only the shifting and dramatic instrumental romp “Kamikaze.”  Written by guitarist Alan Morse (with added touches by his brother Neal!), it is a perfect example of great lyrics perfectly matched by effective musical arrangement.  The song tells the first half of the well-known story from the point of view of the tailor who has never sewn but has a plan to cash in: “Well you’ve never seen clothes / Like you won’t see those… ‘Cause the fabric’s so fine / It’s like it’s not even there.”

Bursting and driving trombones ring in the song and are later joined by french horns, a string quartet, and a number of wonky synthesized sounds to complement the core rock instrumentation.  Besides all this, there is a cheery a cappella section in the middle ended by a frenetic xylophone run.  Tempo jumps add to the effect of a song that is thoroughly fun.  Even the basic beat seems to recreate a circus parade!

Finally, a nod must be given to “Their Names Escape Me.”  The perfectly eerie mood created, so befitting of a song whose lyrics tell of a judgment and inquisition (“Tell us the names of every traitor who / Took up arms against the nation…”), continues and grows in tension as the band first sings the song proper, then moves into a list of names.  D’Virgilio captures in the tune my name and the names of every other contributor to the recording fund, all the while keeping legitimate music going underneath.  As the names are sung, the key raises steadily and the arrangement thickens until the eventual unearthly fade-out.

Led by Meros and D’Virgilio, with all intellectualism and virtuosity intact, X is a highly melodic and engaging product.  Finally, Spock’s Beard has recreated epics better than past efforts penned by Neal such as “Flow” and “The Good Don’t Last.”  Attempts to do so have been made on every record since his departure; only here have they paid off.  It is thrilling, after eighteen years, to see the boys raise the question of whether their greatest work lies behind them or ahead.

Last night, the Goo Goo Dolls played the NorVa, a music club in downtown Norfolk, VA. I’ve grown up listening to the band on the radio, but never knew anything more about them. That is the perspective from which I will review their show. Names of band members have been fabricated based solely on their appearances because I don’t know their names.

**********

Sound check was all wrapped up. The lights were suddenly turned down low. To the tune of hundreds of screaming, drunk 30-somethings, the black curtain behind the stage fell to the floor, revealing… a large gray textured sheet! Truly, the Goo Goo Doll’s backdrop reminded me of a pebble or a thread viewed through a microscope at 10,000X magnification.

But the dingy, vacant wall was either forgiven or forgotten as the band rolled out into the light. Oh, the light! An imposing brightness filled the main stage and overflowed, washing over the audience to a level that I — perhaps uniquely on account of my youth — found disconcerting; and I found that I could look down and distinguish the colors on the shoes surrounding my own. Of course, there was no time for pondering footwear. One of the greatest bands of the 90′s had begun to play!

I didn’t recognize the first song, but that didn’t matter much. Thinking ahead, I had expected to hear about four perfectly familiar songs. This moderate-rocking opener gave me an opportunity to survey the characters prancing and posing before me.

The frontman, whose bronze wrinkles recalled a young Keith Richards, exuded comfort in his stardom. Clad in the manner of light, snap-button jacket that I imagine must be sold with a matching canteen, he flaunted his practiced smile and strut from the very start.

To the left of A Young Keith Richards, cackling and convulsing, was a creature the 1980′s had nightmares about. I’m sure they call him Freak. Stringy black emo hair covered Freak’s face which, since such a style is most commonly worn by stick figures in skinny jeans and tight black tees, recast his “medium build” as “pudgy.” Freak smacked his bass and jetted around like a fireball, criss-crossing with A Young Keith Richards in their mutual excitement.

In the background were three more consummate musicians. On the keyboard, but with a guitar slung over his shoulder and a mic stand nearby, was the spitting image of the singer from the FreeCreditReport.com commercials. Elevated in the center of the group was, I believe, Dr. Gregory House, no doubt taking a short vacation from the medical practice to lay down some drumwork for this national tour. And finally, rising out of the shadow of the kit to display his operatic lead guitar skills, there was Fabio.

Stone-faced and svelte, Fabio had parted his neck-length golden hair directly down the middle. He left unbottoned the top of his black flared-sleeve shirt. From his blank eyes, Fabio could stare into your soul, or at least in its general direction, so well as he could see you from his cool, dim realm where he stood slightly hunched over his beautiful white guitar.

I processed the imagery that is the Goo Goo Dolls lineup just in time to be ready for one of those songs that I had known I’d hear: Slide. Here the crowd got its first taste of responsibility. A Young Keith Richards could not support the beloved chorus with his vestigial octave-and-a-half range, so he spent half the song with the microphone held out toward the audience. Happy to oblige were the reveling working-class adults who had learned the song by heart through countless roadtrips and high school dances.

Following the sonic festival of Slide were a string of songs I had forgotten I even knew, including Here Is Gone and Everything You Are.  As A Young Keith Richards slyly substituted increases in volume for what were once high pitches in the melodies, I am pleased to say that his friend Free Credit Report Guy showed notable vocal prowess on the harmonies.

Then, between songs, Freak started chatting with the audience. He tossed a Rubik’s Cube into the crowd in hopes that someone could solve it for him before the end of the show.  As he trailed off, drums started to pulse and guitars started to pound. But A Young Keith Richards was strumming away on the side of the stage, so…. Oh no. No.

Yes. Freak started to sing a song.

The sounds of late-80′s punk started to emerge from the stage as that rocky voice crunched out lyrics about goodness-knows-what. I was far too absorbed in the visual flare of the nightmarish creature who had taken over the Goo Goo Dolls concert. Rote song structures and heavy rhythms on simple chords accompanied windmill strokes as Freak galloped back and forth in delight. The horror lasted for only two songs — departing, as it arrived, without explanation — but it may haunt me for weeks.

A slew of satisfying songs followed to quell my fears. Four black balloons were tossed into the crowd to be batted around during Black Balloon. Worry might have arisen around me, though, when A Young Keith Richards announced that they would be playing new songs from a forthcoming album. It’s always a danger to be declared a legend in your own time; people just want to hear the classics over and over. Undaunted, the Goo Goo Dolls pressed through a block of strong, catchy rockers that might portent yet more great successes on the charts.

In the middle of the new material, the boys pulled out Name, challenging the audience by asking how many of those in attendance were old enough to remember when that song first came out. As the cheers of assent echoed, A Young Keith Richards made sweet music with his fourth different acoustic guitar of the evening. Dr. House kept time.  Fabio spent the song slightly hunched, looking blankly at the audience. It was the same expression seen on Keanu Reeves when he first learned to stop bullets.

Shortly thereafter, Freak returned to the microphone, threatening to drive my heart to palpitation. I won’t review the two songs he spewed forth: they were much like the first pair. I waited, trembling, for A Young Keith Richards to reclaim power from the beast.

Once he did, I knew we had reached the home stretch of the set. A Young Keith Richards was handed his forty-seventh different acoustic guitar of the evening while Dr. House led Freak off stage, presumably to feed him. A ballad introduced as “terribly depressing” followed which featured, shockingly, the transposition of the spotlight onto Fabio for a ten-second slide guitar solo. Any longer and I presume the artificial light would have either damaged his complexion or turned him to dust.

At long last, it was time for Iris. This time the lion’s share of the song was left to the audience to perform. The bridge blew my mind as Fabio stepped to the very front of the stage for a wickedly sick shredding solo that lasted all of six seconds. On his heels, Free Credit Report Guy appeared out of nowhere with a tenor saxophone and absolutely busted loose for about twice as long. Then the toys were put away, the song was drawn to a close, and before long the band was filing off the stage.

The encore opened with a sweet little ditty named Sympathy and closed with a truly awe-inspiring performance of Broadway. The happiness on stage reflected the crowd and could be heard clearly in the soaring harmonies. With that bit of high majesty, the Goo Goo Dolls left us for the evening, retiring backstage to put Freak back in his pen.