Pet de Kat Krewe

A cache of unreleased music from Radiohead’s sessions for OK Computer recently leaked online. Now, the band has officially released the leaked material through Bandcamp and is donating the proceeds to the climate activist group Extinction Rebellion.

According to a note posted by guitarist Jonny Greenwood, “We got hacked last week – someone stole Thom’s minidisk archive from around the time of OK Computer, and reportedly demanded $150,000 on threat of releasing it. So instead of complaining – much – or ignoring it, we’re releasing all 18 hours on Bandcamp in aid of Extinction Rebellion. Just for the next 18 days. So for £18 you can find out if we should have paid that ransom.”

Greenwood added: “Never intended for public consumption (though some clips did reach the cassette in the OK Computer reissue) it’s only tangentially interesting. And very, very long. Not a phone download. Rainy out, isn’t it though?”

Spread across 18 mini discs, the cache include countless previously unreleased demos, outtakes, live recordings, and unfinished versions of tracks from the band’s OK Computer era — of which Reddit users have meticulously indexed in a Google Doc.

The leaked material features early iterations of “Lift”, “I Promise”, “Airbag”, “Paranoid Android”, “Let Down”, “Palo Alto”, and “The Tourist”. Demos and live radio session renditions of “Motion Picture Soundtrack” are included, as are soundcheck versions of “No Surprises”. There’s even early sketches for a James Bond soundtrack.

You can stream the leaked material below, and/or purchase the full cache through Bandcamp.

<a href="http://radiohead.bandcamp.com/album/minidiscs-hacked">MINIDISCS [HACKED] by Radiohead</a>

https://t.co/iTcF2VjYRd https://t.co/6Pao0hThbU pic.twitter.com/OepiMlEL73

— Jonny Greenwood (@JnnyG) June 11, 2019

Radiohead officially release leaked OK Computer material after turning down $150,000 ransom
Alex Young

from Consequence of Sound }

I discovered record charts in junior high school. Trying, yet again, to be cool, I started listening to Z-100, the local New York City Top 40 station. I was shocked to learn that all of pop music could be reduced to 40 songs. It seemed way too small. At the time, it felt like Madonna must have had 50 top-10 hits all by herself.

I eventually found my way off of Top 40 into the heavy metal parking lot that was suburban Queens in 1988, but I remained fascinated by the idea of record charts and how something as personal and as expansive as music could be distilled to a chart position. It’s why I read with interest about Rolling Stone delaying the launch of their own music chart, which was supposed to use an algorithm to figure out and weight what people are actually listening to nowadays.

Music charts used to be simple things. (And they sure as hell didn’t get sued by pissed-off DJs.) People either bought a single/album, or they listened to it on the radio. Now, as Rolling Stone has learned, it’s gotten more complicated. There’s streaming. There are online radio stations. There are podcasts. And while there are rules and laws that govern the use of music, including who collects the royalties, there are so many podcasts and streams that it’s impossible to police. And that means usage metrics are hard to track. There’s also the issue of bots and how much streamed music is heard by an actual human and how much someone is gaming the system.

(Read: DJ Khaled Threatens to Sue Billboard When Album Doesn’t Go No. 1)

Adding to the complexity of all of this, there’s just a ton of music released every day across genres. A quick look at the Billboard chart page shows more charts than you might have known existed: The Hot 100, The Billboard 200, Latin, Holiday, Blues, Country. And as segmented as it is, many music fans will look at the list and be upset that their genre isn’t represented.

Just to oversimplify the problem, there’s way too much music to track and there’s no good way to track how many people are listening to it. And not to put this on the kids, who are always doing crazy things we can’t account for, but the kids are always doing crazy things we can’t account for. We’re lucky someone stumbled upon their use of Google Docs as a communication/bullying tool, but for all we know, they’re using empty Amazon shopping carts to listen to music or abandoned Blackboard course shells to create playlists. As Rolling Stone has seemingly learned, there are simply too many unknowns to accurately track music-listening patterns.

Music charts are potentially influential because they not only reflect what’s popular but drive it as well. Radio stations use various charts to create their own playlists. It was a recurring theme on the classic WKRP in Cincinnati, with the DJs often pushing back against being told what to play. So, like Dr. Johnny Fever eating his own tail, popular songs receive airplay because they’re popular. And as Bruce Iglauer, the founder of the Alligator Records blues label, says in Bitten by the Blues, his autobiography, “subtlety is the enemy of commercial radio.” Numbered lists are anything but subtle.

But many people believe in music charts. While charts have never been scientific, even in simpler times, there’s something about a numbered list that seems official: Of course “Crocodile Rock” is a better song than “We’re an American Band”. “Crocodile” was No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and “American Band” was 23. “Crocodile” won by 16.

All music fans know music is much more interesting and complex than a number on a list. The record store employees in the 2000 film High Fidelity constantly make lists, not because there’s an empiricism behind them but as a form of mental exercise. There’s no larger truth in their lists so much as their lists capture a moment. But numbers, even used ironically, create a veneer of science. Music’s personal and numbered lists, like record charts, are a way to validate our own views. Some people take great pride in their music not charting. As a college DJ in the 1990s, I instantly suspected anything that appeared on any chart, concerned that the artist was somehow more interested in popularity than their craft. Conversely, some people like to see music they listen to on the charts as proof of their taste-making skills.

Lists and unreliable numbers aren’t just a music problem, either. Take, for example, American politics. The media now covers elections by using poll results as a proxy for the underlying campaign issues. It’s not about the candidates, their platforms, and their ideas so much as it’s about their numbers. So rather than readers, viewers, and listeners becoming educated about candidates and issues, we’re constantly bombarded with information about who’s winning. Read any coverage of the Democratic primaries and the thrust of the article will be about polling numbers with, if you’re reading a good source, just a few sentences dedicated to what the candidates, also known as the poll subjects, are about. Suffice it to say, this process isn’t working out for lots of people in this country. Or democracy. Polls and music charts both allow ideas to be discussed without delving into quality; they’re reductive.

One of the few things everyone agrees upon is that the music industry is broken. Artists make little to no money from their music (unless you’re Taylor Swift). Labels maintain they’re not making any money either. The unreliability of charts aren’t the disease but rather a symptom of the disease, which, at the risk of sounding like Ted Kaczynski, is technology. Technology made it possible to have almost unlimited access to music without ever having to pay for it, and that killed all the ways we track musical popularity.

Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1988.

Which is why it’s time to give up on charts. They’re not accurate. And more importantly, normal people don’t care about them. Sure, back in the day we all listened to “American Top 40,” either to mock it, to check in on the decline of pop music, or hoping for a long-distance dedication. I’m sure charts are useful as an industry tool. But as a way to discover music? Or as a way to assign value? It makes no sense. They’re poll numbers when we need conversation and thoughtful analysis.

Charts worked when we all listen to the same music in the same way. But music, like the United States, is simply too fractured for that now. There are popular artists who are slipping through the cracks of charts. These are vital, important artists with small niche audiences. By walking away from charts, we can figure out other metrics to gauge artist popularity. One of those metrics might be how much they are written or read about. But maybe it’ll be based on NSA surveillance data. Or perhaps someone will convince Siri and Alexa to wear a wire. Right now, we only know what doesn’t work and that the algorithms won’t rescue us.

However, we can save ourselves by using human judgment to figure out what’s good, what’s popular, and what’s important. It won’t have the same ring as “number one with a bullet” (perhaps the most American of all idioms), but maybe that’s yet another reason to say goodbye to the old chart system.

Why It’s Finally Time to Get Rid of Music Charts
Matt Melis

from Consequence of Sound }

John Turturro has been hard at work on a spinoff to The Big Lebowski based around his character Jesus Quintana. In a new interview with The Independent, Turturro offered an updated on the project, which he’s titled, Going Places.

While working on an English-language adaptation of Bertrand Blier’s 1974 French erotic comedy Les Valseuses, Turturro kept being reminded of Quintana. “I started playing around with it and I thought we could be onto something with his irony and the irreverence of the character,” he told Screen Daily back in 2016.

Fast forward three years and Turturro’s Big Lebowski spin-off film is just about complete. As he explained to The Independent, the editing process took a lot longer than he anticipated, but he’s finally settled on a cut of the film that meets his standards.

(Read: The Big Lebowski Perfected the Art of the Stoner Noir)

A previously released plot synopsis describes Going Places as a film about “a trio of misfits whose irreverent, sexually charged dynamic evolves into a surprising love story as their spontaneous and flippant attitude towards the past or future backfires time and again, even as they inadvertently perform good deeds.” In addition to Turturro, the cast includes Audrey Tautou and Bobby Cannavale.

“It’s a bit of a racy movie,” Turturro elaborated in an interview with The Independent. “It shows how stupid men are. That’s what the movie is kinda about – the women are the stronger, more together characters. I had to tweak it a little bit but now I feel really good about it. It’s basically an exploration of Jesus getting out of jail [after being framed as a pedophile]. It’s a comedy but a very human comedy.”

Turturro made Going Places with the full support of Big Lebowski directors Joel and Ethan Coen. “They’re my friends, close friends, and were supportive when I said I wanna explore this character more,” he said. “They said, you gotta do it cause we’re not doing it! If I have something to show, I show it to them if they’re around.”

While a release date has not yet been set, it’s expected that Turturro will debut Going Places later this year at a fall film festival.

John Turturro finishes Big Lebowski spin-off based on Jesus Quintana
Alex Young

from Consequence of Sound }

The Lowdown: The most disappointing thing about Bruce Springsteen’s last proper studio album, 2014’s High Hopes, was that it didn’t feel like a proper studio album at all. A loose assemblage of covers, unreleased tracks, and new versions of already-existing songs, the LP amounted to little more than a collection of odds and ends. While that could be considered a concept in itself, it still felt middling next to the mighty protest music of Wrecking Ball, the barnstorming folk of We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, or any of The Boss’ other output from the 21st century.

(Read: Bruce Springsteen’s 10 Best Solo Deep Cuts)

Chalk it up to writing an autobiography, performing a Broadway residency, or just the plain, old passage of time, but Western Stars sees Springsteen returning to his mastery of the long form on wax. His 19th album is unmistakably just that — an album with the consistency in theme and tone drawn from a gentler source of inspiration than ever before: the California pop of the ’60s and ’70s.

But because it’s Springsteen, both the arrangements and the character-driven stories possess a cinematic sweep that’s far more dramatic than the music of his reference points Glen Campbell and Burt Bacharach. A simple day in the life of a drifter becomes epic thanks to the constant swell of strings on opener “Hitch Hikin'”, and even though the next track, “Wayfarer”, depicts an almost identical narrator, it stands out for its acceleration in momentum. Here, Springsteen powers the orchestration with the E Street staples of organ, palm-muted guitar, and sun-dappled piano from actual former E Streeter David Sancious. His wife and frequent collaborator, Patti Scialfa, lifts the song even higher with her arrangement of celestial backing vocals.

The Good: Geographically, Western Stars is closest to The Boss’ last solo(ish) record, 2005’s Devils & Dust. But where that album turned its gaze toward Southwestern people and places to convey a sense of despair or — at the very best — resignation, Springsteen’s latest is rife with second chances that might actually work out. The protagonist of “Tucson Train” may be struggling with a pill addiction, but the joyous clatter of steam-engine percussion and horns that sound birthed from the Grand Canyon are enough to convince me that he and his life partner are going to be alright in their new town. That goes double for the World War II vet who opens a restaurant outside of San Bernardino in “Sleepy Joe’s Café” and the loner who vows to stop fetishizing their own misery in “Hello Sunshine”.

With all the lush classicism and narrative contentment, it would be easy for Western Stars to become overly saccharine by the end of its 50-minute runtime. But Springsteen wisely keeps the instrumentation sparse and somber in a handful of stories (namely the music-industry breakup “Somewhere North of Nashville” and the lovelorn closer “Moonlight Motel”) and ensures that not all of the album’s happy endings are quite so grandiose. In a brace of Hollywood-themed songs, two lifelong showbiz jobbers are thankful just to be alive and still getting to do what they love. “I wake up in the morning just glad my boots are on,” whispers the title track’s narrator. Being a bit player in cowboy movies, he goes on to wax nostalgic about the time John Wayne shot him onscreen, thus giving a second meaning to the words “Western Stars”. Likewise, the title character of “Drive Fast (The Stuntman)” still manages to find romance within a reckless mantra of “Drive fast, fall hard.”

The Bad: While there’s not a weak track on Western Stars, the accordion rave-up of “Sleepy Joe’s Café” might ring a touch too whimsical for anyone who hoped another Springsteen solo effort would mean a return to the haunted prairies of Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad.

The Verdict: Despite the lower volume, Bruce Springsteen sounds positively invigorated on Western Stars. With a new sonic palette and renewed focus on the LP as a means of writing short stories, it’s easily his best album of new material since 2007’s Magic. Who says optimism has to be boring?

Essential Tracks: “Wayfarer”, Western Stars”, and “Moonlight Motel”

Album Review: Bruce Springsteen Reclaims the Album as His Primary Art Form on Western Stars
danielwalkercaffrey

from Consequence of Sound }

The Lowdown: After having been together for nearly 20 years, the members of Silversun Pickups found themselves wrestling with a variety of challenges and difficulties within their personal lives during recording sessions for their fifth full-length, Widow’s Weeds. Keyboardist Joe Lester’s father died. Vocalist-guitarist Brian Aubert, meanwhile, found himself in an extremely dark place for reasons he couldn’t immediately quantify or explain. During a gap between recording sessions, Aubert decided that it was time to get treatment, eventually becoming sober, which has improved both his mental health and creative outlook.

(Buy: Tickets to Upcoming Silversun Pickups Shows)

Thematically, Widow’s Weeds touches upon getting older, growing up, and finding strength to properly mourn, move on, and push forward — and learning how and when to let go. On another level, the album also focuses on rebirth and renewal. Imbued with the sort of hard-fought and hard-earned wisdom that comes from life’s messiness, heartache, tragedy, and triumph, the material understandably comes from a raw, vulnerable place.

(Read: Silversun Pickups’ Widow’s Weeds Track by Track)

The Good: For a band that’s long specialized in crafting material centered around an arena rock-friendly, hook-driven sound, Widow’s Weeds is predictably chock-full of the enormous hooks and power chords that fans have learned to both expect and love, especially on album opener “Neon Wound”, the breakneck “It Doesn’t Matter Why”, and album closer “We Are Chameleons”. A number of the album’s songs find the band continuing to subtly expand upon the sound and sonic palette that won them acclaim: you’ll hear soaring string arrangements on the aforementioned “It Doesn’t Matter Why”, the shimmering “Straw Man”, and “Simpatico”, as well bursts of glitchy and atmospheric electronics.

The album’s material may be the most nakedly ambitious of their catalog and comes with an earnestness of purpose and intention that’s rare in our highly jaded and cynical age. The members of Silversun Pickups seem to just want to continue to write big, heart-on-your sleeve anthems that sensitive souls will bond over and shout along with when heard on a streamed playlist or at a show.

The Bad: Butch Vig’s production and Billy Bush’s mixing manages to give the album a rich and very clean sound. While it works on songs like “Don’t Know Yet”, “Bag of Bones”, and “Simpatico”, which prominently feature acoustic guitar and, in some cases, string arrangements, there’s a sense that songs like “Neon Wound”, “It Doesn’t Matter Why”, and “We Are Chameleons” have had some of the grit, messiness, bile, and ache polished away. Considering that the album is inspired by the pain of inconsolable loss and soul-crushing depression and addiction, the overly polished sound makes the material feel a bit hollow and almost like a manufactured product.

Likewise, if you’ve personally experienced some of the events and feelings that have inspired the album’s material, much of the record may lyrically feel and sound lazy, unfocused, and cliched. Ironically, the earnest delivery calls attention to just how bad some lines can be. “Hello, my friend/ It’s nice to see you again/ Now that we’re on the mend, dear friend,” sings Aubert on the album’s opening track. “It Doesn’t Matter Why” finds Aubert lazily repeating during the song’s chorus: “It doesn’t matter why we’re known/ It doesn’t matter why we’re known/ It doesn’t matter why we’re known/ We’re just known.” “Freakazoid” is at best a superficial look into the depression and paranoia of the song’s central characters. “Straw Man”, of course, makes an even lazier reference to — well, a straw man both literally and as a rhetorical device. Time and time again, the lyrics just aren’t up to the caliber of the arrangements.

The Verdict: Widow’s Weeds may very well be the most ambitious album of Silversun Pickups’ catalog. And though it finds the band at their most self-assured with the cleanest, most polished sound of their career, it can also feel rushed, unfocused, hollow, and, worst of all, forgettable. It’s an ambitious, heartfelt album that never becomes the powerful record it was intended to be.

Essential Tracks: “Neon Wound”, “It Doesn’t Matter Why”, and “Freakazoid”

Album Review: Silversun Pickups’ Underwhelm with Mostly Forgettable Widow’s Weeds
Matt Melis

from Consequence of Sound }

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