Justin Timberlake - LoveStoned

The new Justin Timberlake record, as I'm sure you are sick of hearing about, is really really good. The biggest flaw, I feel, is that at times it feels so slick that it comes off as being cold, without a distinctive personality behind the songs. Not so on this, the album's best track, though.

The first five or so minutes are generally what you hear on the album - really highly refined club pop made for dancing, sexing, etc. The beat really bumps out of the speakers better than most anything I have heard, well, ever. And the orchestral flourishes add a vague James Bond cool to the production.

But the magic comes when the world created by by the track gives way to a single guitar playing a really simple strumming line. The orchestra comes in, but rather than swooping, it lays the groundwork for vocals, piano and just a simple beat. Timberlake uses all the same words from the song proper, but against these new colors, the speaker has transformed from a cocky rock star into, as pfork put it, "a hopeless addict," giving new meaning to the track title. The last two minutes are maybe the prettiest music I have heard anywhere in a year. Not what I or anyone expected from the "SexyBack" guy.

Pink Cammies - Blood

The Pink Cammies were local legends in Geneseo, NY where I went to school. Where a lot of kids associated with our radio station would aim their sound in unique directions with lo-fi punk and surf rock bands, the Pink Cammies just wanted everyone to have a great time. At least that's what they said, I mean Brad loved art rock, and Jeff was a composition major responsible for the intricate chord structures in the songs, and Russell was the most opinionated kid at the radio station, with a taste for european electronic music, but it was an awareness of these exciting musical worlds that allowed the Pink Cammies to transcend the regular idea of what "pop" is supposed to be. Also, the broken drum machines and keytar made things a lot more fun.

With its cartoonish gore imagery and unstoppable melodies, "Blood" was always my favorite Pink Cammies song, but it was not included on their extremely limited EP, Game OVER, BABY, as they never finished recording it. And when school ended, so did the band. So when I got ahold of some solid computer software a year ago, I called the guys, and asked if they still had the tracks lying around. I spent the next month mixing my favorite Pink Cammies song, as poppy as I knew how.

The magic moment for me happens, well all over, but especially at the end of the third verse, where instead of building with added vocals and synths as in the previous verses, the quiet sets in. Brad is practically moaning:

Now I'm dead, dismembered and lying in a heap;
Gouged away at my eyes, girl, but I can see you weep;
Oh, tonight I think that we should just -- go to sleep.

You feel for a second that it may be over, but you know that this band wouldn't let you down like that -- not without some fireworks! As soon as the last gentle line is delivered, the rock and roll guitar leaps out of bed and rushes to duty, and we reach the apex of the track, where Brad howls:

But your silence is the twist of the knife;
I don't care if you take my blood just save my life!

Guitars and synths crash back in, and the song comes to its dramatic conclusion. It's pure magic, with all the right pieces and perfectly flowing lyrics. It's one of the best constructed pop songs I have ever heard. Pink Cammies are dead; long live the Pink Cammies.

Oh No! Oh My! - I Love You All the Time

I keep hearing about how Oh No! Oh My! is over already, which is disappointing, because I just heard their album for the first time a couple weeks ago, and I think it's quite good. There are some really pleasing spots of music on there, even if the whole thing isn't the life-altering triumph that the apparently ancient hype would have indicated. So if the backlash just happened, hopefully this will begin the trend of relash. Or something.

A writer for Stylus said that the opening of "I Love You All the Time" is the only indication on the album that ON!OM! has a "backbone," I guess because the drum machine and synth pattern comes across so authoritatively against the rest of the album, bearing a handmade feel. But for my money, the greatness comes exactly AFTER this drum machine intro. A ragged army of furious accoustic guitar strummers races into the scene. The muscular nature of the part makes it hard for all the players to keep the frantic pace, which dips, although the human error makes you conscious of the frantic mood (I respect metal guitarists and all, but have you ever perfectly executed anything at all while feeling very angry? This is why I zone out a lot of "heavy music" - because of the boring calmness that leads to the highly revered flawless performances. Anyway). The singer belts his simple lyrics as best he can, doubled with an effective higher harmony, and after every three lines, our guitar team looks down at fretboards making sure their clumsy fingers are in the right places during the "riff" section, before attacking again with more down strokes. It's a really gripping and effective moment for people like me, who will never understand metal.

Eddie Money - Take Me Home Tonight

This song has literally too many cathartic moments to count. Literally. That's why I made this the key song on my own wedding playlist. No joke. I read the lyrics online and I get goosebumps. Holy shit.

Okay, there's the opening keyboard line, tight and melodic and minor and impossibly tense, matched with a guitar lead when it repeats. The snare drum enters, bigger and brighter than any of Max Weinburg's drum smashes on the "Born in the USA" album, and a vaguely japanese synth chops in from the side. Money starts singing, oh God damn does he ever start singing. He keeps saying "Hunger," and "APPETITE." He's walking the "CITY STREETS ALONE," and it seems like he's probably just going to sem-explode all over the side of a bus or something. The bridge, oh my god -- a positively huge power chord roars, Chak-ah-SHAAAAA. "I can hear you breathe; I can feel your heart beat faster (faster)..."

And the chorus. It feels like it's taken four painfully glorious hours to get to this point, but here we are..."!!TAKE! !ME! !HOME!! !TONIGHT!!!!" The raw furious desperation! Blasphemous sexual fury! Money's cashing in, and everything is great...right? Right? Well, not so fast, crackshot. Money doesn't have the capacity to mew the words, so he calls on the legendary Ronnie Spector to speak for him, begging his dream woman, "Be my little baby." And with that, we're right back where we started, like it was all a dream.

We go through the whole thing all over again. Nightmares, darkness, cold winds, it goes on for hours and hours while Money builds up the strength to scream again: "!!TAKE! !ME! !HOME!! !TONIGHT!!!!" The fantasy doesn't shake off so quickly this time, and a saxophone blasts in like a buzzsaw, giving sonic structure to the trembling in Money's fingers, the way he's biting his lip, completely terrified that he will never feel that human touch again. Spector's cooing is getting more involved as the dream forms more fully in Money's head, under that brilliantly illustrious head of hair.

He's gonna give it one more shot, and no bullshit this time. Just a man and his lead guitarist entering one final plea:

!!FUCKING!!
!!TAKE!
!ME!
!HOME!!
!!FUCKING!!!
!!!!TONIGHT!!!!"

And with that, Ronnie can't wait in the back any longer. Her voice blasts off and righteously leads the rest of the band to the coda of the song; a chorus that repeats forever, until the world ends. In fact, I'm pretty sure Money and the gang are still in the studio to this day wailing away on this track, beckoning a guardian angel dream woman from heaven. We never do find out if he finds that magic woman to turn his engine on, but the end of this song always sounded like resolution to me. And come on. If Money hasn't gotten what he needs based on this three and a half slice of masochistic pop bliss, there must be too little sex on the planet for humanity to sustain itself.

Sonic Youth - Jams Run Free

When I first heard tracks from the new Sonic Youth album, I didn't know what I was listening to and for awhile, I actually thought I was listening to a hip young band fresh off the blog circuit. It must not have been "Jams Run Free" that I had heard, though, because Kim Gordon's vocal is pretty unmistakable here. Although I'm not sure if she has ever sounded more musical on record.

However, the real magic happens at the end of the intro and as the second half of each chorus. It's the simplest guitar figure imaginable, just 1-2-3 notes down and 3-2-1 back up. But it wraps Gordon's spare vocal with the hopeful sorrow that comes courtesy of ascending melody paired with descending melody. And the whole thing is complete when a higher version of the same figure bursts out of the noisy solo for a triumphant coda. Sonic Youth has been crafting essential records since before I was born, but just now we're finding that even when they strip away the aggression and the noise and the high concepts, we are still left with a beautiful beating heart.