Ask 411 Music 03.09.06: The Sour Grapes Edition
Posted by Mitch Michaels on 03.09.2006
New Kid Rock CD, Metallica & Oasis in The Shuffle, What is Nu-Metal?, Gay bishops, Jars Of Clay and a Bootleg surprise!
To fully understand the music of today, and the music to come in the future, you must first understand the music of the past. And that's where I come in. I'm Mitch Michaels, and I'd like to welcome you to another edition of the revered Ask 411 Music, a forum for music lovers to find answers and discuss the issues that have shaped and informed centuries of music, from the Gregorian chants of the Middle Ages to the dance pop permeating 21st century Top 40 radio stations. I hope you enjoy our time together. Now let's do it, motherfuckers.
The triumphant return to 411 Music's Album Reviews section is still going strong. Not only do I have the promised reviews up for Cracker's Best Of CD & DVD collection and Hank Williams III's latest album (highly recommended), but I'm also still delivering on my guarantee to make sure every 2006 Billboard #1 album is reviewed here on 411. Check out the latest ten…
Remember, just because a lot of people bought it don't mean it ain't junk. So keep an eye out for more of these every week and I'll let you know if it's worth the hype and the fifteen bucks. FYI, Juvenile's Reality Check should be hitting the main page soon.
A few new albums added to the Venerable Michaels Collection this week, all purchased from Best Buy. The first is Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls, which I'd been looking for off and on since I picked up Wednesday 13's Transylvania 90210 last year. I was lucky enough to get the repackaged CD/DVD combo, which includes the band's take on Billy Idol's "White Wedding". All in all, I liked the CD, but it's a little less hooky than lead singer Wednseday 13's solo offering, which is a shame since the silliness and hooks are what I enjoyed best. The CD's not without its moments though, with awesome songs like the opener "Slit My Wrists", "People Hate Me" and the funny "Kill Miss America", not to mention the new track "I Like To Say Fuck". That pretty much says it all, folks. I'll recommend this one for fiends looking for some good metal who don't take themselves too seriously.
I also picked up the brand-spanking new Kid Rock set 'Live' Trucker. The tracks are culled from a couple of homecoming concerts in Detroit, recorded in 2000 and 2004. I've seen Kid live before and really enjoyed his show. This set does a good job of conveying that energy and rowdiness, and if it has a major flaw, it's the shortness. Of course, I don't know how I would fill out a whole other disc, so maybe the real problem is song selection, as some of my favorite non-hits are definitely M.I.A. ("Where U At Rock?", "Bullgod", "Forever", not to mention a full version of "Cocky"). All bitching about missing tracks aside, though, the songs did make it to CD are top notch, and the sound quality is great for a live recording (almost too great, as this disc gets a little to polished at times, and can lack the hazy grit that a Kid Rock concert is known for). The inclusion of the 2000-era tracks is nice, since it allows us to hear Kid's ex-bandmates Uncle Kracker and the late Joe C. I wish Kid had found someone better than butter face Gretchen Wilson to take over Sheryl Crow's part in "Picture", but Wilson turns in a passable performance. The lone cover on the album is a sound check version of The Gap Band's funk classic "Outstanding", which is a strange choice, but the song's placement as closer gives it the feel of that song that comes over the PA after the house lights come up, which is a fitting end to a hell raising concert souvenir.
Lastly, I picked up the expanded version of Johnny Cash's essential At Folsom Prison, mainly ‘cause it was on sale to go along with the DVD release of Walk The Line. What can I say? This is Cash's best album (pre-American), and it's a hell of a set, not to mention legendary for beginning the second half of Cash's outstanding career. The three songs that aren't included on the original version do nothing more than add a feeling of completeness, but there's nothing wrong with that. All the early hits are here ("Folsom Prison Blues", "I Still Miss Someone", "Cocaine Blues"), but the real treat is Cash's interaction with the inmates and his laid back but still intense delivery of these sometimes weighty, sometimes light songs. The packaging includes handwritten notes and pictures from a historic day that capture an artist who was just beginning to take his very large place in music history.
Do The iTunes Party Shuffle
If you use iTunes, you probably know all about the mysterious Party Shuffle. I hate the feature, and it always has the oddest selections, no matter how much I tweak it. So, just to make it good for something, here's my iTunes Party Shuffle this week with some comments:
Oasis - "Wonderwall" – So, yeah, anybody who was around in '95 knows this one, as it was Oasis' big breakthrough in the United States. There are so many good things about this song, from Liam Gallagher's nasally but still beautiful delivery, the simple melody, the gorgeous arrangement; it's easy to forget how little sense this song actually makes. I love it, but, c'mon, I dare somebody to try to explain it to me. This was written by Noel Gallagher for his girlfriend at the time. She went on to become his ex-wife.
The Union Underground – "Until You Crack" – Whatever happened to these guys? This is from their one and only studio album, 2000's …An Education In Rebellion. The Union Underground got together in Texas in the late 90's, and the success of a "homemade" EP (they actually owned their own recording studio) led to a deal with Portrait Records. Their debut album did pretty well and produced two greats ingles in "Turn Me On ‘Mr. Deadman'" and "South Texas Deathride". Although barely different from the bulk of nu-metal of the day, it was catchy enough to stand out. A live EP followed in 2002, but the band has yet to release a follow-up. I'll be there when they do. Oh yeah, and they also do the theme to "WWE RAW", "Across The Nation".
Metallica - "One" – You know, I'm not a hater. I tend to look at music as consumable art. You know, when a band goes into a studio, they've got something in mind and they make it (good bands, anyway, let's leave pop trash out of this). So when a band I like puts out something I'm not particularly fond of, well, I'm not gonna just say they suck, it's just our vision and expectations weren't the same. It's their prerogative, you know? That said, listening to "One", I can kind of understand why people are so disappointed with Metallica following "The Black Album". This song was fucking epic. Epic. I mean, it's something like an 8 minute clip that practically forced radio to spin a kind of music that they had never aired, based on fan support alone. And it seems like Metallica completely retreated from this types of song after …And Justice For All. Oh sure, they still make long songs. And they still make heavy songs. But nothing as weighty as "One" has been thrashed out since and I doubt it ever will. So, yeah, that's a little disappointing.
Kid Rock & The Twisted Brown Trucker Band - "Son Of Detroit (Live)" – It didn't take long for this one to show up in The Shuffle, did it? This is a live version of the track from Kid's 2003 eponymous release. The song is actually a reworking of infamous country singer David Allan Coe's 1986 hit "Son Of The South". A lot of people weren't too into Kid's last album, but I can see where it came from, as Rock was just starting to really incorporate country and classic rock influences like Bob Seger, Coe and Hank Williams Jr. into his studio material. It's also a great opener to 'Live' Trucker, seeing as how the entire album was recorded in and around Detroit, MI.
Misfits - "Where Eagles Dare" - Once again, this is from the "postponed" 2001 compilation 12 Hits From Hell. The 13 tracks from this album were all recorded in 1980 at the legendary Misfits Master Sound Productions sessions. The big deal with the MSP sessions is that the ‘Fits went into the studio with guitarist Bobby Steele, but by the end of recording, Jerry Only's brother Doyle had stepped into the position. These sessions yielded the EP 3 Hits From Hell, while all but one of the remaining tracks (an alternate take of "London Dungeon") eventually found their way onto other Misfits releases (such as Walk Among Us, and, in the case of "Where Eagles Dare", Box Set). In 2001, the plan was to remix the album featuring both guitarists, but Only was never happy with the mix, while Glenn Danzig was never happy with the artwork. 12 Hits has been in limbo ever since, though a couple thousand promo copies exist.
12 Stones - "Broken" - You know, this is just one of those songs that had everything going for it. A great guitar part, big hooky chorus, spiritual lyrics, awesome production. I really like this song. I don't understand why 12 Stones couldn't seem to stick around the Top 40 a little longer. This was also the theme song to WWE Judgment Day 2002.
And now it's time for……..
ASK411 MUSIC
Just in case you're wondering, Nigel up there is in no way associated with Jeeves (happy retirement, dude). Would Jeeves give the metal sign? I think not.
We're light on questions this week, but our first is a comment from reader Ashley Hague, who takes issue with another reader comment about Nirvana from last time:
I disagree with the guy (Geoff) who said all nu-metal was influenced by Nirvana.
If anything Faith No More were the main influence on Nu-Metal and became mainstream before Nirvana.
Countless bands either cite Faith No More as a major influence or it is painfully obvious.
These include Disturbed, Korn, Tool, System of a Down, Incubus and many more.
Ash
Thanks for the feedback, Ash.
As far as your difference of opinion with the other reader goes, I think you both have valid points, but are both sort of wrong. The bands you listed (SOAD, Disturbed, Korn) most definitely have a sound that owes a debt to Faith No More, who, along with Biohazard, helped pioneer the popular combination of funk, rap and metal that was all the rage in the late 90's, and the bane of the airwaves only a few months later. I don't think anyone from those bands could say they weren't influenced by Faith No More. But I don't think you can say that ALL nu-metal was influenced by Faith No More. And I also don't think you can say ALL nu-metal was influenced by Nirvana, though I think Kurt Cobain's band can lay claim to the title much easier than FNM.
To make a statement like that, I think you have to first define what nu-metal is and where it came from. The style (and marketing term) nu-metal was something that evolved from alternative metal, which was sometimes referred to aggro-metal, as it was nothing more than the blending of metal with some other musical style or styles. Early aggro-metal itself is hard to hold up as a banner, because everyone from Nine Inch Nails to Sepultura to Jane's Addiction to Soundgarden to FNM can legitimately fall into the classification of aggro, seeing as how all those bands took metal and blended it with something entirely different (NIN:industrial, Sepultura:world, Janes: prog-rock, Soundgarden:garage rock). Alt-metal was really only used as a catch all term to classify bands who used metal, but did it in a different way than say Judas Priest or Metallica.
When Nirvana came along, they were combining metal with something else, namely punk, and their version of alternative metal, dubbed grunge (which was actually quite light on the metal aspect), became a smash hit on the radio, and allowed a national forum for other bands (like Soundgarden), who were also going at this whole rock thing from another angle. And that explosion of "experimental" fusion-type music gave way to mainstream alternative and the Lollapalooza Festival.
The Lollapalooza shows of the early 90's were a breeding ground for alt-metal, and it eventually gave rise to a more easily discernible definition of the genre, as bands like Korn and Rage Against The Machine brought the fusion of rap and metal to the forefront of alt-metal, along with the heavy production stylings of groups like Tool, NIN and White Zombie. As the former grew in popularity on the radio and MTV, the acceptance gave way to an explosion of likeminded bands, specifically combining the rap/thrash fusion of Korn and RATM with the punk/grunge song structure of Nirvana and an underlying industrial grind, ala NIN. This specific form of aggro became known as nu-metal, and bands like Limp Bizkit and Marilyn Manson helped make it the most popular music of its time. Of course, when something becomes popular, it's not long before it becomes oversaturated by rule of the music biz, and it wasn't long before Korn/Limp Bizkit clones were showing up every 5 seconds on radio and TV. The term "nu-metal" went from being edgy to being a trendy genre to disassociate yourself with. It still exists on the radio today, but is more of a niche than a critical or fan favorite.
So, yes, Faith No More was an early example of alternative metal, a genre that gave rise, eventually, to nu-metal, and while they did influence bands who were big in the genre like Korn, to say they informed the entire genre would be erroneous, as they were but a small part of the early pioneers. And while Nirvana made the type of music that would become nu-metal popular on radio (aggro), it would also be incorrect to say that their influence can be found in every nu-metal band's style.
So who wants to tell me I'm wrong?
Our next question this week comes from longtime reader SuperMx123, who remembers me from a while back:
Hello Mitch,
I remember reading some of your stuff years ago on 411, where I believe you were feuding with someone from the wrestling zone. Could you clear up on this?
Thanks for the question. It's nice to know there are still people reading from the early days.
As some of you may know, I got my start here on 411 in 2002. Not long after that, I started my first news column, called "Jesus & Hank's Front Porch", which covered nothing but country and Christian music. I had a good time doing that one, and was never shy about putting my views as a Christian in the column because, hell, it was my column and it was also (half) about Christian music. Well, when the Episcopalian Church announced that they would be confirming Gene Robinson, a homosexual, as bishop, reasoning that the Bible wasn't all that clear about God's views on homosexuality, I was quick to put down my thoughts. Basically, I think the Church was full of crap. I never said anything about gays or even Robinson himself, just that I thought it was really wrong for the Church to be wishy washy on the whole subject.
A lot of the 411 staff decided that, well, they weren't so tolerant of someone who couldn't take a little buggery in the pulpit, and leading that charge was former 411 wrestling columnist Eric Szulczewski (or however the hell you spell it). The funny thing was he didn't think it was proper to talk about political issues in a music column, which is, pretty much, the pot calling the kettle black. He tried to get all cute with his "I know the Bible" comments, but it didn't really lead to much more than a few rebuttal columns between us.
Anyway, I wouldn't call it a feud, so much as me having a difference of opinion with an asshole (and I don't care to call him that; I don't like him and I'm sure he doesn't like me), but it did generate a lot of hate mail for me, and helped me lose my faith in our generation a little bit. But it also generated a lot of hits, too, so I can't blame him too much. Not long after, I left 411 for about a year (it ain't like I'm getting paid for this, kids), and by the time I felt like coming back, most of my detractors had went on to other projects (re: a different site or complete anonymity). Anyone who tries to say I was "ran off 411" is full of shit, because neither Ashish nor Widro (the co-owner at the time) had anything adverse to say about the situation, and, like I said, I enjoyed the increase in audience to my niche column.
Also, I know you're a Christian, are you a Jars Of Clay fan?
Hmmm, I have a little trouble with your wording, there. I wouldn't call myself a fan of Jars Of Clay, but I do enjoy a lot of their stuff. I think their debut album was an absolute masterpiece, and a real breakthrough in the world of modern Christian music. Jars really were the first to introduce the great arrangements and use of more than the basics to Christian rock, and there are lots of bands on the radio now that owe a debt to them. "Liquid" is probably one of my favorite songs of all time, and I also recently discovered "Waiting For The World To Fall" on the Chronicles Of Narnia soundtrack and fell in love with it.
I don't think the newer stuff by the band quite lives up to the lofty expectations they set early in their career, but they definitely have done some great stuff.
And that's all we have in the way of questions this week, so, seriously, send them in people. I thought we were a team here?
I'd like to close things out this week with a couple of "house cleaning" items, both long overdue. The first is a correction to a column from a few weeks back, and it can be attributed to none other than my brother, the well-regarded Professor Robert Michaels.
Happy now?
Secondly, I just want to say happy retirement to a former 411 music columnist, Aaron Cameron, who left the site back in 2004. Like most people, I hadn't read much of The Bootleg (his column) since Aaron moved to IP, so I was surprised to hear that, as of last month, Aaron was hanging it up for good in order to spend more time with his family. Good for you, man.
I caught up with the former Bootleg Guy a few days ago and, in between our conversations about the rise of anti-Christian sentiment in the US and people that most definitely do NOT resemble 50 Cent, I asked him, Bootleg Guy, just what do you do with all your time now, with no inside-joke filled columns to shit out every week? His answer was a little surprising:
A few new albums added to the Venerable Michaels Collection this week, all purchased from Best Buy. The first is Beyond The Valley Of The Murderdolls, which I'd been looking for off and on since I picked up Wednesday 13's Transylvania 90210 last year. I was lucky enough to get the repackaged CD/DVD combo, which includes the band's take on Billy Idol's "White Wedding". All in all, I liked the CD, but it's a little less hooky than lead singer Wednseday 13's solo offering, which is a shame since the silliness and hooks are what I enjoyed best. The CD's not without its moments though, with awesome songs like the opener "Slit My Wrists", "People Hate Me" and the funny "Kill Miss America", not to mention the new track "I Like To Say Fuck". That pretty much says it all, folks. I'll recommend this one for fiends looking for some good metal who don't take themselves too seriously.
I also picked up the brand-spanking new Kid Rock set 'Live' Trucker. The tracks are culled from a couple of homecoming concerts in Detroit, recorded in 2000 and 2004. I've seen Kid live before and really enjoyed his show. This set does a good job of conveying that energy and rowdiness, and if it has a major flaw, it's the shortness. Of course, I don't know how I would fill out a whole other disc, so maybe the real problem is song selection, as some of my favorite non-hits are definitely M.I.A. ("Where U At Rock?", "Bullgod", "Forever", not to mention a full version of "Cocky"). All bitching about missing tracks aside, though, the songs did make it to CD are top notch, and the sound quality is great for a live recording (almost too great, as this disc gets a little to polished at times, and can lack the hazy grit that a Kid Rock concert is known for). The inclusion of the 2000-era tracks is nice, since it allows us to hear Kid's ex-bandmates Uncle Kracker and the late Joe C. I wish Kid had found someone better than butter face Gretchen Wilson to take over Sheryl Crow's part in "Picture", but Wilson turns in a passable performance. The lone cover on the album is a sound check version of The Gap Band's funk classic "Outstanding", which is a strange choice, but the song's placement as closer gives it the feel of that song that comes over the PA after the house lights come up, which is a fitting end to a hell raising concert souvenir.
Lastly, I picked up the expanded version of Johnny Cash's essential At Folsom Prison, mainly ‘cause it was on sale to go along with the DVD release of Walk The Line. What can I say? This is Cash's best album (pre-American), and it's a hell of a set, not to mention legendary for beginning the second half of Cash's outstanding career. The three songs that aren't included on the original version do nothing more than add a feeling of completeness, but there's nothing wrong with that. All the early hits are here ("Folsom Prison Blues", "I Still Miss Someone", "Cocaine Blues"), but the real treat is Cash's interaction with the inmates and his laid back but still intense delivery of these sometimes weighty, sometimes light songs. The packaging includes handwritten notes and pictures from a historic day that capture an artist who was just beginning to take his very large place in music history.
Do The iTunes Party Shuffle
Oasis - "Wonderwall" – So, yeah, anybody who was around in '95 knows this one, as it was Oasis' big breakthrough in the United States. There are so many good things about this song, from Liam Gallagher's nasally but still beautiful delivery, the simple melody, the gorgeous arrangement; it's easy to forget how little sense this song actually makes. I love it, but, c'mon, I dare somebody to try to explain it to me. This was written by Noel Gallagher for his girlfriend at the time. She went on to become his ex-wife.
The Union Underground – "Until You Crack" – Whatever happened to these guys? This is from their one and only studio album, 2000's …An Education In Rebellion. The Union Underground got together in Texas in the late 90's, and the success of a "homemade" EP (they actually owned their own recording studio) led to a deal with Portrait Records. Their debut album did pretty well and produced two greats ingles in "Turn Me On ‘Mr. Deadman'" and "South Texas Deathride". Although barely different from the bulk of nu-metal of the day, it was catchy enough to stand out. A live EP followed in 2002, but the band has yet to release a follow-up. I'll be there when they do. Oh yeah, and they also do the theme to "WWE RAW", "Across The Nation".
Metallica - "One" – You know, I'm not a hater. I tend to look at music as consumable art. You know, when a band goes into a studio, they've got something in mind and they make it (good bands, anyway, let's leave pop trash out of this). So when a band I like puts out something I'm not particularly fond of, well, I'm not gonna just say they suck, it's just our vision and expectations weren't the same. It's their prerogative, you know? That said, listening to "One", I can kind of understand why people are so disappointed with Metallica following "The Black Album". This song was fucking epic. Epic. I mean, it's something like an 8 minute clip that practically forced radio to spin a kind of music that they had never aired, based on fan support alone. And it seems like Metallica completely retreated from this types of song after …And Justice For All. Oh sure, they still make long songs. And they still make heavy songs. But nothing as weighty as "One" has been thrashed out since and I doubt it ever will. So, yeah, that's a little disappointing.
Misfits - "Where Eagles Dare" - Once again, this is from the "postponed" 2001 compilation 12 Hits From Hell. The 13 tracks from this album were all recorded in 1980 at the legendary Misfits Master Sound Productions sessions. The big deal with the MSP sessions is that the ‘Fits went into the studio with guitarist Bobby Steele, but by the end of recording, Jerry Only's brother Doyle had stepped into the position. These sessions yielded the EP 3 Hits From Hell, while all but one of the remaining tracks (an alternate take of "London Dungeon") eventually found their way onto other Misfits releases (such as Walk Among Us, and, in the case of "Where Eagles Dare", Box Set). In 2001, the plan was to remix the album featuring both guitarists, but Only was never happy with the mix, while Glenn Danzig was never happy with the artwork. 12 Hits has been in limbo ever since, though a couple thousand promo copies exist. 
12 Stones - "Broken" - You know, this is just one of those songs that had everything going for it. A great guitar part, big hooky chorus, spiritual lyrics, awesome production. I really like this song. I don't understand why 12 Stones couldn't seem to stick around the Top 40 a little longer. This was also the theme song to WWE Judgment Day 2002.
I disagree with the guy (Geoff) who said all nu-metal was influenced by Nirvana.
When Nirvana came along, they were combining metal with something else, namely punk, and their version of alternative metal, dubbed grunge (which was actually quite light on the metal aspect), became a smash hit on the radio, and allowed a national forum for other bands (like Soundgarden), who were also going at this whole rock thing from another angle. And that explosion of "experimental" fusion-type music gave way to mainstream alternative and the Lollapalooza Festival.
The Lollapalooza shows of the early 90's were a breeding ground for alt-metal, and it eventually gave rise to a more easily discernible definition of the genre, as bands like Korn and Rage Against The Machine brought the fusion of rap and metal to the forefront of alt-metal, along with the heavy production stylings of groups like Tool, NIN and White Zombie. As the former grew in popularity on the radio and MTV, the acceptance gave way to an explosion of likeminded bands, specifically combining the rap/thrash fusion of Korn and RATM with the punk/grunge song structure of Nirvana and an underlying industrial grind, ala NIN. This specific form of aggro became known as nu-metal, and bands like Limp Bizkit and Marilyn Manson helped make it the most popular music of its time. Of course, when something becomes popular, it's not long before it becomes oversaturated by rule of the music biz, and it wasn't long before Korn/Limp Bizkit clones were showing up every 5 seconds on radio and TV. The term "nu-metal" went from being edgy to being a trendy genre to disassociate yourself with. It still exists on the radio today, but is more of a niche than a critical or fan favorite.
As some of you may know, I got my start here on 411 in 2002. Not long after that, I started my first news column, called "Jesus & Hank's Front Porch", which covered nothing but country and Christian music. I had a good time doing that one, and was never shy about putting my views as a Christian in the column because, hell, it was my column and it was also (half) about Christian music. Well, when the Episcopalian Church announced that they would be confirming Gene Robinson, a homosexual, as bishop, reasoning that the Bible wasn't all that clear about God's views on homosexuality, I was quick to put down my thoughts. Basically, I think the Church was full of crap. I never said anything about gays or even Robinson himself, just that I thought it was really wrong for the Church to be wishy washy on the whole subject.
Hmmm, I have a little trouble with your wording, there. I wouldn't call myself a fan of Jars Of Clay, but I do enjoy a lot of their stuff. I think their debut album was an absolute masterpiece, and a real breakthrough in the world of modern Christian music. Jars really were the first to introduce the great arrangements and use of more than the basics to Christian rock, and there are lots of bands on the radio now that owe a debt to them. "Liquid" is probably one of my favorite songs of all time, and I also recently discovered "Waiting For The World To Fall" on the Chronicles Of Narnia soundtrack and fell in love with it.
