My Brief Love Affair With Miley Cyrus

It all started one hot summer night while driving home from a Swampbats game with Sebastian. The local pop station was playing a saccharine tune I had never heard but instantly liked. Sebastian, always a wonderful back seat critic chimed in with his approval as well. Something about this over produced gem just set the night on fire. Take a listen:



My initial feelings quickly turned to loved as I heard it a few more times on the radio along with a fantastic cover by The Mae Shi. As awesome as that version is, it still can't touch the original. I put the song on a mix for Hott Mama and upon hearing the line "She's just being Miley" she turned to me and said, "Is this Miley Cyrus?" with a mix of confusion, intrigue and disdain. "Yes, yes" I replied, "I know she's a horrid little girl who represents and perpetuates things that make me ill but this jam is too hot to handle, too cold to hold." The power of the song cold not be denied and the family cruised down the highway, all blissed out on Hannah Montana.

Recently Hott Mama was telling others about my little obsession and always got the same disgusted reaction. Why were people so shocked? I have no power to resist shiny pop magic like "See You Again" and neither should most free thinking Americans. Forget all the crap you're handed about this tween superstar and just soak in the glorious end results of the modern day hit machine running on all cylinders. Why are so many people quick to hate her? Can she really be as horrid as they say? I was starting to become filled with painful self doubt but then I saw this clip from the AMAs.



She scores again! What a song! She's got that Kelly Clarkson-esque rock power on stage and knocks it out of the park on this one. Miley, throw your leather jacket to me! And what about those creepy silver people? A stunning performance.

So now I'm thinking she just may have a start to finish mind blower of an album sitting out there, waiting to be consumed. I read a few reviews of it, decided to check out "Wake Up America" and instantly lost all interest in pursuing this infatuation. It's a facile song riding the green chic movement and is as obvious and embarrassing as "We Are the World." It's Miley's call to arms to stop throwing Funyuns bags out of your car windows and wrapping Christmas presents in Styrofoam and the lyrics just kill me, especially these lines:

"Everything I read is/'Global warming', 'going green'/I don't know what all this means/But it seems to be saying/Wake up America"

So she's not willing to do the tiniest bit of research into the topic of the song but is willing to sing about it passionately for 2 1/2 minutes? I question her motives and her sincerity. And then there's this little treasure buried in the bridge:

"I know that you don't wanna hear it/Especially coming from someone so young/But in the backseat, yeah/They wanna hear it/So come on, turn it up"

Bleh! Screw you mom and dad! You're too old and too lame to care but that 10 year old in the backseat shows a commitment to recycling, composting and communal living that is so radical it will blow. your. mind. Oh, Miley! I had such hopes for us but now I fear it's over. Although, upon second listen, I did find "Wake Up, America" strangely attractive. Maybe I'll just take this relationship slow.

Getting Your Foot in the Door

Modest Mouse - Dramamine
Pavement - Summer Babe (Winter Version)
The White Stripes - Jimmy the Exploder

Man...or Astroman? - Taxidermist Surf
Pixies - Caribou
Bettie Serveert - Leg

Elvis Costello - Welcome to the Working Week
Weezer - My Name is Jonas
The Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop
The Strokes - Is This It

Crooked Fingers - Crowned in Chrome
Sonic Youth - The Burning Spear
Blonde Redhead - I Don't Want U
Fugazi - Waiting Room

Neutral Milk Hotel - Song Against Sex
Vampire Weekend - Mansard Roof
The Shins - Caring Is Creepy

Rufus Wainwright - Foolish Love
Nico - The Fairest of the Seasons
Iron & Wine - Lion's Mane
Billy Bragg - The Milkman of Human Kindness

Bedhead - Liferaft
The Arcade Fire - Old Flame
Pinback - Tripoli

The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
Brian Eno - Needles in the Camel's Eye
Crystal Castles - Untrust Us
R.E.M. - Wolves, Lower

He Walked With the Zombies

I'm currently nearing the end of Max Brooks' mostly fantastic novel World War Z. If you're unfamiliar with the book let me just hit you with the subtitle "An Oral History of the Zombie War." Intrigued? Max's first book was the self-explanatory The Zombie Survival Guide which was so well researched and handy that I can't believe he didn't win the Pulitzer for self help books. If you're still less than interested, I can't help you but trust me, his mad obsession makes for fascinating books and I can't help but believe it is all consuming. Both books seem like works of non-fiction, so much so that I worry for Mr. Brooks' sanity and wonder where he could possibly go next. Moan, Grunt, Moooooan: The Diary of the World's Last Zombie?

So I'm reading this crazy book as it traces the timeline from first infections to near human annihilation by the zombie masses to reorganizing of the armed forces and finally all out warfare where every able bodied citizen participates in some way to the common goal of a zombie holocaust when I came across this gem where Todd, an American military soldier, speaks about the new armed forces:

"...the new faces, they could have been from anywhere: your neighbor, your aunt, that geeky substitute teacher, or that fat, lazy slob at the DMV. From former insurance salesman to a guy who I'm damn sure was Michael Stipe, although I never got him to admit it."

I love this passage. It shows just how desperate things have gotten when Michael Stipe picks up a gun and goes on the warpath for the living dead. Think global, act local, right Michael? This part also makes me think of the great Roky Erickson cover R.E.M. recorded years ago, "I Walked With a Zombie." I remember drifting off the sleep listening to WHFS (r.i.p.) when this came on and shocked me awake. It makes me long for the days when R.E.M. deserved breathless, who-needs-sleep adulation. And if you go walking with a zombie, please remember that simple decapitation is not enough - you really need to crush the brain.

Bourbon - Brownest of the Brown Liquers

Songs by bands that have aged like a fine wine or imported cheese.

Animal Collective - Tikwid
Flaming Lips - One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21
Andrew Bird - Simple X

Wilco - You Are My Face
Papa M - Roses In The Snow
Neko Case - Star Witness

Gastr Del Sol - Mouth Canyon
Yo La Tengo - Our Way to Fall
Elliott Smith - I Didn't Understand

Spoon - Someone Something
Les Savy Fav - What Would Wolves Do?
Grandaddy - Crystal Lake

My Morning Jacket - What a Wonderful Man
Sonic Youth - The Neutral
Tom Waits - Never Let Go
The Rolling Stones - Rip This Joint

Beach Boys - I'm Waiting For The Day
The Kinks - The Village Green Preservation Society
The Beatles - Happiness Is A Warm Gun

Guided by Voices - The Brides Have Hit Glass
The Lemonheads - The Outdoor Type
XTC - Season Cycle
Husker Du - Turn it Around

Mountain Goats - Onions
Radiohead - Weird Fishes / Arpeggi
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I See A Darkness

What a Bunch of Swell Guys

I thought it might be helpful to explain the somewhat odd last option on this week's poll. It's from a Fugazi show at Fort Reno where they stopped to admonish some overly testosterone fueled meatheads in the middle of their set. It's one thing to yell at your audience to calm down and it's quite another to call them out for eating ice cream earlier in the day. "You eat ice cream, everybody knows it." I'm pretty sure this clip is from a show that Listmaker and I attended. We found it hilarious then and I still love it today. Here's the (unsafe for work) audio of the scene from the wonderful documentary "Instrument" with stills from said film. I miss Fugazi.

Still Angry After All These Years

Indie rock hipsters get a lot of (well deserved) flack for being incredibly self serious and way too into their hermetically sealed little world that 98% of the population could not possibly care less about but they've got nothing on the hardcore scene of the early eighties. Mothra and Quinnothra joined us for a viewing of "American Hardcore" the other night and I was shocked at how 20 years on, the interviewees had still not given up their adolescent anger at the classism and banal music of the Reagan era. In some ways, I respect them for wholeheartedly sticking to their guns but I also find it a bit depressing watching grown men and women still angrily spitting about how they don't care what the mainstream of American culture does. I guess it's the holier than thou, snobbish attitude about it all that makes me sad. You don't like Miley Cyrus' banging new single, fine, your loss, but nobody is saying you have to. Just hate it and move on already. Some of these people just need to let go. Unfortunately, even with fascinating and well spoken people like Ian Mackaye and Dave Dictor in the film, the ratio of level headed, interesting people to total jerks and meatheads was heavily weighed down by the latter. For a public speaker, Henry Rollins really should be able to tell a better story than the snoozefests he laid upon the audience in this movie. Unforgivable.

The footage was grainy and audibly atrocious and they wonderfully captured the feeling of the era and the way the underground scene of the early eighties paved the roads for the alternative brats of the nineties but I felt that Michael Azzerad's book "Our Band Could Be Your Life" made the case in a more inclusive, interesting manner. I came away from the film feeling that the hardcore scene was incredibly inspiring to a large swath of youth across the nation but had no choice but to burn out quickly. After 90 minutes of hearing the same song over and over again I had had my fill of angry kids shouting into bad PAs; I can't imagine suffering through 6 years of it. The energy and passion are certainly engaging but I guess I crave more than fast songs where the majority of the lyrics are simply the titles of songs screamed over and over and over again. Many of the talking heads in the film seemed to be saying the hardcore scene was insanely influential and important because they said it was. There was very little proof to back it up. Since most bands flamed out after barely scratching out an ep or two, evolution was not a part of the equation. The hardcore world was simply a succession of very short lived variations on a theme and if you aren't a big fan of that theme to start with, you should probably bring a book as Hott Mama did to carry you through the second half of the film. It is a mostly interesting movie but I left it feeling supersaturated with hardcore and longing for the less serious and more exciting sing along punk of the late seventies.

CODA (not the Zepp album or the dwarf advocacy group)

Wilco - Pieholden Suite
The Feelies - Loveless Love
Radiohead - Karma Police

The Pogues - The Body of an American
Voxtrot - Soft & Warm
Of Montreal - Lysergic Bliss

Beck - Steal My Body Home
Akron/Family - Before and Again
Neutral Milk Hotel - Someone is Waiting

Brian Eno - Burning Airlines Give You So Much More
Animal Collective - Chores
Olivia Tremor Control - Hideaway
Buggles - Clean, Clean

The Kinks - Mr Churchill
Grandaddy - He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot
The Arcade Fire - Crown of Love

Pixies - No. 13 Baby
Fugazi - Epic Problem
Sonic Youth - Mildred Pierce

Chin Up Chin Up - For All The Tanning Saloons in Texas
Built to Spill - Stop the Show
Modest Mouse - Tiny City Made of Ashes

The New Pornographers - The Bleeding Heart Show
Archers of Loaf - All Hail the Black Market
Tom Waits - Anywhere I Lay My Head