Jimmy Eat World - Damage

Jimmy Eat World - Damage

RCA/Dine Alone Records, 2013
9.5/10

It’s always been astounding to me the way that songs, albums, lyrics, melodies, instrumental lines—even album titles or cover art—can become more than the sum of their parts when they collide with the right listener at the right time. In a world full of critical acclaim, “best of the year” lists, and verbose Pitchfork reviews, it seems that we have stumbled into an age of relative consensus. How many publications ranked Frank Ocean’s Channel ORANGE or Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D.City at number one last December? Or went with Bon Iver the year before? Or Kanye West in 2010? Few collective outlets, at least within the inner circle of the big critical players, venture too far beyond the same five or six favorite records at the end of any given year. Sure, those same publications review hundreds and hundreds of albums and hand out great scores to a lot of up-and-coming obscurities, but from looking at the top ten lists scattered across the web each year, it seems like the idea of an objective “best album of the year” is becoming more and more corporeal.

But what is objectivity in art? What benchmarks decide which collections of songs deserve the title of “best” in any given year? And why have some genres become punching bags for critics while others have earned adjectives such as “credible,” “relevant,” “important,” or “great”? Perhaps all of this is strange to me because my own personal album of the year has never once matched up with the consensus choice, but I don’t actually believe that objectivity and art, music especially, can exist side-by-side. We all look for different things from music. We all have bands and songwriters who we gravitate toward more than others, and we all bring our own unique biases and experiences into every single record we hear. And finding the right album at the right time, whether it’s an undisputed 10.0 classic or a scene favorite that somehow gets handed a 3.0 from one of the biggest taste-making publications in the world, that trumps everything else. If you came to this website looking for someone to tell you what to feel, if you’re reading these words because you’re searching for the “best” album of the year, you’re looking in the wrong place. In this art, “best” doesn’t exist. What truly matters is the bond that forms between music and listener when they meet at the exact right moment. Those bonds are the vehicles that allow us really feel music and fall in love with it for the first time, the devices that let certain albums to stay with us forever, and that’s something that can’t be shared or given or bought. You absolutely have to find it yourself, on your own terms.

The first album that I ever formed that kind of bond with was Jimmy Eat World’s Futures, and every record Jimmy Eat World have released since has had some huge influence on my life. The best albums, they serve as time capsule snapshots of the times in our life when they mattered most, and this band has done that for me more than most. Suffice to say that, while I’ve loved a lot of albums since that fall of 2004, when songs like “Kill” or “23” broke through my facade and convinced me that Jim Adkins knew exactly what I was going through, Futures remains the most important milestone in my musical development. I love Born to Run more, and Butch Walker is my go-to favorite artist, but without Jimmy Eat World and the 11 tracks that make up their greatest album, I wouldn’t be writing these words. For some, music is trivial entertainment, but for me, it determined a larger part of my life path than I will probably ever be able to realize. And all of that took off when, on some chilly autumn afternoon in 2004, I got a chance to “believe in futures” in a whole new way.

Fast forward eight and a half years, and that band is still at it, but a lot of other things have changed. As listeners, we all grew up. We went from shutting our eyes and humming along to the crashing climax of “23” in our adolescent bedrooms, ruminating about our juvenile crushes, to shouting along with its lyrics in our post-college apartments as we actually turned 23. But for most of us, this band’s music has remained important, even after many of the records we were listening to back then have faded into the background. In that case, it’s somewhat comforting to know that, on Damage, their seventh full-length, Jimmy Eat World are still pretty much the same band we’ve always known and loved.

The first thing most fans are going to notice with this record is the production, and that’s a shame. Due to the towering pop-rock structures and palatable studio sheen of the band’s last few records, the rawer, more live sound of Damage will probably feel a bit jarring. To be fair, many of the more epic moments of the band’s catalog, songs like “Goodbye Sky Harbor,” “Dizzy,” or “23”—in essence, the closers—were as much studio audio art as they were straight emotional pop rock, and it’s hard not to imagine what the songs on Damage could be with the same meticulous attention to detail. In particular, lead single “I Will Steal You Back” sounds a bit muddy, like a leftover demo from Futures or Stay on My Side Tonight that probably would work better if Jim’s vocals were higher in the mix. Similarly, “Book of Love” is a jaunty mid-tempo rocker that would have fit perfectly alongside the shimmering hooks of Chase This Light...if only it weren’t missing that record’s muscular sonic punch.

But more often than not, the production (courtesy of Queens of the Stone Age veteran Alain Johannes) suits the tenor of these songs in a way that Mark Trombino, Butch Vig, or Gil Norton’s more bombastic styles probably wouldn’t have. Taking a cue from Foo Fighters’ back-to-basics analog record, Wasting Light, Jimmy Eat World go for a dirtier, more spontaneous sound here that, at its finest moments, is impossible to argue with. Case-in-point is “How’d You Have Me,” which explodes with defiance and ringing guitars reminiscent of U2’s “Pride (In the Name of Love)” before morphing into the kind of vitriolic, shout-along garage rock song we haven’t heard from this band since “Blister.” Similarly, “Byebyelove” calls back to the Clarity days, with scuzzy production, minimalist structure, and goosebump-inducing crescendos that serve as fitting homage to the band’s ‘90s emo roots. And closer “You Were Good,” though it lacks the floor-to-ceiling sprawl of the band’s previous finales, sends the album out with acoustic guitars and reverb-drenched resignation.

Where Invented was largely an opportunity for Adkins to experiment with his songwriting style (much of the record played around with character perspectives and female point-of-view), Damage is the most straightforward and cohesive set of songs the band has written to date. Dubbed by Adkins as an “adult break-up album,” Damage clings to a love story arc throughout, matching its jagged production with the ragged snapshots of a relationship about to burst apart. There are snatches of that in the first two singles: “I Will Steal You Back” is a yearning plea for better times lost in the fire, while the narrator of the gorgeous title track watches as his lover vanishes into a mess of broken promises and inflated expectations. “I hate the way I feel, but I don’t think I can change,” Adkins sings in the first verse of the latter. It’s a song about falling out of love with someone you still care deeply for, and just as Adkins conveyed the pulsing want of unrequited love on “Kill” (“I can’t help it baby, this is who I am/Sorry but I can’t just go turn off how I feel”), here, he relates the destructive agony of losing connection with the person who once meant the world to you.

Even more powerful is “Please Say No,” an achingly beautiful vignette that stands alongside the very best in the Jimmy Eat World catalog. Adkins has long been one of my favorite songwriters, but his lyricism has often lingered in abstraction. One of the reasons that so many kids have been able to connect to JEW’s songs is that they’ve rarely embraced absolute specificity. On Clarity, Adkins’ poetry was sparse and indefinite. Listeners took those songs, saw what they wanted in them, and filled in the fringes with their own experiences. On Damage though, because the band has really embraced the idea of a thematic arc for the first time, Adkins is finally allowed to write in a more direct storytelling style. These songs aren’t just lovelorn poetry or odes of heartbreak; they’re full stories, five-minute films, expansive novels written in staves, rests, and music notes for the rest of us to bleed to. And “Please Say No,” which burns like a lost Springsteen cut, is the finest example of that. It’s a song about an affair and the toll it takes, not just on the relationships it squanders or on the people it cheats, but also on the lovers locked inside its deadly embrace. “I’ve lately come to wonder what it might feel like/If one last time, we went and did this right/Somewhere no one possibly could know our names/Somewhere no one bothers to remember a face,” Adkins muses during the second verse. But moments later, he begs his lover to refuse him, knowing that a simple “No” is the only thing that can save him from blowing apart his life on this impossible romance. And the way Jim sings those lines, with lush harmonies swelling around him, his voice bursting with passion and pain, it cuts right to the bone.

Jimmy Eat World aren’t going to get a ton of critical accolades for this record, and for as long as they’ve been together, they never have. But Damage is unequivocally my favorite album of the year so far, and I have a feeling that a lot of people who hear these songs at the right moment in their lives are going to share that sentiment. Maybe the connection will come on some late and sweltering summer night, and a teenage kid will be climbing into his car with heartbreak on his mind and nothing left to say. And this record will be playing on the stereo. And he’ll turn up the volume and shout along, and the words and music will crash into him and change his life forever. Or maybe that connection will sneak up on someone the way it came to me, at the end of one major life chapter and on the cusp of something infinitely bigger and more frightening. When people look back at 2013 and think about the albums that proved to be the “best” or “most influential,” I don’t know what’s going to stand up tallest. But I do know that I’ll never forget driving away from college for good while the don’t-take-too-much-for-granted strains of “Appreciation” rang through my car. I won’t forget how terrified I felt in that moment, staring off into the great unknown, or how invigorating it was to be entirely free for perhaps the first time in my life. And this album, this beautifully melancholic disc about sprained hearts, strained voices, and broken mixtape songs, will forever stand immortal because it had the grace and timing to walk into my life when I needed it most. I only hope the rest of you should be so lucky.

Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience (Part I)

Justin Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience
RCA, 2013

B+

There’s nothing in music criticism that bothers me more than writers lambasting an artist and tearing down their latest work for “overreaching.” No matter the cause, be it one particular critic’s self-important, pageview grabbing arrogance, or the word of a listener who is so emotionally tied to an artist’s initial sound that they refuse to accept any new directions, attacking a musician for trying to do too much with their sound, or for trying to adopt influences outside of their initial wheelhouse, has always struck me as a “beside the point” sort of criticism. Isn’t the job of a music critic to judge the art at hand as a standalone product, and not to examine it in light of previous triumphs? That may be easier said than done, but I at least always try to appreciate an album for what it is rather than brooding over what it’s not.

And that brings me to The 20/20 Experience, Justin Timberlake’s third full-length record and his first foray into new music in nearly six years. Since 2006’s FutureSex/LoveSounds, Timberlake has filled his time acting (The Social Network, In Time, Friends with Benefits), hosting Saturday Night Live, and working on his comedy chops, but despite pleas from every direction, begging him to return to music, the pop star offered no indication until very recently that he would return at all. And you couldn’t have really blamed him if he didn’t. After all, Timberlake was basically a legend by the time he was 25: he’d conquered the world with ‘N Sync, transitioned into a successful solo career with 2002’s Justified—and its still-ubiquitous flagship single, “Cry Me a River”—ripped off Janet Jackson’s shirt on international television, and gained respectable critical approval with FutureSex/LoveSounds. Where could he go next? What did he still have to say or to prove? And would his long-awaited return to music even be able to meet the stratospheric expectations of fans and critics? Yes, it might have been safer for Timberlake just to call it a day. After all, 31 is a bit too young to enter the “past their prime” bracket.

But Timberlake, thankfully, has never been “safe,” and his latest album is the exact antithesis of the word. Those looking for another FutureSex will probably be disappointed. There’s no monster single here, no “SexyBack” or “Cry Me a River,” or even a “My Love” or “What Goes Around…” Where Timberlake’s sophomore album was largely grounded in up-to-the-minute pop sounds, dance-floor textures, and urban rhythmic drawl, The 20/20 Experience spends most of its runtime in classic, slow-burning soul and R&B mode. Timbaland is back in the producer’s chair, but the emphasis this time is more on atmosphere, flow, and mood than on catchy earworm hooks. And that’s not to say that these songs are forgettable, because the falsetto-driven hooks on songs like “Pusher Love Girl” and “Spaceship Coupe,” or the stadium-filling chorus of “Mirrors,” are as melodically resplendent as anything Timberlake has ever produced. Rather, these songs don’t quite have JT’s normal knack for latching themselves to the side of your brain after a single listen, and while that’s not really a shortcoming, it means that The 20/20 Experience probably won’t have the same pop-cultural ubiquity as his last two records did.

But if the album lacks something in the radio singles department, Timberlake more than makes up for it in terms of overall cohesion. The themes here are simple ones: love, lust, adoration, devotion, etc. etc., all likely inspired by Timberlake’s recent marriage to actress Jessica Biel. If the lyrics aren’t romantic gestures we’ve heard a million times before, they’re clumsy metaphors and analogies that would fall flat without the musical flourishes that prop them up. But Timberlake’s voice is, as always, a flawless instrument, lilting on gorgeous falsetto lines, delivering sultry, slinky melodies right and left, throwing in tasteful riffs, or moving into a full-on belt when the songs require it. Timbaland plays his part well too, somehow making the swirl of organic instrumentation, hypnotic samples, electronic loops, and other digital augmentations coalesce into sprawling sonic arrangements that feel both intimate and explosive, innately welcoming and dauntingly ambitious. Regardless of how listeners react to these songs on a personal level, there is no denying that The 20/20 Experience is an absolutely exquisite-sounding record from top to bottom, and with a pop music album, that’s sometimes half the battle.

Of course, all of the studio sheen in the world can’t save an artist if they don’t have the songs to back it up, and Timberlake certainly has a dense wall of material on hand this time around. The 20/20 Experience is only ten tracks long, but seven of them cross the seven-minute mark, and the two most-likely bids for mainstream radio airplay—the lounge-meets-club first single “Suit & Tie” and the brassy soul rave-up “That Girl”—still extend well past the accepted model of the three-and-a-half minute pop song. This album is long, full of shape-shifting tunes that drop from one style to another with almost no regard for genre boundaries. “Pusher Love Girl” swells at the top of the record with a string arrangement that feel ripped straight from a classic film score, morphs into a rousing piece of pop vocal bliss, and then settles into a magnetic neo-soul groove for its final minutes. The first half of “Strawberry Bubblegum” takes a cue from Frank Ocean’s tripped-out brand of R&B, while the outro accelerates into something that could almost have fit on an ‘N Sync album. And “Let the Groove Get In” begins as a hip-shaking nod to Latin music and ends as a pitch-perfect Michael Jackson impersonation.

And that’s where the accusations of overreaching will likely come in. It would be hyperbole to say that The 20/20 Experience has suffered a critical slapping, but compare its reception to the legacy of Timberlake’s last album—or perhaps even more notably, to the orgasmic praise that Frank Ocean’s similarly ambitious, similarly meandering Channel ORANGE earned from all corners last summer—and all the scores in the “8” or “B” ranges start to feel a bit more disappointing. Most writers, even the ones who like the album, accuse Timberlake of writing long songs for the sake of having epic track lengths, not because his musical creations actually justify those lengths. The review posted yesterday morning from The AV Club found the record so bloated that almost every song could stand to lose a minute in length—if not more—while Joe Caramanica of the New York Times essentially called the record a pretentious mess, a weak collection of songs disguising themselves in layers of false “artistry.”

But aside from a terribly-misguided rap verse on “Suit & Tie”—from Jay-Z, a once-great modern musical figure who now falls squarely into the “past their prime” bracket I referred to earlier—I can’t really find a minute here that I’d excise. Most of these songs save their finest moments for the back end, like the gloriously catchy “I’ll love you ‘til I make it pop” hook from “Strawberry Bubblegum,” or the dizzying conclusions to “Don’t Hold the Wall” and “Tunnel Vision,” where Timbaland meticulously builds layers of production elements into towers of sonic force. On “Spaceship Coupe,” Justin mixes the attitude and sound of Prince with a hook that could have been culled from a Beyonce record. The song  is hooky and fun throughout, but doesn’t reach its euphoric peak until nearly four minutes in, when an 80s-esque slow-jam guitar solo cuts across the center. It’s true that we could have reached these moments faster, but Timberlake gives the songs time to breathe, grow, and shift, and as a result, the peaks feel higher and more well-earned. Some listeners won’t have the patience to sit through one seven-minute song after another—especially on repeat plays—but for those who are, there’s a bounty of rewards to be found here.

By the time The 20/20 Experience takes its final left turn—with the gorgeous, somber ballad that is “Blue Ocean Floor”—Timberlake has truly run the gamut of pop music. A halting cassette-tape loop plays in the background, decaying with pulsing synths, distant piano lines, and a haunting tidal atmosphere as Timberlake delivers one of his most restrained vocal performances ever. “If my red eyes don’t see you anymore/And I can’t hear you through the white noise,” Timberlake warns on the cathartic chorus. “Just send your heartbeat I’ll go to the blue ocean floor/Where they find us no more, on that blue ocean floor.” It’s a strikingly intimate and serene ending to a record that often explodes in communal, lovelorn bombast, and for me, it’s the unquestionable highlight. But that’s the thing about The 20/20 Experience: this is the kind of record where everyone will have different favorite song, where what someone calls dull or overlong or indulgent will resonate perfectly with someone else, depending on that listener’s past musical tastes and experiences. And some critics may call that “overreaching,” may yearn for a more consistent style or wish that Timberlake didn’t try so many new things. But those kinds of people were also the ones who told the Beatles they were “just a pop band” when they started experimenting with studio art, or booed Dylan when he went electric. And we all know how those situations turned out.

Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE

Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE

Island/Def Jam, 2012

Four stars

Last year, Frank Ocean sneaked into my end of the year honorable mentions with his innovative mixtape Nostalgia. Ultra, something that may not have seemed like anything to write home about to someone unfamiliar with my musical tastes, but something that was a bit of a surprise for me. Just like the vast majority of the population, I had no idea who Frank Ocean even was until last summer, but furthermore, he was a part of a genre (R&B) that I have very little love for. But Nostalgia was something fresh, a guy with a great voice spinning catchy, well written songs of his own or reinventing those of others. There were a few duds in the tracklist, but those were mostly forgivable, especially given the strength of originals like "Swim Good," or the yearning, emotional spin he put on Coldplay's "Strawberry Swing." But the reinventions - which also laid down new lyrics on The Eagles' "Hotel California" and MGMT's "Electric Feel" - were a gimmick, and as good as they were, it was hard to believe that Ocean would make them a regular proceeding...at least if he was hoping to be taken seriously as a musician.

Fast forward a year, and Frank Ocean is one of the biggest names in his genre, and for good reason. His talent is undeniable in anything he does, whether he's lending guest vocals (Kanye West and Jay-Z's Watch the Throne, also from last summer) or writing his own songs. He's also entered the news lately with a very honest and very public coming out, and that event will have many a critic reading very deeply into the music and lyrics on his major label debut, searching for a profound statement. That debut, called channel ORANGE, earned a sky-high 9.5 from Pitchfork last week - the kind of score that normally means Album of the Year contention - and while it's certainly a solid and interesting set of songs, I don't think it quite deserves that level of acclaim. That said, it's all about hype in this industry, and Ocean certainly has that on his side as he charges into the summer that is going to turn him from underground favorite into global superstar.

Upon a single listen to channel ORANGE, its hard to see what the big deal is: these songs meander and wander down roads that are almost impossible to anticipate, the flow is bizarre, with interludes and sound effects meant to simulate a "channel surfing" mentality, and Ocean doesn't have as many moments to show off his vocal prowess as he did on Nostalgia. The material is also all completely original, and while that's probably the right choice for him to make, the reinvention gimmick is missed here. Ocean forgoes choruses on a regular basis, opting instead for ambitious song structures that don't always work. But once all expectations and pre-conceptions of Ocean as an artist drop away, as they inevitably will, what's left is a compelling (if flawed) document of one of today's most intriguing and talented young artists. Look no further than album centerpiece, the 10-minute long "Pyramids," to know that Ocean's ambitions extend far beyond simple pop or R&B music. It's a two-part suite, with a driving introduction and a slow-burning, seductive second half that eventually gives way to an incendiary guitar solo from none other than John Mayer. Mayer sticks around for the sexy instrumental that is "White," and his presence is deeply welcomed both times, but the album has no time to linger on ideas: it moves along with a jarring and fast-paced clip, and if you blink, you might miss the transitions.

Perhaps the most prevalent of the personalities that Ocean adopts across channel ORANGE's 17 tracks is that of Stevie Wonder, who, himself a shape-shifting musical force, proves to be one of Ocean's most obvious influences. He lets loose a gorgeous falsetto on the chorus of "Thinkin' Bout You," references some of Stevie's biggest pop hits on the all-too-short "Fertilizer," and throws out the album's truest chorus and hook on "Sweet Life," never drifting too far from the musical territory that Wonder mined on key records like Innervisions and Songs in the Key of Life. But just like Nostalgia was more than a "cover" album, ORANGE is more than a tribute to one of Ocean's favorites, and he does a lot here to distinguish himself from the other figures in his genre, both past and present. Songs like "Super Rich Kids," "Monks," and "Pink Matter" (with an entrancing verse from Outkast's Andre 3000) veer more towards hip hop than Ocean has attempted yet (though, as a member of the Odd Future group, which consists mostly of rappers, it was only a matter of time until that influence manifested itself). Meanwhile, Ocean unleashes one of the best pop songs of the summer with "Lost," which sports an indelible groove and an addictive swagger that will doubtlessly land it on many a playlist this season.

But even with all of his musical ambition and varied styles, Ocean is at his best when he opens himself up and lets the world see the man behind it all. The song where that happens, the climactic "Bad Religion", is the closest he gets to the kind of "grand statement" that critics will be searching for here. The song, awash with strings and ringing organ chords, sees the protagonist climbing into a taxi at the end of a depressing and demoralizing night. He's looking for answers, for somewhere to think and someone to talk to, and he asks the cab driver to "be his shrink for the hour" and to help him "outrun the demons."  Everything builds towards the rousing "chorus," where Ocean belts, in one of his most spectacular vocal moments on record, "if it brings me to my knees, it's a bad religion." The result is the album’s peak and one of the best songs of the year. It's a sonic feast, a lyrical tour-de-force, an affecting and relatable piece of storytelling, and a vocal powerhouse all in one. It's also over far too quickly. Clocking in at 2:55, "Bad Religion" ends just when you think it could build into something truly epic. It's a shame for a record that has at least ten minutes of throwaway material (grating moments like "Sierra Leone" and "Crack Rock" come to mind, as do the utterly worthless intro and outro tracks), but when the song is so good, it's hard to complain.

Ultimately, while channel ORANGE may not be quite worth the profusion of hype it is certain to collect this week and throughout the rest of the year (look for this near the top of many a year end list), it is a solid and fascinating release from a charismatic and promising artist. Ocean doesn't quite sustain that promise throughout, occasionally stumbling on his own ambitious drive, but the album's highlights showcase a dizzying amount of talent and charm that demand to be noticed. For listeners more at home in this genre, channel ORANGE may well be a masterpiece, but I think it's equally notable that Ocean has been able to reach beyond those boundaries so effortlessly. His appeal reaches far and wide, thanks to his voice and his eclectic musical palette, and while the resulting cluster of musical ideas is hard for me to love completely, it's also impossible not to respect.