You might have not been paying attention, but The Roots have been up there with The White Stripes, Radiohead, and Kanye as the most consistent artists of the past decade. With thought-provoking lyrics and rock-solid funk grooves, this is the kind of hip-hop that lots of people have either forgotten existed or never knew existed in the first place. While most of the attention behind the band gets focused on drummer ?uestlove (either because of his striking look or because of his ease with a quote), rapper Black Thought is just as important to the group, and has quietly revealed himself to be one of the most unsung emcees in hip-hop history. Plus, the man, like fellow emcee greats Andre 3000 and Slick Rick (sorta), can sing too! Their new album, “How I Got Over” was originally scheduled for a summer release, but has gotten bumped into October. Check out their performance of the title track on Jimmy Fallon’s late night talk show, where they also serve as the house band. Hopefully this exposure results in a well-deserved, successful album.
Category: Reviews
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FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #41: Hooked On Phoenix
MAC & KATIE KISSOON “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep” b/w “Walking Around” (ABC Records #11306, Fall 1971)
Pop smashes don’t just write themselves. It takes actual people with actual brains to conceive of the melodies (with or without lyrical combinations) that will become the soundtrack to our difficult lives, brightening up otherwise cloudy days. And it can take teams of people, and lots of time and effort, to get that potential hit into the right hands, often after many incarnations: the right recording by the right artist, the right slot on the right radio station; these and more factors can make or break a pop song. It can be a long and belabored process. Yet when the tunes reach our ears, it all seems effortless, like it was whispered through the airwaves directly at us.  It’s the magic, my friends, that makes it all so attractive.
In its original incarnation by Scottish songwriter Lally Stott, “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep” is Euro-bubblegum of the sparse variety.  Surrounded by handclaps-with-brushed-snare percussion, clanging Fender Rhodes piano and staccato horn charts, Stott gets his point across by pushing the catchy melody to the forefront . It was a hit in Europe and Australia, but the recording itself comes off more as a writers’ demo.
Appropriately-named English pop-vocal group Middle Of The Road scored huge in Britain with their rendition of “Chirpy” the following year, but one could easily attribute their success not to the clunky backbeat and general “okay-ness” of the arrangement, but to the sheer sex appeal of singer Sally Carr. Oozing hip Swinging London cool, Carr straddles that forbidden barricade between tambourine-happy Betty Cooper-style band chick and aloof Nicoesque chanteuse, like a strict Bavarian school marm who makes you stay after class then totally fucks you. Young English boys feverishly masturbated, while a blossoming quartet of guys & dolls over in Sweden carefully took notes.
(Sick of this song yet? I’m not. In fact, I sing this song at work. Yes, I sing at work…you wanna make something of it? I didn’t think so. Furthermore, I’m in the right mind to slap this sucker on my iPod, remove everything else, and set it on repeat with the volume at full-blast, that’s how I feel right now. Keep your Robert Fripp outtakes and your Albert Ayler box-set and let me wallow in my trashy eurobubblegum compost heap, goddammit! Anyway…)
Play (or don\’t…see if I care) Mac & Katie Kissoon\’s hit rendition of \”Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep\”
Late 1971 saw Mac & Katie Kissoon, a brother-sister duo from Port-Of-Spain, Trinidad, finally push “Chirpy” (incorrectly attributed on this 45 to “Scott”) into the US Top 20. Katie’s voice propels the song here, ringing bright and clear over a smart and swinging gospel-soul arrangement, replete with Motown-Philly strings and Stax/Volt drum-breaks. Ditching the European production values and going for a fuller, more American sound proved to be a watershed for the Kissoons’ version, and henceforth “Chirpy,” in one rendition or another, was now a worldwide smash.
Unfortunately there’s no clip available for “Walking Around,” the strange, off-kilter ska track that makes up the B-side. With its cut-time snare-n-horn rolls, unpredictable dub-inflected bassline, and unusual vocal melody that shifts jarringly from major to minor, “Walking” is hands down one of the oddest and most intriguing flips I’ve ever heard. Ten years later, it would’ve sounded right at home covered by The English Beat or The Selecter or Madness. In this incarnation, however, the Kissoon siblings sound like they’re having a great time, making this complex vocal exercise seem very natural and simple, like a magical, refreshing, effortless Caribbean breeze.
Mac & Katie continued to make records over the years, and had several more hits, mainly in Europe. Katie can often be seen and heard singing backup for luminaries such as Roger Waters, Eric Clapton and Van Morrison.
NEXT WEEK: “Alcohol is/An easy key/Helps you unwind/And dance with me/To a disco trot from Germany”
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“For All I Care” – The Bad Plus Adds Vocals
Recorded in April of last year and released on February 3rd , 2009, the latest Bad Plus album, “For All I Care”, is not exactly a “new†release anymore. Still, I feel compelled to review it here because I believe that the Bad Plus is the most important group in contemporary music today. Unlike the majority of other working bands, it is one of few to actively bridge the gaps between rock, pop, jazz, and, with “For All I Care”, classical music. Certainly, other groups have explored various sonic territories, but no one defies categorization quite like the Bad Plus. From the release of their eponymous debut, the Bad Plus have produced both transformative covers of rock classics to thundering yet sophisticated originals. Their success in doing so has the potential to open the ears of music fans of all stripes, though whether this will happens remains to be seen.
However, I don’t want to use this post to glorify The Bad Plus’ place in the contemporary music. For All I Care stands out for three reasons: The inclusion of vocalist Wendy Lewis, the absence of original materials, and the use of 20th century classical music. The first two aspects are fundamentally related – I’m not so sure the group is comfortable writing lyrics, so they may have been unable to write new material. Whether this is the only reason there are no originals isn’t clear but it has to be a reason. Ultimately, my only complaint with the album is that the absence of TBP compositions robs the listener of the thrill of hearing the band play new material, not just reworkings of rock songs, however entertaining and radical those reworkings may be.
Let met start with the positive sides to the album, which far outnumber the negative ones. First, TBP does a great job of redefining – through reharmonization, odd time meters, changed arrangements, etc. – various hits and non-hits from a relatively large sequence of rock and pop history with classics as diverse as “Comfortably Numbâ€, “Lithiumâ€, and “Barracuda†getting the TBP treatment. Of particular note is “Lithiumâ€, the opening track. Wendy Lewis’ subtle and flat (this not intended as a criticism) vocals provides the perfect vehicle for the the Nirvana classic, while the trio plays a dissonant accompaniment that manages to both stun the listener with its ingenuity and refuse to abandon the moody feeling of the original.
“Comfortably Numb†again involves a stark contrast between the Lewis’ low key delivery and the trio’s rebellious playing. The song develops from minimalist playing to the grandeur of the chorus back to minimalism and then again to chorus with a harmonic angst that brings out the subtle tension of the song and then finally, after a pounding finish to the chorus, a soft end that is, well, comfortably numb. The Bee Gee’s “How Deep is Your Love†(an interesting inclusion, to say the least) gets completely reworked as well, with a classical-esque introduction from Iverson and a version of the song that is unrecognizable from the original.. Wilco’s “Radio Cure†does not undergo much of a transformation, with the band staying true to the original with some changes in the song structure. Wendy Lewis delivers Jeff Tweedy’s thoughtful lyrics to the tune convincingly – I really thought this was one of the better tracks on the album.
And, to break up the vocal tracks, the Bad Plus includes three classical covers – Ligeti’s “â€, Milton Babbitt’s “Semi-Simple Variations†and Stravinsky’s “Variation d’Apollonâ€. “Fém†and “Semi-Simple Variations†highlight the band’s incredible syncopation and “Variation d’Apollon†is a beautiful, lifting piece. The pieces are wonderfully arranged and feature the most daring playing on the album, though I’m not sure they fit in perfectly with the vocal tracks.
As I mentioned earlier, my only complaint with the album is the lack of originals. TBP compositions like “1972 Bronze Medalistâ€, from These Are the Vistas and “Physical Citiesâ€, from Prog are, for me, the highlights of these albums. TBP’s covers are great but the meat of their music is really the originals. Still, the album gets my praise for seamlessly bringing Wendy Lewis into the TBP “soundâ€. Whether you are a TBP fan or not, please go out and buy this album!