Beach House, DJ Rashad, Lana Del Rey
Pitchfork #21 - 19
#21 Beach House, Teen Dream (2010)
Rating: 3
Beach House is a duo from Baltimore. They chose Baltimore as a base because, they say, it’s cheaper to live there. (Importantly, there are no beach houses in Baltimore.) Victoria Legrand is a Paris-born drama major who went to Vassar College. Her father is a French composer of film music. Alex Scally is a geology major from Oberlin College. Their music has the hard edge that you might expect from such a pair. Which is no hard edge.
But that’s okay. There’s a place for shoegaze music. Beach House music rests on wall-of-sound of a mellow organ. Drums are an afterthought on a computer. Victoria’s lead vocals are plaintive, deep and contralto, which has led to comparisons to Nico, but have a more teenage guy vibe for me.
This is their third album, and their first with Sub Pop, a “real” label soaked in grunge music, after a couple of indie releases. Sub Pop provided more studio money than they were used to, so this album is a little less lo-fi and a little more complex. This is their first product with a name producer, who had experience with Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs and Grizzly Bear.
Ambitiously, they also created a companion DVD with a music video for *every* song on the album, directed by different people. The videos at first glance are somewhat unremarkable.
The songs feel very meticulous. LeGrand told Pitchfork “we’re very song oriented. We believe in songs.”
Whatever you do, don’t call the music “wafty, wavy, floaty, gauzy, wispy, glittering, sparkly, [or] dreamy.” Because Legrand will call you “lazy.” She doesn’t like the idea of being looped in with “soft” music. “I don't wear dresses and flowers in my hair and float around,” she says. “We are a loud band!”
OK, OK. You’re loud!
They make a good point about how important it has been for them to learn from playing live. They played hundreds of shows touring the previous album. They said they got sick of the songs, but also learned them in such a deep way singing the same thing night after night, it got them ready to lay down some new serious studio-stacked tracks for Sub Pop.
At least they don’t seem to over-intellectualize the music, or insist on its “meaning.”
We never, ever try to intellectualize things; we don’t talk too much about who we are, or what things mean. We just sort of do things. A lot of times, in interviews, nothing really seems to make sense. Instead of knowing the answers to questions, it’s like you’re searching for what an answer might be. For us, Beach House is the music we come up with when we get together. We don’t think about it more than that.” — Alex Scally, LiveAbout.com
Hey! For us, our band is the music our band makes! We just sort of do stuff. It’s almost refreshing to write this when I’ve been drowning in Pitchfork-ness, but I have no idea what Beach House is singing about. Nobody does. There’s a euphemism in music writing for when nobody understands the lyrics - we call the vocals “textural.”
Even when I see people have written some of my lyrics and they’re wrong, I’m never angry. I always just think, “Well, that’s what they wanted to hear I bet.” Because I think we hear what we want to hear. It’s like when someone says something and someone says “What?” And it’s like they pretend they didn’t hear it but they totally heard what the other person said. They just didn’t want to hear it at that time. Do you know what I’m talking about? - Victoria Legrand
Here’s the thing - I LIKE the music. It’s a feeling. And yes, it’s dreamy. So I’m lazy.
It’s plenty hooky and melodic. It’s not exactly…challenging, but god that’s a relief. There’s no empty space - pick any random second of any track and you won’t find a pause or rest in the drone.
“Zebra” is about…who knows what, but it’s pretty! “Norway” is super poppy and floaty. They wrote it on a train. In Norway.
To share in all the wealth
Don’t you know it’s true?
Oh Norway-ay-ay, ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
Norway-ay-ay, ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
Seven figures leap the hungry mouths
The beast, he comes to you
Plink plink plink! Choo choo! Ah ah ahhhh!
For some reason, there’s so much intrinsic interest in this drama-geology pair in the hip-hop world that there’s an entire article just about that connection. Kendrick Lamar heavily sampled the slightly gloomy “Silver Soul” for his track “Money Trees” on Good Kid, M.a.a.d City (the one that has the refrain “ya bich.”). Danny Brown loves Beach House. Tyler the Creator tweeted his love for the song “Gila.”
Beach House is a mood. The music is slow. Simple. Sometimes dreary. It’s never lost, though, these two do NOT jam or improvise, everything has its place. It has a retro-quality, especially when Legrand turns her organ to the “vintage” setting, a la “Walk in the Park,” or the cheapo Casio setting, a la “Better Times.”
Pitchfork writers:
Teen Dream is less an ode to adolescent nostalgia as it is a tribute to a lost feeling of passion: With Alex Scally’s guitar swelling to imperial heights and Victoria Legrand’s voice reaching new depths, euphoria bursts from every note. As Legrand chants “it is happening again” on “Silver Soul,” the urgency of her voice commands you to hold on tight to this rapture for as long as you can, because losing it would be devastating. –Quinn Moreland
#20 DJ Rashad, Double Cup (2013)
Rating: 2
DJ Rashad was born and raised in Chicago. He was a pioneer in the city’s unique footwork genre. He and his school friends founded the Teklife crew, which was featured prominently on the footwork compilation album Bangs & Works Vol. 1, reviewed in this list back at #129.
The legacy of DJ Rashad’s life is unfortunately defined by his untimely death. His Wikipedia page has 16 footnotes, and all 16 link to an article reporting his death.
This album, Double Cup, was remarkable because an all-footwork LP from a single artist was rare - it had been a “singles” genre born of DJ sets. Much of the album is a collaboration with his school buddy DJ Spinn.
It was released in October of 2013, capping off a big year for Rashad. He appeared at the Pitchfork festival and also opened for Chance the Rapper on his tour. He was scheduled to release a new EP and had club dates on the calendar for 2014. But just six months after this album dropped, he was found dead of a drug overdose in his Pilsen apartment. It was another blow for Chicago house music - house legend Frankie Knuckles had just passed away a few weeks prior.
I recommend a 3 minute diversion to get a feel for Rashad and his crew. At the top of this Pitchfork obituary page, click on “View the Full Gallery” and flip through a candid slideshow of DJ Rashad. It’s easy. They’re not promo photos, they’re more like home movies, and they make me feel a little bit like I know who he was and what was lost.
The music is…well, it’s footwork. I probably said enough about it the first time around. Bottom line, for me it doesn’t make much sense as music, when disembodied from the footwork scene. Tight and repetitive samples. Even a very favorable review of the album from Pitchfork has notable quotes that gently faint-praise the music:
“The rise of footwork as a formidable sub-genre of electronic music over the last few years has raised an interesting question: how do you listen to the stuff?…
..Much of the footwork music was fascinating, inspiring—and, as home-listening material, maddening…
..Which raises the other caveat regarding Double Cup: listening to footwork in long stretches can be exhilarating, and exhilaration can often lead to exhaustion…” - Larry Fitzmaurice, Pitchfork
It reminds me a little of Malört’s role as a Chicago mainstay, a symbol that revels in its own nastiness
It’s very hard to listen to - can you make it through the first 30 seconds of “Everyday of My Life?” This album does have some slight diversions (e.g. songs with hint of a melody, or a time signature). “Acid Bit” is Fatboy Slim type house. “Double Cup” could pass as a non-footwork club track.
But for the most part, DJ Rashad was a shameless ambassador of a very specific and identifiable home-spun genre of frantic mind-melting light-speed loops. He wasn’t going to crossover to pop or get on the EDM train. DJ Rashad was footwork and he introduced the Chicago sound worldwide.
As DJ and Fool’s Gold co-founder Nick Catchdubs writes in an email, “Rashad personified his art. The vast majority of DJs are interchangeable, but his name truly stood for a sound, and he took it around the globe. There was no pandering to a crowd, or attempts to dilute his vibe for different audiences. When he got on the CD-Js, you were gonna get two hours of uncut Chicago whether you liked it or not. But people did like it! In the wrong hands that approach could be off-putting, but there was a joy to Rashad's sets that drew all people in - Pitchfork
Pitchfork writers:
It melts the long history of Chicago house into the glossiest bits of pop-rap, the athletic feats of juke into the warmth and soul of the city’s R&B. It has all the jaggedness of something stitched together by hand but none of the attendant imperfections. It moans and whimpers and bludgeons and exhales, all in perfect time. You can practically hear Double Cup sweat. – Paul A. Thompson
#19 Lana Del Rey, Norman F*cking Rockwell! (2019)
Rating: 1
I first heard of Lana Del Rey in September of 2011. I was reading this article in the Chicago Reader while sipping a latte at a Wicker Park cafe. The subtitle of the piece was “Is there such a thing as being too pretty for indie?” I remember this photo on the flip side “B” front cover:
The piece was a lob into the suddenly very important dialogue about whether LDR was “authentic” or not. And she hadn’t even released a single yet.
Her birth name was Lizzy Grant - she had already released an EP and performed under that name. Here’s a video of Lizzy two years before the Reader article. Yeah, it’s different:
This performance would have been just after she graduated from Fordham University with a degree in philosophy.
The Lana Del Rey name and persona emerged the following year, 2010, with an EP called Lana Del Ray (spelled differently and still blonde). She then self-produced and released this video for her song “Video Games" and it went crazy viral.
This video launched her career. It also launched “Lana Del Rey” - the pouty, dreary, sullen pop star. It annoys the hell out of me. All the arbitrary stock footage hipness, the selfie cam vamping. It’s the epitome of LDR-ness.
Even before the debut big-label album Born to Die dropped, there were calls for LDR to be sent to Indie Art Prison. The story was that she was “artificial,” that the record label made her use this name, that retro hairstyle, and HEY is that collagen in those lips, too? Shame!
Jessica Hopper lamented the myth in a profile in SPIN magazine:
The myth, as it is presently understood: Lana Del Rey is an extended vanity project bankrolled by her dad’s money and honed, over the years, by a series of lawyers and managers who have shaped her image and plotted her career path. She is merely a canvas of a girl, and a willing one at that - Jessica Hopper, SPIN
I have absolutely no time for this myth. I don’t believe it. I do think LDR is full of shit, but it’s not because of that! What pop star isn’t manufactured in some way? And she’s writing and producing her own songs.
“Never had a persona,” Del Rey tweeted. “Never needed one. Never will.”
Fine. Whatever. What bothers me about LDR isn’t that she’s inauthentic, it’s that I don’t buy what she’s singing regardless. If her persona is an act, then I think she’s not acting hard enough. If she’s NOT acting, and in real life she’s an actual dead-eyed fembot zombie Voguing misery poses, then so be it. What difference does it make?
LDR’s aesthetic is retro: 40’s hair, stage makeup, a bit of a rough-cut post-party tousled sexiness. Lost of stars and stripes and other Americana. She is like a walking embodiment of SoCal rich-cool from the Hollywood glamour days. She’s so California.
But see, here’s the deal with retro - you don’t get to call your music retro just because you mention the Beach Boys in your lyrics (“The greatest”), say the phrase “Laurel Canyon” (“Norman fucking Rockwell”), or call a track “Cinnamon Girl” And definitely not just because you wear a Bump-It in your hair.
She’s not even *from* California, she’s from upstate New York.
LDR somehow survived a big career speed bump in 2012. She appeared as SNL’s music guest and her performance was extremely awkward and memorably bad. The drama included a predictable backlash wave about how great she is and please, give her a break. I can hardly watch it again, it’s bad.
In a very positive review of this album, Pitchfork said “It establishes her as one of America’s greatest songwriters.”
Uhhhh… I simply disagree. The reviewer seems awed by several quoted lyrics that are, at best, not great. LDR simply isn’t believable. Here’s “F*ck it I love you”:
So I moved to California‚ but it's just a state of mind
It turns out everywhere you go‚ you take yourself‚ that's not a lie
Wish that you would hold me or just say that you were mine
It's killing me slowly
Her main theme is terrible, immature and vacant guys…because that’s how guys are. Life sucks which is why I moan. Here’s the title track:
Goddamn, man-child
You act like a kid even though you stand six foot two
Self-loathing poet, resident Laurel Canyon know-it-all
You talk to the walls when the party gets bored of you
But I don't get bored, I just see it through
Why wait for the best when I could have you?
Mmm..sexy. As Stereogum writes, LDR…
…knows that this man is an absolute piece of shit. But she stays with him anyway, since she wants her own version of that long-promised American dream, in whatever contorted shape it might take. — Stereogum
Oh, and the performance! Ugh. Glamorous suffering. Maudlin cool. A woman whose emotions have been unplugged. What if Julia Roberts OD’ed on Xanax? What if Fiona Apple were lobotomized? Lyrically, the track “California” is a party anthem, but it’s delivered like a dead-eyed lethargic eulogy. This is not an opinion, it’s right on the record.
“Doin’ Time” is a straight cover of a popular Sublime song. I have no idea why it’s here or what LDR is supposed to be saying by recording it. “Venice Beach” is a 9-minute wandering jazzy jam. She pronounces it “I’m your Venice Beeeeitshhhhhhh”
Not my thing, this LDR. I have no quibble with her authenticity, she can be whoever she wants on stage. I’m just saying that who she IS on stage (including the Lolla show I saw) is flat and weirdly emotionally dead. And though I sincerely admire anyone who can write their own music, I find her songs facile and full of on the nose “I’m suffering” buzzwords.
I've been tearing around in my fucking nightgown
24/7 Sylvia Plath
Writing in blood on my walls
'Cause the ink in my pen don't work in my notepad
Don't ask if I'm happy, you know that I'm not
Sylvia Plath? Writing in blood? Cause your pen don’t work? EYEROLL, sorry. She’s not fake, she’s full of authentic shit.
Pitchfork writers:
Her indelible pop melodies are strung together with the grace of a tragic ballet. Lana worked on the record with Jack Antonoff, a producer known for encouraging pop artists to indulge their most theatrical, bombastic sides. Del Rey, however, encourages a more somber atmosphere, defined by muted piano, acoustic guitars, and layered harmonies that pair with her angsty, existential stories—’70s in spirit and ’90s in frame of mind, to paraphrase a lyric. — Sam Sodomsky