Word: ballads
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...Love the Future,” is a tour de force scarcely seen in contemporary pop music. The duo of Maxwell C. Drummey ’07 and D. A. Wallach ’07 string their audience along a tangled thread of kitchsy singles, Beach Boy flavored ballads, musical interludes, and even some country twang over the course of the record. And while this errant diversity could otherwise be more than a little off-putting, Chester French pulls it off (though not without a few stumbles) with a gusto that’s sure to recall a Beatles album...
...busy Saturday evening dinner service became a very busy Saturday evening dinner service, I watched as a fellow waiter burst suddenly into tears.The restaurant’s background music had just transitioned from a soulful Diana Ross ballad to Patsy Cline’s “Crazy,” and I couldn’t decide whether “men are dogs,” “insufficient tip,” or “another waiter’s gibes” was a likelier explanation for her sorrow. “My mother...
...floor,” multiple synth lines whirl, finally dropping out altogether to leave a drum beat reminiscent of LCD Soundsystem.Later tracks offer a more nuanced and diverse vision of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ new sound. “Skeletons” is a magisterial ballad that is remarkably gripping given its chilly atmospherics and unsettling percussion. The simple lyrics (no line is longer than three words) rely mostly on word association—“Fall asleep / Spin the sky / Skeleton me / Love don’t cry”—yet still manage...
...What's more - a heresy to even suggest - I wonder if this score really belongs in the very top rank of American musicals. The jazzy, modernist, Gershwinesque rhythms of some of Bernstein's music - "The Jet Song," "America" - are still striking and original. But is there a duller love ballad in any major American musical than "Maria" ("Maria! I've just met a girl named Maria"), or its Muzak-ready twin brother, "Tonight" ("Tonight, tonight/ There's only you tonight")? Who would know that the lyricist would grow up to be Stephen Sondheim...
...vocals. Yet, this ability doesn’t fully compensate for the shallow character of the lyrics, which rely almost exclusively on repetitive themes of love, death, obsession, and the occasional depression-induced suicide. The songs are morbid at best, and at their worst, such as in the slow ballad “Nothing To Give,” deathly boring. Space age glittery synth beats overwhelm straining vocals, but fail to mask what is clearly a sub-par rendition of Cure-esque mope-rock.McVeigh often harps on simplified clichés about the inextricable link between love and death, though...