Godspeed to you, Ms Garbus, but I'll not be climbing aboard the bandwagon

After several weeks of year-end retrospectives and attendant soundbites, I think it's safe to say that the appeal of Tuneyards is completely, totally, 100% lost on me. Every time I hear one of the woman's songs on one of these 2011 retrospective podcasts, I just want to lick an ebola-infected primate and then drown myself in a river. After taking a power-drill to both of my eardrums first, of course.

Good lord, even a few seconds of her music is intolerable to me. I don't begrudge anyone who enjoys her stuff (and there seem to be plenty of such people, at least in the critical community), nor do I even say they're incorrect. Merrill Garbus does seem to be a very creative and skillful individual whose work brings delight to many who hear her. Just keep that work very, very far from me for the forseeable future, because I would not seem to be one of those individuals.

I don't rule out a change of heart on my part somewhere down the line - God knows it's happened plenty of times before. Hell, I didn't like PJ Harvey when she first started up. The first time I heard Slowdive I thought "Now this is some boring-ass shit right here" and now of course I think they were aural perfection (though in fairness to Slowdive, I changed my mind by the end of that very same first song I heard). So the idea that at some point the light bulb might come on over my head is not unprecedented. But for now, no, no, a thousand times no! on Tuneyards.

I don't know what it is for sure. But for me I get the same vibe from Tuneyards as I do from Dirty Projectors or Tilly and the Wall - an unbearable sense of self-congratulatory preciousness. I get the impression that no one is more impressed by Merrill Garbus than Merrill Garbus.

Which is probably totally unfair. She's most likely a perfectly lovely individual who is definitely accomplishing more with her life than I ever will with mine so I'll shut up about her now. For people who enjoy her work, God bless you, I'm happy for you. I freely admit to being the clueless Philistine here. But please allow me to hastily leave the room if you're ever going to cue her up on the ol' playback device.

For me, I'll stick with Glasser, who does pretty much the same sort of stuff with the notable difference being her work enthralls me rather than making me want to run screaming through the streets into oncoming traffic.

That said, I do FuCkInG hate the sTuPiD capitalization bUlLsHiT with her name. There's no chance I'll ever change my mind concerning that cRaP.

I know of exactly one song by tuneyards (yeah, I'm not gonna bother with the whole capitalization bizness) and it's "Bizness." It knocked me out the first time I heard it on the radio, and I promptly downloaded it due to it's nice African poly-rhythms. I'm a big Afro-pop fan, and it's rare as hen's teeth to hear any Western poppers with any feel for such things.

I now think it's...all right. Not something I go back to that much like, say, the real African recent awesomeness of Konono No.1 or Staff Benda Bilili, but why the extreme reaction, Brad? Since I don't know what the rest of her stuff is like.

And if I dig these rhythms, is the rest of the album like this?

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why the extreme reaction, Brad?

I wish I knew, Fab. It's just one of those things that so far has hit me like nails on a blackboard.

I would say it's the vocals, but Kate Bush, Elisabeth Fraser and Alison Shaw of Cranes have done more than their fair share of bloodcurdling, affected yelping over the years and I've loved every second of it.

It can't all be chalked up to the somewhat precious nature of what Garbus does, because there ain't nobody on the current scene more cloyingly precious than St. Vincent and I have loved her last two albums.

It's not the white middle class dilettante plundering African musical forms angle, because I sure as hell have no problem with Remain in Light. Or Graceland for that matter. And the aforementioned Glasser does the same thing.

It's not all the hype, because I've loved plenty of people hyped further out the wazoo than Tuneyards - St. Vincent, LCD Soundsystem, etc.

I suppose it could be chalked up to a combination of all of the above,but at the end of the day it just boils down to I heard it and just plain don't like it.

I kind of like the short review of it in the newest issue of Big Takeover. I can't remember who wrote it and I don't have the mag in front of me, but the review read to me very much like someone saying to themselves "I really don't like this very much, but Mother said if you don't have anything good to say about something you shouldn't say anything at all. But hell, I owe Jack Rabid a paragraph on this thing so let me see if I can come up with anything positive to say about it."

Hah! A co-worker recently tried to turn me on to Tuneyards too - via the NPR Tiny Desk Concert - and while the music was somewhat interesting, the vocals drove me up the wall. As should be evident from what I've said about my lukewarm stance on Wild Flag, I am easily dissuaded by affected vocals of all sorts. And Ms. Garbus has that in spades. I'll likely be investigating no further.

Speaking of annoying fucking vocals, has anyone outside of the Northwest heard of our newest export to the wider world, Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside? More than any singer in recent memory, Sallie Ford makes me want to commit bloody mayhem.



Post Edited (12-19-11 19:36)

You just don't like woman with mustaches. Its OK.

You're not alone on this one, Mr. Reno.

Songs like "Es-so" (the first verse: "Es-so, es-so, Pudding pie and, Es-so, es-so, Do or die and, Es-so, es-so, A baby's cry, I gotta do right if my body is tight, right?") make me long for the relative lyrical sophistication of those Sleigh Bells jerks.

Or these lyrics, from "Powa": "Your power, Inside, It rocks me like a lullaby, Your power, Inside, It rocks me like a lullaby, Your power, Inside, Oh baby, I just don't know why, Your power, Your power inside, Waiting for you, Hurry up..." I'm not looking for "Famous Blue Raincoat, Pt. 2," but this is not top-notch writing.

The fact tracks 3-6 on w h o k i l l (another nice touch, eh?) are entitled "Gangsta," "Powa," "RiotRiot" and "Bizness" bothers me an inordinate amount, too.

I really made the effort. I listened to all of it...and found it unlistenable. Yet somehow I listened to all of it. Tim Tebow may have been involved.

I'll admit to not having listened to the whole record yet, but I love the single (for the same reasons as MrFab, though I'm not sick of it yet) and I saw her live at Fun Fun Fun Fest this year and she was a lot of fun.

I'll take her version of Caucasianizing Afro-pop over Vampire Weekend's any day of the week. Or year. Or decade.

I agree with you on the spelling, though. At least fIREHOSE put all its capitals in a row.



Post Edited (12-20-11 20:49)

I liked Tune-Yards (capitalization changed to mollify Mr. Reno and Mr. Toland) enough to include the album in my Top 40 of the year. But then, you all know how I feel about Vampire Weekend.

Garbus on Pitchfork this morning, when asked to pick a top 10 for 2011:

"In 2011, we mostly listened to Turkish psych from the 1970s in our tour van, so I am ill-equipped to talk about current albums. "

Yes, yes, Merrill, and I'm sure you don't have a TV and if you did you would ONLY watch PBS on it.