The new Pretenders' album is o.k. I like a few songs very much. I like the whole of it a little. It just might grow on me, so I'll reserve any scathing reviews or disappointments for a month or so from now when I'm settled into it. For now it's just fine. I have three or four tracks that I really like and I think the rest will be good soon. Does this happen to you? I really need a month or so to digest a new album by someone whose work I know and love.

My favorite track, by far is "Almost Perfect." It's frankly, well... er, almost perfect! Chrissie Hynde's voice is spectacularly melodic, soulful, emotive and wistful. Like Amy Ray on "She's Got To Be," you desperately want her to sing this song to you. The musical accompaniment is simple, it's all about the vocals. And I love songs like that. I also love songs that are all about guitars or all about the tense interplay between rhythm and bass, but there's something about a woman's voice that makes me go all gooey in the right places. What can I say? And a song like this that pushes that voice out there in front, that presents it to you like the way a good dancer presents his partner to the audience, is a beautiful thing to me. It's funny how gendered I think of life, of music despite my best intentions.

But... there's something bothering me beyond all that about this almost perfect song. This song is most decidedly not perfect. Two thirds of the way through Chrissie Hynde clears her throat. (It's a the 3:26 mark if you care to confirm.)

Why did they leave that in the final cut? Is that some sort of joke on the theme of the song? Some sort of nod to the imperfection of it? I know I should overlook it or celebrate the humanity of it or some such nonsense but honestly, it bugs the shit outta me! I realize she made this record in 10 days (foolish woman) but could she seriously not take the time and money to do another take? Tell me why this is acceptable in these days of digital recording. Tell me why this shouldn't matter in this song. Is it irony? Am I, as usual, over thinking the thing? Oh someone, put me out of my misery!

I must say, it's difficult to continue to suffer from a song with the lyrics... "paranoia drug addicted pornographically afflicted ... sleep with me..." If that's not Tart-able, I don't know what is.

Let's take comfort together in my next favorite track, "You Didn't Have To" which is just a lovely, and totally, Pretender-ish love song. The country twanginess of it is complimentary to her slip-sliding vocals. The steady rhythm lets her wander in such a sweet way over the words and notes to tell us how this one let her be just that free. I love that about this song. And in lust and love, I often do feel that kind of gratitude.

Almost Perfect mp3 The Pretenders Break Up The Concrete
You Didn't Have To mp3 The Pretenders Break Up the Concrete
(don't worry, there's more rockin' tracks on the album, I only picked the slow ones)
buy it

At the new album by Joan Osborne, Little Wild One, out today, it's beautiful and wonderful and takes her back to herself as I first met her; a soulful, bluesy, sing-it-down-from-the-bottom-of-your-gut kinda woman. Damn that's sexy!

Little Wild One

buy it here

more complete review coming soon!

Rol, at Sunset Over Slawit posted last week about a book that is going right on my xmas list this year, Chuck Klosterman's Fargo Rock City. One question that Rol takes from the book, is the mystery of why some girls (and women) actually like metal, or more specifically what Rol calls "glam metal" such as KISS, Poison, Thin Lizzy, Bon Jovi, etc... and I stumbled into the middle of a conversation on whether or not a particular Whitesnake video with a hot female model "having sex with a car" (as Rol describes) was sexist or not. Go see it here. I replied that some of us girls wanted to be the girl on the car, some of us wanted to have the girl on the car, and more importantly some of us knew exactly how to get the metalmen, namely by liking the music they liked regardless of the videos. So, sexist or not, we didn't really care. Scheming bitches aren't we?! Oh and thanks Rol, for a really thought provoking post! I'm not criticizing it in any way hun!

But seriously, what's so mysterious about metal? Or about any genre for that matter? Why divide the world so neatly so that The Carpenters are girly and Ozzy's for the boys? I admit, I started out listening to metal to piss off my parents like all you guys did :p Yeah, it worked for me too. Punk worked even better, I just couldn't do the satanic head trip on my poor christian mother that metal afforded me!

Now, this got me thinking, why have all the people in my life, who knew anything at all about music, been men? It's not just that certain genres of music are roped off for women, even musical knowledge is considered "a manly sport." Yeah, I know I lost some of ya there. You can smell a feminist rant coming, right? I'll try and take it easy on ya, I promise I won't go all Camille Paglia here. Just tell me when's the last time you had a real conversation about a band -- not a song, with a woman? When you go to gigs, look around? I was seriously the only woman at the Duke Spirit show the other week not wearing makeup and a low-cut fashionable blouse/dress, and I was one of maybe 5 single women there (probably the only one who wasn't "working" that night, lol!). Yeah, I'm odd that way sometimes, but this was a pretty scuzzy venue. I was there for the music (not that they weren't, of course, of course).

There's an ad in my local coffeehouse for an all women punk rock collective, they do gigs that spotlight local women's music. I usually avoid that crap like the plague. Maybe I just spent too many years in the dyke community, it was a fine place to visit but nobody wants to live in the ghetto, ya know? And yes, I understand that women don't have as much money to spend on entertainment as men, that women don't want to play by the rules of "the system" or "the man" etc... I got it. But I also see how "the industry" funnels us band after band that sounds the same, that has no female voices in the foreground and that sucks too, cause damn I love me some girly punk. Most of all, (and this is what was missing from the whole riot grrl phenomenon, in my memory) I love to see women having FUN with music and FUN with sexuality in music, for a change. Maybe I'll surprise you with a review of that local collective thing one day, who knows? ;)

Blender mp3 Amy Ray from Prom commentary on the industry
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More Rock More Talk mp3 The Butchies from Population 1975 Amy's queercore backup band for her first two solo projects, and an entity onto themselves, also known as Team Dresch
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I like Fucking mp3 Bikini Kill from The Singles great song, but honest to god, this doesn't sound like a woman who likes to fuck!
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Slide mp3 L7 from Bricks are Heavy: not a happy camper either :(
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O Bondage, Up Yours! X-Ray Spex from: The Rolling Stone Women In Rock Collection [Disc 2] mp3 * now there's a reason this is my all time favorite girly punk song! I'm just so unevolved xoxox
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*also available on Germ Free Adolescence (2005) expanded version