Panic at the Disco - Pretty. Odd.

(blogger's note: I know this review is a bit dated, but I'm trying to get my blog on track, and while I do so I'll be posting some older content that I had neglected to publish. Bear with me!)


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Panic At The Disco dropped their misplaced punctuation (!) in their name, and with it dropped all the emo-glam-synth-theatric pretense that came along with their first release, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out. Gone also are the obnoxiously long song titles, (“There’s a Good Reason These Tables Aren’t Numbered Honey, You Just Haven’t Thought of It Yet” anyone?), heavy guitars, synth beats and macabre circus histrionics.

Wait, is this even the same band? If you’re unfamiliar with Panic, you might think so. But vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Brendon Urie assures in the opening track to Pretty. Odd., “We’re So Starving,” “Oh, how it’s been so long/ we’re so sorry we’ve been gone/ we were busy writing songs for…/ you don’t have to worry/ we’re still the same band.” Sure, the members are still the same and some core melodic elements are the same, but Panic At The Disco now sounds more like Beatles At The Hipster Dive.

“Behind The Sea” makes you wonder if “Dear Prudence” has a sardonic atheist twin. Both are similar in sound but lyrically polar opposites. “Do You Know What I’m Seeing?” draws some parallels with “Here Comes The Sun” but while The Beatles are all about their mood being affected by the temperature, Urie says: “I know it’s sad that I never gave a damn about the weather/ and it never gave a damn about me.”

But you’re inclined to think that Panic does indeed give a damn about the weather since Pretty. Odd. carries a celestial motif throughout. If A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out was the band at its darkest and stormiest, then Pretty. Odd. is an overcast day with periodic breaks in the clouds. (Here comes the sun! Oh wait, there it goes. It’s alright.)

“When The Day Met The Night” is an extended metaphor about achieving balance (perhaps through a romance) using the moon and the sun as figurative lovers. “When the moon fell in love with the sun/ all was golden in the sky/ all was golden when the day met the night.” Pretty. Odd. must be the sun to A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out’s moon, then. There are so many parallels to draw... it makes you wonder if Panic At The Disco is amazingly clever or just trying too hard.

If there was a time when they were trying too hard it was in their earlier years. Heavily hyped by emo-pop darlings Fall Out Boy, Panic had an image and a reputation to uphold. Now that they have a fan base, their sophomore album gave the band much more room to grow and experiment. Sophomore slumps be damned because Pretty. Odd. is pretty innovative.

There are two directions that a band can take with its sophomore album. A band can choose to stick with the same formula if it worked with the first album (A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out really popped.) This is the safe and marketable route. Otherwise, a band can choose to tinker with or reinvent its sound to show personal and artistic growth. This can be risky for an artist or group that hasn’t been around for too long. With a three-year hiatus between releasing albums, Panic had plenty of time to tinker and grow. This long break also created a lot of hype and anticipation for the album among those that fell in love with Fever.

The best part of Pretty. Odd. is how complete the album is. Not every song sounds the same. Not every song has the same instrumentation or tempo. The album starts off with the welcome-back-to-our-world anthem “We’re So Starving” (which is strangely similar to The Killer’s “Enterlude” that introduced “Sam’s Town.” And, “Sam’s Town was The Killer’s metamorphosis from synthesizer-driven anthemic rock to something more mellow… hmm.)

“Nine In The Afternoon” is a playful romp, “When The Day Met The Night” is a melancholic lullaby, “Folkin’ Around” is a jam session down the Mississippi River. But the thing is, even though the songs differ greatly from each other, they still flow and compliment each other in a way you wouldn’t expect from such a young band. This cohesiveness gives the album an enduring quality. You’ll want to listen to it three times in a row, take a break for maybe a few days, and then find yourself scrambling to put it back in your CD player. It’s also versatile. You can party to it, you can chill to it, you can cry to it, you can dance to it.

Despite its superior quality over Fever and musical depth, Panic might run into some problems commercially with Pretty. Odd. One look at the crowds that Panic drew during their first tour would consist of a lot of teenage girls and shaggy-haired sexually-ambiguous males. Stereotypes suggest this crowd wouldn’t be interested in a toned-down folk-influenced foray into melodic indie jamming.

Conversely those into this sort of indie folkishness might be off-put by a new Panic offering with the assumption that it will be the same as their last album. This isn’t really fair though because if Panic was willing to dig deep and find a positive direction in their musical evolution, people should give Pretty. Odd. a chance. But, business is business and music is no exception; hopefully Panic doesn’t fall victim due to their experimentation.

Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple

With their latest album The Odd Couple, the duo known as Gnarls Barkley begins a trend of naming very good albums after defunct TV series (their first album being St. Elsewhere.) The Odd Couple is aptly named. Cee-Lo, the rotund soulful singer of the group, provides a stark visual contrast to the rail-thin DJ Danger Mouse. Visuals be damned though, because musically the duo is a genre-defying powerhouse.

Unless you were in a coma you probably got sucked into the craze that was “Crazy.” With its window-shaking bass lines and powerful chorus, “Crazy” had all the elements to be a pop success and establish a fan-base for Gnarls Barkley. Cee-Lo and Danger don’t play it safe by giving us more of the same with The Odd Couple. As good sophomore albums should be, it has a more fluid, cohesive sound with some surprise elements thrown in for good measure.

“Would Be Killer” alarmingly starts off with the sound of cocking guns and ends as abruptly as a life would at the hands of said killer. “Open Book” focuses more on Danger’s beats than Cee-Lo’s wail (there’s no limelight stealing here.) The first single to drop from the album, “Run,” kicks optimism in the teeth with a quasi-apocalyptic message: “When you see me come and run/ before you see what I’m running from/ no time for question asking/ time is passing by/ you can’t win child/ we’ve all tried to// you’ve been lied to.”

The Odd Couple has a slower tempo to it though, with "Run" being the exception, suggesting that the duo may have been feeling melancholic when writing the album. Melancholy morphs into apathy in "Whatever" in which Cee-Lo half-whines, half-sings what everyone feels when they just want to forget everything. "Said fuck me/ well fuck you too.../whatever/ I don't care." Although Cee-Lo's problems may be worth forgetting, this album is not.

A Russian Diary by Anna Politkovskaya

Anna Politkovskaya never chose the easy way out. Born in New York in 1958 to Ukranian parents serving as Soviet diplomats to the United Nations, Politkovskaya was entitled to an American passport. Instead she chose to delve into the inner workings of Russia and expose corruption like no other journalist before her had. Doing so was (and still is) a dangerous job. Politkovskaya survived a poisoning attempt in 2004 and was told by Alexander Litvinenko (who was subsequently poisoned himself after becoming a harsh critic of Vladimir Putin) to leave the country. She didn’t listen and continued on her crusade.

In the fall of 2006 Politkovskaya was shot in a contract killing and Russia’s most passionate, critical voice was silenced. She completed A Russian Diary shortly before her death and the timing of this emphasizes how important it is for the world (and Russia) to know about the darkness that has engulfed the country.

A Russian Diary is separated into three parts and spans from December 2003 to August 2005. The first part, titled “The Death of Russian Parliamentary Democracy,” focuses mainly on the reelection of Putin and how this sounded the death knell for a free Russia. Later on in the section Politkovskaya discusses one of the more egregious side effects of Putin’s corruption: uneven distribution of wealth. Until 2002 orphanages received extensive gifts from the rich but Putin brought an end to this and now most orphans are dressed in tattered shawls.

Politkovskaya writes: “Meanwhile, our nouveaux riches are skiing this Christmas in Courchevel. More than two thousand Russians, each earning over half a million rubles a month… Not a word is heard in the televised Christmas reports from Courchevel about hard work having led to the amassing of these fortunes.”

Part two, titled “Russia’s Great Political Depression” outlines the apathy that struck the nation after Putin’s reelection. “Everything seemed as boring and wretched as it did in the days of the Soviet Union…” writes Politkovskaya. “It appeared that people had simply given up, as if to say, ‘Who cares what happens now!’” At the beginning of the chapter one of Putin’s appointees in Nazran has just survived an assassination attempt. On the direct orders of Putin, police flood the city and capture many innocent people. By talking about this Politkovskaya is drawing a direct parallel between fear and inaction. It is Putin’s iron fist that has paralyzed the nation into a reserved state of defeatism.

The third section takes us to about a year before Politkovskaya’s murder. Russia is starting to come alive on the heels of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution. If the Ukrainians could change things, why couldn’t Russia? But Politkovskaya outlines extensively how this passion for change is quickly rendered into ineffective discontent, with a few protests here and there amounting to nothing. Terrorist attacks become more prevalent and Putin’s regime tightens its grip more than ever on the Russian people.

Politkovskaya gives an important voice to those who are unspoken for in Russia. Russian media is either directly controlled or heavily influenced by the government, and harsh words generally fall to censorship. A Russian Diary has not been published in Russia for this reason. Post-Cold War, the United States sees Russia as an ally, even though it threatens the ideals of Westernized democracy. The new president of Russia was handpicked by Putin so it’s safe to say the political landscape in the nation isn’t changing anytime soon. But the question with no answer still hangs as heavy as Russia’s apathy: how can things change?

While the importance of Politkovskaya’s book is unquestionable, the overall effect remains to be seen. Sure, revolutions don’t happen overnight, they take time and decades (oftentimes centuries) of maltreatment and grievances. Politkovskaya brings light to the plight of the Russian people and stirs the blood of anyone who reads her book. While some of her voice is lost through the translation, her anger and desire to change the country she loves are very apparent. Though frequently pessimistic and cynical, Politkovskaya argues that optimism “is certainly the easier way, but it is also a death sentence for our grandchildren.”

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Theater - "Running Into Me"

Show: Kitchen Counter Culture: Running Into Me

Theatre: Kitchen Theatre

Written and performed by Vickie Tanner

Directed by Margarett Perry

“Important conversations happen in the Kitchen” and these conversations are front and center in the Kitchen Theatre’s Counter Culture series. Running February 22-24, Running Into Me, a one-woman show written and performed by Vickie Tanner, examines the cultural and economic difficulties black youth face growing up today.

Running Into Me mixes the experiences of Tanner growing up in South Central Lost Angeles and subsequent attendance of college and move to New York City to work with kids. Running Into Me turns into a schizophrenic display by Tanner, having her switch from tongue-in-cheek ad rep to young Vickie to kids that she’s talked to. At first it’s hard to follow, wondering just what persona Tanner is channeling. But once the piece settles into some flow, one can concentrate and just what she’s trying to say.

The small size of the Kitchen Theatre enhances Running Into Me’s in-your-face approach, an effect that might be lost in a larger theatre. Instead, it feels like Tanner is speaking directly to you. At times this is a little uncomfortable since it’s difficult to really sit down and focus and think about race relations for awhile. There is no intermission in the show (a testament to Tanner’s memorization skills and stamina) so you are given no break in the onslaught of racial stereotypes and discussion on how to shatter them.

The title of the play comes from Tanner’s everyday interactions with kids in New York City. She finds that in the words and the thoughts and the emotions they are spilling to her, it’s almost as if they are channeling young Vickie. Tanner finds this troubling since it signifies that little to nothing has been done in decades to close the racial and economic divide in the United States. A poignant point made that isn’t a racial one is that there is a more invisible age divide as well. “The problem is… is that adults don’t listen.” Tanner listens. And she makes it very clear that this listening is important. Tanner says she finds that most kids are really smart, whether they act it or not. And if you dig deep enough, you’ll find intelligence and great ideas and aspirations.

Tanner challenges the audience to think throughout the entire show, but at one point she makes a challenge for direct action. Everyone’s been on public transportation or walked down the street of a major city at some point. Everyone’s seen that kid dressed up “ghetto,” wearing the baggy clothes and the labels. Tanner’s challenge is to simply say “hi, how are you?” to this person. This challenge draws a few sideways glances, mumbles, and even moans from the audience. “No, seriously,” she says. “Just ask them how their day is.”

According to her, this basic social interaction will break through their façade of toughness, if not just a little bit, and establish a basis of communication between classes and races. Everyone is human after all, and after sitting through Running Into Me, you’ll feel disconcerted about the state of people in the United States, but passionate to take action rather than just talk and listen.

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Sia - Some People Have Real Problems

Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling while trying to fall asleep is a good time for introspection. Whether they are positive or negative, about what happened that day or long-term issues, thoughts need to make the mind weary before it can rest. Ethereal and melodic, Sia’s Some People Have Real Problems provides a perfect soundtrack for this moment of inward thinking. It’s an album that can lull you to sleep, not put you to sleep.

Real Problems is Sia’s third LP but first on Monkey Puzzle Records, having switched due to her disappointment in the promotion of her previous album. The switch does her well, as one can find her latest album sold and played in Starbucks across the nation. To entice you to buy the physical CD rather than an electronic version, Monkey Puzzle includes online exclusives offered by registering the CD on your computer. The four tracks available to download are worth checking out; however, the streaming remix of “Day Too Soon” sounds like listening to the original song while trying to fall asleep on a beach, tripping on LSD.

Sia started out as a member of an acid-jazz band in Australia and moved to the U.K. to try and find success. There, through a number of collaborations (including providing vocals for Zero7), she increased her notoriety and legitimacy as an artist. Her main breakthrough came when her single “Breathe Me” was featured on the epic finale of the HBO series Six Feet Under in 2005. Real Problems is Sia’s first album as a widely-exposed artist and she delivers.

The opening track, “Little Black Sandals,” sets the pace for the album, featuring downtempo verses delineating Sia’s struggle with breaking free from a tumultuous relationship. She showcases her vocal range by changing notes on a single word and makes it clear that she can do more than just jazz-lounge volume and tempo. Even though Sia proclaims “these little black sandals are walking me away/these little black sandals are heading the right way,” physical distance doesn’t mean emotional ties are broken, and twelve more tracks on the album say so.

The theme of trying to get away from emotions carries over into the single off the album, “Day Too Soon” (I’ve been running all my life/ I ran away/ I ran away from good.) One of the more emotional tracks on the album at face value, “Day Too Soon” serves as a buildup of mixed regret for the past and hope for the future. Sia rasps her way through some of the verses (this rasping is more prevalent in “Lentil”) as if her coping mechanism (aside from music) is a pack of Camels.

Sia employs a host of backing vocalists on Real Problems including Beck, who is featured on the track “Academia.” Cleverly titled, constructed and rhymed, “Academia” suggests that love can at times by as simple as one plus one, but at times as complex as an advanced calculus problem. Sia laments: “oh academia you can’t pick me up” in a declaration that she finds love to be more like the aforementioned multi-layered equation.

The appropriately titled “Lullaby” closes out the album, as sweet and slow as molasses. As a closing track should, “Lullaby” encompasses everything that Sia is trying to put forth throughout the entire album. Dreams are made of the lines: “place your past into a book/put in everything you ever took/place your past into a book/burn the pages let them cook.” If only it were that easy. Sia seems to hope so. If the album hasn’t sent the listener entranced into a world free of troubles, patience (or fast forwarding) will yield the hidden track “Buttons.”

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TV - Lipstick Jungle pilot

It’s difficult to give anything away about Lipstick Jungle because if anyone has seen the previews, it’s pretty evident what the show is about. The pilot opens with a sweeping shot of the New York City skyline, followed by three sets of heels walking down the sidewalk, followed by a store-window television showing a news spot on the 50 most powerful women in New York. Wait, is this Sex and the City? Sort of. Writer Candance Bushnell wrote the novel that spawned the hit HBO series, so it’s natural that Lipstick Jungle shares some common themes… ok… a lot of common themes.

Lipstick Jungle has a primary cast of three. There is Victory (Lindsay Price), a fashion designer whose latest show was a flop among the critics. She is single and therefore is defined by her work and one of the first scenes of the show is her mini-meltdown with the other two trying to console her. This will probably be a scene repeated quite often in different manifestations.

There is also Niko (Kim Raver), a magazine executive who sniffs out sexism wherever she can find it. Trapped in a sexless marriage with her husband who hails from academia, Niko is drawn to the temptation of younger, attractive men who can touch her in a way she hasn’t known in awhile. This makes Niko probably the most complex character out of the three since she resents female stereotypes, but finds herself in the role of the promiscuous wife.

Rounding out the ménage-a-power-women is Brooke Shields (trying to recapture her television success she found in Suddenly Susan) as Wendy, a movie studio executive. Wendy is painted to be the delicate type with a hectic family life who tries to keep an image of power and stability in the office. Her husband appears to resent her success at times and takes it personally when she is busy and he has to take care of family matters. Also, he reacts negatively when Wendy gets mad because he can’t make it to an important meeting regarding their son’s school.

The pilot of Lipstick Jungle tries to cram as much drama and underlying plot and character development as possible into an hour. It felt like a more affluent version of Sex and the City on speed. Does a world really exist in which a billionaire sends his private jet to Japan to pick up a woman that he’s only had one date with? Apparently so, and Lipstick Jungle forces the believability of this in the first episode. There’s no easing in here. It’s full-throttle from the get-go about the trials and tribulations of people who have more money than the rest of us.
Again, no giveaways or surprises here, but the pilot ends with the women crying over and discussing what happened that week. Then there’s hugging and chugging of champagne and then a still-frame fade to black and white. Nauseating.

Hopefully Lipstick Jungle won’t continue to try to pack too much into its episodes but rather focus on what can be some interesting themes. The pilot lays the framework for a dramatic and at-times amusing look at the institutionalized patriarchy that exists among the rich and successful in New York City. There’s a lot of attempted reconciliation of being a powerful woman but balancing a personal in family life in the pilot, but it doesn’t quite get there. Another problem that Lipstick Jungle faces is crawling out of the shadow of Sex and the City and overcoming the challenge of being on a network rather than cable. You won’t find much sex or any explicit one-liners that oftentimes gave SATC its appeal. Still, it’s likely that women and gay men everywhere will fall in love with the women of Lipstick Jungle and make it a success for NBC.

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No Country For Old Men

Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) will haunt your dreams. He has all the traits of your typical villain: cold, calculating, emotionless, and a little bit strange. However, Bardem’s performance makes Chigurh atypical in the sense that whenever he appears on screen, your bones are chilled. With his strange air-powered weapon, Chigurh plows through the Coen brothers’ No Country For Old Men with no remorse and no prisoners.

The film starts you in West Texas at the beginning of the 1980s; a time where the way justice is served is changing, according to a narrative by Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones). Sheriffs never used to wear guns but now times are more dangerous and the business of drugs has found its hiding place in the desolate countryside. Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) stumbles unknowingly into this violent world one day and discovers what’s seemingly a drug deal gone wrong. Moss makes the big mistake of taking a large sum of money from the crime scene, and this one decision sends him spiraling into a world of fear, hiding, and ruthless violence.

Chigurh is in charge of finding said money, sending him on a kill-all-that-stand-in-his-way mission to find Moss. Meanwhile, sheriff Bell is using his laid-back variation of law enforcement to solve the drug-deal crime scene and find Chigurh, knowing that Moss is not safe, whether he is in possession of the money or not.

No Country is Ethan and Joel Coen’s twelfth movie together, and it delivers with a startling, nerve wracking punch. Translating a novel to the big screen is not an easy task and the Coens do Cormac McCarthy justice with their cinematic version. It is a violent film that is centered on killing; however, the viewer is warned immediately by Sheriff Bell’s introductory voice-over in the movie. This isn’t your old man’s Texas. This is a new, violent Texas where you have to be careful who you cross. Vigilantism is the name of the game, and you have to be prepared to play.

The main draw of the film is that the Coen brothers allow, almost even require, the viewer to construct their own meaning from the film. There aren’t any “a-ha” moments or themes shoved in your face to make you understand. Rather, No Country is a film rife with beautiful subtleties and nuances that are fairly uncommon in big Hollywood cinema today. No Country also defies Hollywood convention by being over two hours long, but its one of those films that is captivating enough not to bore the viewer with its length. And it is captivating not in the edge-of-your-seat, what’s-going-to-happen-next way, but in a way that leaves the viewer intrigued and thinking. A film that inspires constructive thought is a beautiful thing.

Speaking of beauty, the film was shot mostly on location in New Mexico with a few scenes in Texas. The cinematography is done marvelously, capturing the breathtaking desolate landscapes of the Southwest, adding to the themes of desperation and feeling lost.

One downfall some may find in the film is that the Coen brothers are not a fan of resolution. There is nothing tidy and neat about No Country. The narrative spills all over like the blood of Chigurh’s victims. But this is the Coen brothers’ intention. They’re going for the broader picture rather than a clearly linear narrative. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences doesn’t seem to mind, having handed No Country nominations for 8 Oscars.

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