February Festival! An Interactive Tournament

College athletes have March Madness. A time to watch their respective alma maters rise and fall like so many flans in an overcrowded cupboard. But there's nothing like that for music. Well, there's American Idol, but nothing like that for good music.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is about to change. I propose to you today a 64-band tournament to see who is the ruler of the roost. The way it works is this. We have a 6-round tournament over the next few Fridays. Between the two bands in each pairing, you get to pick which you like better. The bracket works like this:

Round 1 - The bands are divided up into songs with the same name. Not similar, the same. Here you get to pick which bands pull their titles off better.

Round 2 - The remaining bands will be examined and paired off based on different songs of the same or similar names.

Round 3 - Here we go into themes. Bands with the better song in their theme move on.

Round 4 - Here's where the brackets stop shuffling. Bands will be judged here on which band had the better first single. Please note that I am not talking better in any context other than personal preference. It's readers' choice for a reason.

Round 5 - Now we're down to 4 bands. The bands will be paired off, and two videos will be posted for each. You choose the better in each pair.

FINAL ROUND - I will post links of 5 songs spanning the catalog of each band. Pick which band is more consistently the better sounding. The winner will be chosen from here.

First bracket in the post to follow! Reply to each bracket post or the LJ feed (if you receive the feed) or just email me at freerangehuman@gmail.com with your choices each week! Most of all, have fun!

AtD Feature: Better Know A Genre - Hyphy

Welcome to our second installment of "Better Know A Genre." Following up on part I, which dealt with shoegaze, we're going to change gears quite a bit and explore an emerging Bay Area trend coined "hyphy."

MTVNews.com has a special report on the movement, wherein they refer to 'hyphy' as:

To paraphrase Humpty Hump from Bay Area legends Digital Underground, these kids are doing what they like, how they like; getting "dumb, stupid and retarded" — and the thing that's getting them so worked up is a jittery, sped-up, synth-powered strain of hip-hop they call "hyphy,"...

MTV goes on to explain some of the customs associated with the movement, including one called "gas-brake dippin'," in which you hop into your car and alternate hitting the gas and hitting the brake in a rapid succession. And to raise the stakes, sometimes all the doors will be opened, and the music blasted to it's most blaring.

But it doesn't nearly end there. The Wiki covers more of the slang and ritual associated with Hyphy:

• "Ghost ride the whip" - Driver walks alongside slow-rolling car with the door open, giving the appearance that the car is driving itself. Passengers ride with all the doors open and sometimes leap out of the moving cars, sometimes dancing on top of the hood.
• "Going or getting dumb/stupid/bananas/silly/ignorant/retarded/hyphy/Ridin' the yellow bus" - is the main concept, which means having a good time while ignoring society's negative opinion of "uncivilized" behavior.

The term started, it seems, as many slang terms do, as a negative. Hyphy could be used to describe picking fights, knocking someone out, or even shooting up a block, but it's meaning quickly evolved to include things like this:

To wit, if you see a hip-hop head doing an insane, nonsensical dance—eyes rolled back, arms akimbo, looking like an epileptic zombie—he’s hyphy. If you see someone so beautiful you stop and do a blatant double take, you’d call her hyphy

But hyphy had to be something more than just behavior or language:

"It's like back in the day with the breakdancing, it's evolved into a culture," says Rick Rock, who is credited as being the king of hyphy like Lil Jon is the king of crunk. "It's like the new generation, the crack-baby era: the dreadlocks shaking, riding with all four doors open. It's how the kids are feeling these days. There was a time when northern California [music] was more mild and slow and laid-back. I came and brought this super-fast hyphy sound. I put the music to the culture."

Hyphy is also notable for originating in and being specifically tied to the "Yay Area." However, hyphy might be ready for prime time across the country. Whether or not that gets hooked up, I'll leave to MSNBC to speculate. One thing is undeniable, though: hyphy is the Bay Area's own breed of lively insanity and it will hopefully put the locale back on the map as an epicenter of hip-hop trend setting. (Tupac and Master P among many others hail from here).

For much more on Hyphy, check these resources:

Alphabetical list of hyphy artists

The Hyphy Show

AllHipHop.com Feature: The Bay's Hip-Hop Revenge

Hood Check: Hyphy: California Crunk

And of course, The Federation featuring E-40 with "Hyphy":

Feature: Rock's Greatest Myths - Chanting Freebird

I am proud to announce another brand new site feature here on AtD. Along with the recently (and not so recently) unveiled features "Better Know A Genre (or Subgenre)," "Power of Music," and "Slanted Spotlight," comes our latest exclusive, "Rock's Greatest Myths," in which we will explore the histories, backgrounds, and stories surrounding the greatest myths in the celebrated rock pantheon. Tonight's introductory segment will kick off with the legacy behind "Freebird!"

So you're rockin' out at your favorite concert, the mood is high, the atmosphere is cool, the kind of Miles Davis cool that only a jiving rock show can generate, and then suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, "Freebird" is heard emanating obnoxiously from the nearest jackass in the audience. What's up with that? Well it just so happens that the Wall Street Journal (of all places) reported on just this recurring phenomenon back in 2005:

How did this strange ritual begin? "Freebird" is hardly obscure -- it's a radio staple consistently voted one of rock's greatest songs. One version -- and an important piece of the explanation -- anchors Skynyrd's 1976 live album "One More From the Road." On the record, singer Ronnie Van Zant, who was killed along with two other bandmates in a 1977 plane crash, asks the crowd, "What song is it you want to hear?" That unleashes a deafening call for "Freebird," and Skynyrd obliges with a 14-minute rendition.

But that's just one theory. Here's another:

Kevin Matthews is a Chicago radio personality who has exhorted his fans -- the KevHeads -- to yell "Freebird" for years, and claims to have originated the tradition in the late 1980s, when he says he hit upon it as a way to torment Florence Henderson of "Brady Bunch" fame, who was giving a concert. He figured somebody should yell something at her "to break up the monotony." The longtime Skynyrd fan settled on "Freebird," saying the epic song "just popped into my head."

Mr. Matthews says the call was heeded, inspiring him to go down the listings of coming area shows, looking for entertainers who deserved a "Freebird" and encouraging the KevHeads to make it happen.

But hey, wait, how about another theory on the origin of the cattle call:

But did "Freebird" truly start with the KevHeads? Longtime Chicago Tribune music writer Greg Kot says he remembers the cry from the early 1980s. He suggests it originated as an in-joke among indie-rock fans "having their sneer at mainstream classic rock."

Other music veterans think it dates back to 1970s audiences' shouts for it and other guitar sagas, such as "Whipping Post," by the Allman Brothers Band, and "Smoke on the Water," by Deep Purple.

Of course, the entire truth is unknowable, so you might as well pick your favorite version of the story and go with that. Personally I love this last little tidbit:

So what do the members of Skynyrd think of the tradition? Johnny Van Zant, Ronnie's brother and the band's singer since 1987, says "it's not an insult at all -- I think it's kind of cool. It's fun, and people are doing it in a fun way. That's what music's supposed to be about."

Besides, Mr. Van Zant has a confession: His wife persuaded him to see Cher in Jacksonville a couple of years ago, and he couldn't resist yelling "Freebird!" himself. "My wife is going, 'Stop! Stop!' " he recalls, laughing. "I embarrassed the hell out of her."

Tickets to a Cher concert? $50 at least. Merch, booze, more booze? $65. Participating in a salute to your own song? Priceless.

For expanded coverage of Freebird, hit Wikipedia.

Live video of the band performing the song (including a woman in the audience notably clamoring, "Freebird!")

The Wikipedia article contains many more references and allusions to the epic saga of the chant, including one of my favorite from recent memory:

In the Pixar film Cars, when Lightning McQueen is making his personal appearance for his sponsor "Rust-Eze Medicated Bumper Ointment", the lights go out in the Rust-Eze tent and a spotlight falls on McQueen who is on stage before a crowd of enthusiastic (and very rusty) cars. There are a few seconds of slightly awkward silence before a muffled voice can be heard somewhere at the back calling, "Free Bird!"

70's Southern styled rock plus stoner humor meets family film. Need I say more?

Share your "Freebird!!!" moment in the comments.

(Also have ideas for a feature we should do on the site? Be it Slanted Spotlight, Rock Myths, etc. hit us up!)

2006 Videos Thread #3

This was a very good year for videos. It was difficult, but we were able to pare the nominees down to 30. Each of us then chose what we thought were the Top 5.

Some of the videos were easy to remove - Blue October's "Hate Me," Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie," and Kasabian's "Shoot The Runner," for example - and a few were very difficult.

In the end Disturbed's "Land Of Confusion" won, which makes sense to me as I think it was the only video on which everyone who voted was able to agree.

I personally wouldn't have picked "Land Of Confusion" as the top video. Here were the Top 5 as I saw them:

01. Fort Minor - "Where'd You Go"
While many videos deal with the Iraq war and loneliness on a large scale, Fort Minor worked on a more personal scale. To take it above and beyond, they made almost a mini-documentary, using real stories of real people. The video has brought me to the edge of tears every time I have seen it, more than footage of war ever could. It was a very mature move and one I have not seen from most artists. The song fits well with the project and keeps its integrity.

02. OK Go - "Here It Goes Again"
If nothing else, this song wins for sheer originality. The band pulled off a completely unique stunt (and outside the realm of this video, have performed it live), used a unique media (YouTube) to promote it, and have seen themselves catapult from obscurity because of it. Prior to "Here It Goes Again" I had never heard of OK Go. The choreography is solid, the song works with the video, and it was done on a minimal budget.

03. Disturbed - "Land Of Confusion"
This video almost was not considered because it is very similar to the idea of Eminem's "Mosh". However, the video is simply amazing. It has a very strong and pointed story and has the ability to rile as much as the motion picture V For Vendetta. The idea of the people having power is also a great one to see.

04. Stone Sour - "Through The Glass"
It's just a well-crafted indictment of Hollywood and the effort it took for the actors to pose and for the propsmen to make cardboard cutouts of them is very impressive. I just thought that the video was incredibly well put together and I had never seen this concept used before. Props to Corey Taylor and the boys in Stone Sour.

05. The Killers - "Bones"
This video is done in true Killers fashion, mixed with some very interesting special effects. The video definitely portrays the song and is done in a classy manner. It's not the first time I've seen skeletons used (I think Korn used X-Rays in "Make Me Bad" and I know that Kaiser Chiefs used skeletons as a motif in their 2005 video "Everyday I Love You Less And Less"), but it was done incredibly well. The special effects are amazing, the song is good, and it has the makings of a great video.

The #5 position was hotly contested. I had considered Matisyahu's "King Without A Crown," Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," and People In Planes' "If You Talk Too Much" for this position, but ultimately had to give in to The Killers.

We were allowed some special awards and so I had to come up with some. And so our inaugural awards:

Snoopy Award
For the bravery of fighting the proverbial Red Baron (in this case Bush), I award Neil Young's "Living With War". While the concept is similar to APC's "Imagine," that he had the gall to put up the Iraq death count gains major awesome points in my book.

Carl Jung Trophy
For an awesome show of pop psychology, I award Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy". It was the best use of a Rorschach test I have ever seen.

Unique Message Award
Because we were flooded with videos relating to Iraq and the war, I chose to give this to a video with a different moral. People In Planes' "If You Talk Too Much (My Head Will Explode)" deplores modern methods of "communication" and speaks in favor of actually communicating, something we can all learn from.

And finally,
The SJC (Shark Jumping Championship)
Fergie takes it hands down with "Fergalicious". Go back to singing hooks, because otherwise you're in a long line of sinkers.

Those are my awards for the year. Congratulations to Disturbed! My next post will be a review of The Decemberists' "The Crane Wife". Stay Tuned!

AtD Announces: The Notable Music Videos of 2006: Official Results Thread I

And now that moment you've all been waiting for, the results of our 2006 music video awards ! Before we get to that, however, here's how the whole shebang went down. I asked my fellow editors, RyTunes and Doughnutman, to pick their five favorite videos among all those that were nominated. Oh yeah, I picked mine too. Then we used a weighted scale system that gave our top choices more points than our bottom choices. The scale worked like this: 3 points for the number 5 video, 5 points for the number 4 video, 10 points for number 3, 25 points for numero dos, and a wallopin' 50 for first. Well, the math is done and AtD is proud to declare a winner in our first ever Editor's Choice Music Video Award:

Disturbed - Land of Confusion (click on the link for the YouTube video stream)

Disturbed's roaring cover of the 80's Genesis hit powered into first place with 65 points (1 1st place, 1 3rd place, and 1 4th place finish). This animated spectacle, which is directed by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane, serves as an appropriate and more brutal follow-up to its Reagan-era predecessor, serving as a commentary on current politics that is more shocking than satirical.

The runners up for our Editor's Choice Award:

Fort Minor - Where'd You Go (featuring Holly Brook)
30 Seconds to Mars - The Kill (Bury Me)

Each totaled 50 points with two individual first place finishes. The Kill also won an award at the MTV VMA's this past year, taking home the MTV2 Award at that ceremony. Finally an honorable mention to our 3rd place finisher:

OK GO - Here It Goes Again

The video that needs no introduction. It changed the rules for how music videos are marketed and shared. Another fine example of the Web 2.0 in action. What else can we say about the landmark success of this video? Over 9 million views on YouTube, Grammy nominated for Best Short Form Music Video, featured on the Colbert Report, performed live without error at the 2006 VMA's, and parodied in a Cingular Wireless commercial. (Source: Wikipedia)

But that's not all! There's a lot more comin' your way before we wrap up the year that was in music videos. Next, RyTunes and Doughnutman (not necessarily in that order) will share with you their thoughts and comments on the videos mentioned here, plus a few more that weren't. After that, I'll close it off with a few personal whimsies on what struck me and why, while also welcoming the next cadre of music videos that will blow our minds and destroy worlds in 2007. It should be a wild ride, don't go anywhere!

AtD Announces: The Notable Music Videos of 2006: Official Nominating Thread

As 2006 draws to a close and we reflect and resolve in anticipation of a new year, new hopes, and dreams yet to be fulfilled, I thought we'd take a moment on the old 'log to visually look back at the year that was, with the best music videos of 2006! Now this is by no means a new idea, but thanks to the advent of YouTube and Digital Democracy, we can go about this in an entirely new and interactive way. Before we get to the good stuff I thought it would be useful to talk about what actually makes a music video one of the 'best'. There is no real SOP here, so let's improvise:

Criteria for evaluating the quality of music videos:

1) Originality. Art eternally strives to reinvent itself in a world with finite tools in which to create it. The struggle to be fresh and different among legions of influences and imitations is ultimately a large part of what defines it's place in the grand scheme of things. No one really enjoys seeing arbitrary shots of a band performing against interspersed sprinklings of bad dancing or pretentious non sequiturs, do they?

2) Audio/Visual Congruity. If you're going to bother putting the time and energy into developing a visual medium to convey your musical message, wouldn't you say it ought to be appropriate? Although the utterly irrational and absurdest vid can be fun and humorous, it's generally aimless and unwelcoming. Go for the themes, the style, the flair; let the pictures carry the notes on wings of glory and not on broken backs up a mountain of defeat.

3) Coherence. Sometimes it's good to blow people's minds. Most of the time. however, it's good just to be understood. While the occasional foray into the experimental realm of existentialism and atmosphere sometimes make a powerful statement, it should meet the fundamental expectation of narrative; that is, it should weave a story or a unified idea in some way. Even Tool's infamously bizarre visual constructions contain a sense of character movement and purposeful events. The simple goal here is to not try too hard to be the Pablo Picasso of the music video world.

4) Integrity. Not all bands, in fact a good number of them, probably cannot afford to make a professionally scripted, shot, and edited video. That's okay. What's not okay is throwing together some loose ends into an imploding bomb of sloppiness and carelessness. Much effort with little to fund it does not necessarily spell logistical nightmare. One only need look at OK GO's instantly cult classic "Here it Goes Again" for proof of the fact that rudimentary can go a long, long way.

I don't portend to be an expert of the directorial and production world who is readily qualified to speak to the inherent objective characteristics of a given video. So if you want to disagree, agree, add your own thoughts and comments, or slap me across the face, you can do all but the last (I'm behind a computer screen and therefore inevitably distantly removed from you). So while you're debating the merits of that, what were the standout, provocative, sexy, innovative, and intense videos of 2006? Alternatively, and perhaps more amusingly so, what were the most atrocious, banal, preposterous, and unwatchable videos of the year? Let's do it all. We'll use the comments as the official nominating thread. The contributors of the site (as well as any of our faithful or new readers) are welcome to throw their ingredients into the pot and then we can soufflé the sucker and see what turns out at the end. Ultimately we'll chose the ten best, because our opinions rock, and we'll also chose the worst. We might even choose to give some videos their own made-up honors such as 'Best use of the color brown.' You never know.

In the end we'll have some kind of list-thingy with YouTube links, and commentaries, and maybe even some other fun goodies. Think of it as the VMA's (without MTV) meets the Mystery Science Theater 3000 of musical motion pictures. Or something like that.

As this will be the last post of 2006 to this site (as far as I know...), May you all have a Happy, Safe, Blessed, and Inebriated New Year. We'll catch you bright and early in 2007 on the flipside of this post. For now on to the comments, nominations, and flame-wars!

Better Know A Music Genre (or Subgenre) Part I

Blatantly stolen from Stephen Colbert's "Better Know A District" segment from his widely popular Comedy Central late-night satire "The Colbert Report," I proudly introduce a new recurring feature here on AtD. "Better Know A Music Genre" seeks to introduce and educate both casual and dedicated music aficionados about the many, many categories into which the powers that be (namely critics, journalists, historians, etc.) classify every realization of modern music.

Music categorization is a subject that particularly strikes me so I intend to bring it up frequently on this blog. Something that should be noted, however, is the context in which the subject is brought up, because I both embrace and eschew the labeling and sub-labeling and sub-sub-labeling of music. I tend to think that for academic and critical purposes (as well as metrics and measurement), anal-retentively detailed classification is essential because it allows for conventions and language in writing about and analyzing all the many varied forms of music. Sometimes, however, you just want to listen to a song, or album, or artist because it strikes you in a particular way or because it brings about an emotional response. In these instances, it's not necessarily valuable to the listener whether a given song, album, or artist is indie, alternative, or punk. It's just a darn good tune.

With this in consideration, I will follow-up on this post some other time. For right now let's get right to part I of our series: "Better Know a Music Genre, Part I: Shoegaze."

First off, let's start off with a definition. Wikipedia offer the following:

Shoegazing is characterized by a self-deprecating, introspective, non-confrontational feel. Common musical elements are distortion and fuzzbox, droning riffs and a Phil Spector-esque wall of sound from noisy guitars. Typically two distorted rhythm guitars are played together and give an amorphous quality to the sound. Although lead guitar riffs were often present, they were not the central focus of most shoegazing songs.

Vocals are typically subdued in volume and tone, but underneath the layers of guitars is often a strong sense of melody. While the genres which influenced shoegazing often used drum machines, shoegazing more often features live drumming...

Since this explanation feels like it could leave behind some confusion, AllMusic says:

Shoegaze is a genre of late '80s and early '90s British indie rock, named after the bands' motionless performing style, where they stood on stage and stared at the floor while they played. But shoegaze wasn't about visuals -- it was about pure sound. The sound of the music was overwhelmingly loud, with long, droning riffs, waves of distortion, and cascades of feedback. Vocals and melodies disappeared into the walls of guitars, creating a wash of sound where no instrument was distinguishable from the other.

(For further detail, please consult the referenced websites.)

So basically you have an indistinguishable mess of distorted and fuzzy sounds that drowned out everything around as the vocals and typically the lyrics were absorbed. How about notable artists? You've got bands like My Bloody Valentine, The Boo Radleys, Lush, Ride, Slowdive, Loop, and a whole slew more.

Naturally, though, the best way to learn about something is to experience it directly for yourselves. So here are some examples of Shoegazing, with many thanks to YouTube for providing the content:

My Bloody Valentine - Soon

Chapterhouse - Mesmerize

Slowdive - Alison

Ride - Leave Them All Behind

Lush - For Love

That is, of course, just a small sampling of the Shoegazer movement. The Wikipedia and AllMusic resources have more to offer should your curiosity be peaked. In addition, this is an excellent article from 3:AM Magazine which thoroughly outlines the influences, history, and chronology of Shoegazing from its humble beginnings to its abrupt end. Although the style is more or less inactive, the retroactive nature of the industry and of the art certainly does not rule out its return in some fashion, and it's notable impact is certainly cemented in rock history. Bands such as Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, and the Smashing Pumpkins, it can be argued, were influenced by Shoegazing, while very early Blur and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are credited as part of the genre. Even very recent material by bands such as Silversun Pickups, and Umbrellas falls under the purview of Shoegaze. As an example, their July 2006 release, "Illuminare," Status Magazine described as:

The sophomore album from Oklahoma City rockers UMBRELLAS. Ten songs of realistic love, infatuation, satisfaction, disappointment, life-balance and letting go performed with a backdrop of blustery fall-out tunes with strange swirls of sound, echoes, pulses, huge bass hammerings, and chiming bells. “Shoegaze played like pop. Trip hop played like straight-up rock...complex and downright beautiful.”--Status

In these ways and in the hearts of nostalgic 90's indie/britpop fans, Shoegazing wonders on.