Wear your wack slacks. No cob nobblers allowed.

So I’ve been thinking for a while now — ever since the Sony drop, really — about adding a new ‘feature type’ to our roster of features (’About the Album,’ ‘Who Is…,’ ‘Six Degrees,’ etc) that would be called ‘In Defense Of…’ Pretty much all of us in editorial genuinely like at least one straight-up Top 40 pop record, and some of us like more than one (I rep very hard for the last two Fall Out Boy records, the last Panic at the Disco record, anything My Chemical Romance, and assorted other pop artists).

I haven’t done this yet for a few reasons. First, I was afraid people would think we were being ‘ironic,’ and nothing makes my teeth ache more than smug irony about pop music. Secondly, and I’m speaking completely candidly here, I was worried people would think we were shilling. Which is closely connected to the first thought, actually — the idea that there is no way someone could seriously like, say, the Cassie record, and so there must have been some kind of weird deal that resulted in a feature on it.

But I can’t get away from the fact that I often find it very interesting to read writing on music that I may not especially like — or to read someone pointing out the merits of something I may have just dismissed out of hand. I (unfortunately) haven’t read it yet, but the premise of Carl Wilson’s lauded book on Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love is that millions of people love this record, so there’s got to be something about it that’s attractive to them. Sean recently listened to the Susan Boyle record for the same reason: when something is culturally massive, and you’re at least passively interested in culture, it’s hard to just dismiss it out of hand.

But it’s a balancing act, and our heartbeat has always been, above all else, exposing the unexposed and underexposed, and that is exactly how we’re planning to stay (to wit: I’m writing this while listening to the new Caribou, and the new Rotting Christ album soundtracked my morning commute). But still, I can’t help but toy with the idea of courting interesting writing on popular records from time to time, because I still find it fascinating from an intellectual/cultural standpoint.

I dunno — feedback? Thoughts? Would just love to talk about this for a while.

The reason I’m thinking of this: Todd Burns recently submitted a review of Jewel’s 0304 at my behest that got me thinking about the topic all over again. And since I’m never gonna feature this as Review of the Day, I thought I’d share it here, and maybe open the topic up to larger discussion: are you guys interested in reading writing, in any context, on records you may not necessarily like or be interested in?

Also, consider this a warning: sometime in the very near future you’re gonna be subjected to a very long blog post by me about why Panic at the Disco’s Pretty Odd is the best Kinks record of the last 10 years.

Jewel
0304
(Atlantic)

I can’t help but have a soft spot in my heart for Jewel. She helped get me a job. After an interview at eMusic, editor J. Edward Keyes mentioned that he needed to go review a show of hers in Long Island. I mentioned that I loved her work, and after the show I spent the long ride home back to Brooklyn trying to convince him of her relative worth. He wasn’t convinced, but I think he realized he could — at the very least — tolerate having me around eight hours a day in an office. As long as I kept my mouth shut about Jewel. I can’t blame him. Most people don’t want to hear about what makes Jewel great — especially people who take music “seriously.” She fancies herself a poet. Her music is resolutely lightweight so as to allow more room for said poetry. And her dyed-in-the-wool fans? Let’s just say that they don’t often go by “J. Edward” or “Todd L.,” and leave it at that.

0304, Jewel’s fifth full-length, is the easiest album in her discography to hate. At the time of its release, I obliged. Billed as the Alaskan-born singer-songwriter’s dance-pop record, it was a marked sonic shift from her previously acoustic-heavy outings. Working in collaboration with ill-fated-urban-update-producer-to-the-stars Lester Mendez, Jewel offered up the laughable idea that, in the run-up to the Iraq War, people were looking for music that was going to make them feel happy. That 0304 had a direct lineage from big band records from the World War II era. That people that listen to Jewel would “want to crowd into a room and press up against someone and feel young and sexy,” as she put it in an interview with Elton John’s legendary songwriting partner Bernie Taupin at the time.

As time has proven, like Elton John, Jewel is a songwriter. (Not a folk artist as so many had thought due to the enormous success of her debut album.) And when viewed through that prism, 0304 works about as well as any other album in her catalogue. There are some gems: “Intuition” deservedly soundtracked a commercial and sounded just as phenomenal that fateful night in Long Island sans dance beats, “Doin’ Fine” finds room to inject poetry into sugary pop and “Haunted” is a monstrous anthem that finds Jewel unleashing a banshee wail. There are some stinkers: “Sweet Temptation”’s toytronic production gets in the way of its clumsy phrasing, “America” is a song that can only be loved by fans of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and “U&Me=Love” is marred by Jewel’s hit-and-miss habit of inserting pop culture references into the mix. (Old Spice? Really?) Quite simply, some of this hasn’t aged well.

On the other hand, she did get me a job. So I guess I shouldn’t complain that much. Thanks, Jewel.

Sincerely, Todd L. Burns.

Last night at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists celebrated the release of their Matador debut, The Brutalist Bricks, with a record release party that can only be described as epic, complete with vegan pizzas, bee-shaped pinatas, and blood.

The night was two-fold: First the band played through the new record in its entirety, and after a break headed back to the stage for live-band karaoke (24 songs!) sung by fans and members of the Matador/Beggars family. Among the artists covered were Misfits, AC/DC, Tears For Fears, Black Flag, B-52s, Kelly Clarkson and Fugazi. And a Ted Leo & the Pharmacists show wouldn’t be complete without tracks like “Timorous Me,” “Me and Mia,” “Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone?” and “Counting Down the Hours,” so fans covered those too. And even though some of his own songs were butchered, Leo just kept smiling and gave an encouraging “Yes!” at the end. What a guy.

Highlights:

- The new album, obviously. My favorite songs on it are “The Mighty Sparrow,” “Bottled In Cork” and “Even Heroes Have To Die.”

- Show opener Michael with the Misfits’ “Angelfuck.” Started the night out right and didn’t even need his lyrics sheet.

- Gabe (who I’m told is from Beggars) singing Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone.” Turns out this is a damn good punk song and he killed it.

- Fugazi’s “Merchandise,” with birthday boy Brendan Canty on drums (think he did OK?). Update: This was sung by Fluxblog’s Matthew Perpetua.

- Matador’s Gerard Colsoy taking on The Jam’s “In The City”

- The total shit show that was “The Ballad of the Sin Eater” from Leo’s 2003 record Hearts of Oak. Ted let some kid named Rob play his guitar, two guys were singing (Update: The guy in the black hoodie is Nick Minichino), and Ted danced in a corner while hitting maracas and a tambourine against his head (possibly wondering ‘How did this happen?!’). That long-haired dude on the left also pulled a Ted Leo and hit himself in the forehead with the microphone. Blood!

- Phil, who recorded The Brutalist Bricks, singing “Me and Mia”

- Max Silvestri, the night’s host, and Liz, who handled the karaoke sign-up, singing B-52s’s “Private Idaho.” Amazing.

- I don’t remember her name, and I think she sang Tears For Fears’s “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” but I might have the order mixed up in my notes, in which case I apologize she sang Outfield’s “Your Love.”

Via Lisa Kereszi

Because there are way too many new records this week! As I write, Sean is over in a corner rolling in a pile of them, laughing maniacally and hurling copies of Titus Andronicus’ The Monitor high into the air. Note: This is mostly a UK-only NA post, so apologies when/where not available elsewhere.

Shane McGowan and Friends – I Put A Spell On You – Shane’s friends are not your friends — Johnny Depp, Nick Cave, Chrissie Hynde, Mick Jones, and others join in a cover of “I Put A Spell On You” to benefit victims of the Haiti earthquake.

Goldheart Assembly, Wolves and Thieves – Warm, winsome, pastoral country-rock from a fresh-faced bunch of newcomers.

Seabear, We Built A Fire – Cuddly, quizzical, gently skewed indie-folk from Reykjavik. James Mcnair writes:

Reykjavik’s Seabear are a beguiling septet whose leader Sindri Mar Sigfusson has the kind of pleasantly soporific voice that paid considerable dividends for Jose Gonsalez. He and his bandmates make orchestrated, agreeably quirky music that melds elements of Iceland’s pagan-folk past with a more contemporary indie sound that makes room for the occasional sample. The results should resonate nicely with fans of Sufjan Stevens and/or Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci.

Various Artists, Gilles Peterson Presents Brownswood Bubblers Five – The latest in Gilles Peterson’s reliably satisfying compilations offers more funky, lush soulful electronic music from all corners of the universe — hey there, Dam-Funk!

Crookers, Tons of Friends – Crookers, another dude with a lot of friends cooler than yours, gathers them all together for a star-studded techno party — Kelis, Drop the Lime, The Very Best, Spank Rock, Roisin Murphy, and Kid CuDi are just a few of the more prominent names I see leaping out at me from the guest roster.

The Bear That Wasn’t, And So It Is Morning Dew – Lovely, lilting folk, recorded with lots of inviting, warm-barn acoustic space overhead. If you dug last year’s Ah Holly Fam’ly, then heads up on this one.

Milt Matthews Inc., For The People – HOLY FUCKING SHIT, PEOPLE.

Are you paying attention?!!?! Download this. Gutbucket soul meets wailing, skuzzy psychedelic rock. A genuine, genius lost psych-soul classic, full of slabs of gorgeous fuzz-guitar and clarion horn charts, all overlaid with Milt Matthews’ grit-and-grain Philly soul-preacher vocals. The the kind of missing-link record that subtly reconfigures your conception of the pop-music map when you hear it. Came out in 1971, disappeared, now here it is. Get this right now.

Various Artists, Cold Waves and Minimal Electronics – The dead-eyed, black-clothed, coked-out Philip Glass disco party continues with the latest compilation to gather together the icy-toned minimal dance tracks of the late 1970s and 1980s. Them waves are indeed, pretty cold.

Pantha Du Prince, Stick To My Side – Worth the price of admission for the gorgeous Four Tet remix alone.

Arnault Cuisinier, Fervent – Moody, hauntingly chromatic jazz piano, inflected subtly with avant-garde overtones, like the chirping cycle of high woodwinds on “Ardent” that feel like a Steve Reich-ian loop. Intelligent and lovely.

AND THEN THE ODDITIES:

I.e. stuff I don’t know anything at all about, stuff I just pulled on a whime from the soup of Freshly Ripped and sampled, blind of all context.

Mischief, Boiling Breakfast Early: A Demo Collection – The fact that this band has a “demo collection” probably means that I should have heard of, but I haven’t, so from my highly subjective, ignorant viewpoint, they are oddities. I’m not sure what to call this: Siltbreeze-style lo-fi meets ramshackle alt-country. Cow-fi? Done.

Doc Scott, Reinforced Presents Doc Scott – The Early Plates – Seminal early drum ‘n’ bass releases on Reinforced Records. Not my thing, but plenty of other people’s thing, and there is an abundance of batshit, pummeling drum programming and barked commands to be found here, as expected.

Matt A, The Lost EP – Hammering, disjointed dubstep stuff, with punishingly loud drums and bursts of synth and a sense of ever-encroaching chaos threatening to completely overwhelm the pulse. If you are turned on by the similarly entropic sounds of James Blake, take a listen.

And that’s all for now. Happy listening!

A HUGE day for new arrivals, so let’s get right to it. BTW: if you’re not following 17Dots on Twitter, we’d invite you to jump on. Every Tuesday morning is #realtimenewarrivals, with call-outs of the day’s hottest titles as we come across them. It’s also the spot to check in with eMusic’s editors and to get live updates from concerts — including this Friday’s surprise National show at Brooklyn’s Bell House, where they’ll be debuting songs from their upcoming record, High Violet. Join us today, right here.

And now, on to New Arrivals:

Jimi Hendrix, Valleys of Neptune: First album of new(ish) Hendrix Material in 40 or so years. We’ve got an interview (conducted by the legendary Ben Fong-Torres) with compiler and co-producer Eddie Kramer here. Of the record, Ben writes:

For the average rock fan and appreciator of Hendrix’s genius, this collection is cause for celebration. This is new stuff, good as the old stuff — and the old stuff was some of the best rock music ever committed to tape, to vinyl, to whatever. This is what Valleys of Neptune is up against. No sweat. If you go into it understanding that most of these recordings, started after Electric Ladyland, were touched up after Hendrix’s death, and that they can’t be considered wholly Jimi’s handicraft, Valleys will take you right back to those days and nights when you discovered that rock wasn’t what you thought it was. When Jimi Hendrix rewrote the book.

Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, The Brutalist Bricks: Bright, vibrant, brash and buoyant new record from Ted Leo finds him firing on all cylinders as usual. eMusic’s Dan Weiss sez:

The back-to-back opening wallop of “The Mighty Sparrow” (which may or may not be a reference to the legendary calypso artist of the same name) and “Even Heroes Have to Die” may be Leo’s take on power-pop, his one-man call-and-response verses and melisma runs recalling Elvis Costello and Buddy Holly. They’re barnstormers, every splash of Chris Wilson’s cymbals on crisp display loud and clear which, along with Leo’s hopped-up shouting, could make you forget entirely there’s an acoustic guitar in there somewhere. Bricks finds new crevices in the cement and mortar of Leo’s long-developed sound. Like so much great punk it explodes, as often and as noisily as possible.

Pavement, Quarantine the Past: Hits & otherwise compilation from proto-slackers arrives just in time for the reunion tour. Coincidence! eMusic’s Michaelangelo Matos says:

“Box Elder,” from the first Pavement 7-inch, 1989’s Demolition Plot J-7, immediately demonstrated [Malkmus] had the knack, and “Summer Babe” and “Trigger Cut” offered ample supporting evidence. When the alt-rock bubble inflated, he responded with the impossibly summery “Cut Your Hair” and “Gold Soundz” and “Range Life”; there were shouted vocals and sloppy drumming, but the tunes and especially the guitars were so bright and insistent. Malkmus’s lyrical diffidence (”Because you’re empty/ And I’m empty”) is a sour cherry on top — sweet in spite of itself.

Frighetened Rabbit, The Winter of Mixed Drinks: Everyone’s favorite Scotsmen return with a record that’s more atmospheric and measured than its hard-charging predecessor. We’ve got an interview with Scott on the way, but in the meantime, here’s what eMusic’s Adrienne Day has to say about their latest:

The Winter of Mixed Drinks explores what happens after the pieces have been picked up, reexamined and placed back together in untested formations. Produced and mixed by Peter Katis (Interpol, the National), Drinks adds new levels of complexity to the genial Rabbit guitar-drums-keyboard-angst tableaux with ambient electronic washes, a solemn backing chorus and a subtle, quirky string section by labelmate Hauschka.

The Method Actors, This is Still It: Reissue of awesome angular jangle-band from Athens in the late 70s — a clear precursor to people like R.E.M. and Pylon. Those of you who like your indie with snarl, look no further.

Titus Andronicus, The Monitor: We’ve been freaking out for this record for a while now, and it just gets better the more we listen to it. Somewhere between “Born to Run” and “Bastards of Young,” with more than a little rock opera thrown in. eMusic’s Sean Fennessey says:

Musically, the band is fuller than before: shambolic saloon piano, desert-quiet harmonica solos, dueling ripchord guitar, knee-knocking fiddles. They have grand ambitions here, working out a long, twisted song cycle. There’s also drama in every word Stickles utters. He is verbose but precise; literate but low-hanging. There are literally dozens of quotable lines, little bon mots twisted from other sources (The Dark Knight, Billy Bragg, local haunt The Glen Rock Inn), or wholly original lamentations (”You will always be a loser!”, “I’m sorry mama, but I’ve been drinkin’ again,” “It’s still us against them,” “Give me anything but another year in exile!”). Stickles is also an increasingly intuitive vocalist, able to avoid the Conor Oberst-lite tag that dogged him after the release of the band’s 2009 debut, The Airing of Grievances. His wail is louder and leaner than before, his whisper tremulous and haunting.

Ortloan, Time on a String: Sleeper Hit of the Week — new from Dan Smith (aka Danielson)’s Sounds Familyre label is charming, well-constructed, female-fronted pop, just slightly dainty but 100% tuneful and winning. Try “Sticky Situation” and see if you don’t agree.

Josh Rouse, El Turista: Latest from Rouse fuses his winning country/folk with elements of traditional Spanish music to warm and wonderful results.

The Besnard Lakes, Are the Roaring Night: New one from eMusic faves Besnard Lakes. eMusic’s Barry Walters says:

Montreal quartet Besnard Lakes manage a mean feat: merging the elephantine drones of UK shoegaze bands with the free-flying vocals of bygone Southern California. Overdubbing with the kind of extravagance owning your own studio affords, the husband-wife duo of multi-instrumentalists Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas build dense and dynamic sonic mountains, assisted by fellow band members — guitarist Richard White, drummer Kevin Laing — and a small army of string and horn players. The album’s slow-build, two-part opener, “Like the Ocean, Like the Innocent” indirectly describes itself: It creates tension by leading with shrill falsetto and then resolving it with reassuring harmonies and steadfast riffs — a slow and steady surge and recede.

We Were Promised Jetpacks, The Last Place You’ll Look: New EP from everybody’s other favorite Scottish band. I’m going to float the completely untrue theory that they dropped this the same day as the Frightened Rabbit record because the two bands are beefing.

White Hinterland, Kairos: Surprise reinvention of the year! White Hinterland ditch jazzy piano for soft, moody glo-fi, and the results are hypnotic and startling. Andrew Parks talked with Hinterland’s Casey Dienel about the transformation here

Zola Jesus, Stridulum: Take two parts PJ Harvey, one part Siouxsie Sioux and one part freaked-out dead-eyed medium and you’ve got the awesome spookiness that is Zola Jesus. Lush, eerie, hypnotic, fantastic.

David S. Ware, Saturnian: Avant-garde jazz legend returns! This is the saxophonist’s first new record since undergoing a kidney transplant, but it doesn’t sound like the surgery has slowed him down any. As exuberant and challenging as ever — can’t wait to dig in more.

jj, jj No. 3: Balearic wonders return! eMusic’s Ilya Zinger says:

Opening with signature nonchalance, jj cover the Game’s “My Life,” re-imagining the song with solo piano and Kastlander’s breathy vocals, accentuating the lament laced deep in the original. Lead single “Let Go” mixes gentle, plucked guitar and waves of harmonica. Cynical criticisms of Enya-biting aren’t entirely invalid, but No. 3 rises above washed-out new age, and their inventiveness is showcased in the album’s clear standouts: “Light” and “Golden Virginia” show off jj’s characteristic creative aplomb, and both songs balance a narrative of longing and regret with the slightest note of nostalgia.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Beat the Devil’s Tattoo: New one from BRMC. eMusic’s Andrew Parks says:

As would be expected from anyone’s fifth album (sixth, if you count the soundscape experiments that are spread across The Effects of 333), BRMC treats Beat the Devil’s Tattoo as a resume record — a “this is what we’ve done, and this is what we’d like to do” sort of thing. And by that, we mean it has tracks that reference everything from the acoustic asides of Howl (the piano-led “Long Way Down,” the harmonica-chased haze of “Sweet Feeling”) to the slightly psychedelic bent of Baby 81 (the masochistic mud bath of “War Machine,” the tension-breaking temper tantrums of “Aya”).

Lawrence Arabia, Chant Darling: I’m getting some low and lonesome Bon Iver vibes off this lovely little indie folk record.

Anais Mitchell, Hadestown: Laura is a big fan of this record, so I’ll let her chime in in the comments — this sounds really intriguing to me, a busted-country/folk concept record with guest spots by Bon Iver and Ani DiFranco. Laura, wanna say more?

Jason Collett, Rat-A-Tat-Tat: Latest solo record from Broken Social Scene member Collett. I haven’t listened to this yet — anyone wanna offer any insight?

Eluveitie, Everything Remains As it Never Was: New one from Pagan folk-metallers already racking up excellent reviews in the quarters that follow this kind of thing. I’ve been looking forward to this one for about a month now, and am looking forward to spending some time exploring its corners.

Miles Kurosky, The Desert of Shallow Effects: Solo album from Beulah main man Kurosky is as sunny and tuneful as ever; Kurosky’s a wise one, and knows how to undercut the sweetest hook with the right amount of understated sarcasm. Fans will not be disappointed.

The Pharmacy, Weekend: Nice surprise from the Park the Van label, perfectly busted indie pop sure to win over anyone who values melody over proficiency. I like.

Saadi, “Bad City”: New 12″ from buzzy NYC dance artist closes with a Dylan cover/re-interpretation, “Daddy, You’ve Been on My Mind.” Generally not a fan of gender-pronoun-changing in covers, but the rest of this is intriguing enough that I’ll let it slide.

Acrassicauda, Only the Dead See the End of the War: No-holds-barred Iraqi thrash band goes for the jugular; the band made big waves and infuriated the Iraqi government — this invigorating EP is an indication as to why.

Fursaxa, Mycorrhizae Realm: Spooky, dark, bewitching freak folk — worth checking out for those who enjoy the darker side of life.

Tomorrow sees the release of The Monitor, the eagerly-anticipated concept record from Titus Andronicus. Using the overarching metaphor of the Civil War to discuss feelings of emotional isolation, conflict of identity and personal heartbreak, Patrick Stickles has created a fascinating, flummoxing record that invites deconstruction by refusing easy answers. We had Matthew Fritch talk to Stickles for an About the Album feature for eMusic, and we thought we’d give you an early look at it here.

After the jump, Stickles talks Lincoln’s depression, the Glen Rock Inn, and the importance of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

There are two wars being fought in the belly of The Monitor, the labyrinthine concept album by the brass-balled and well-read New Jersey punks in Titus Andronicus. One of the wars is Civil—as in 1861-1865—and the other is, well, more difficult to define. It takes place in the psyche of frontman Patrick Stickles, the narrator and protagonist of a plot so twisted with historical references (the album takes its title from the name of an ironclad Union battleship) and knotted with unbridled emotion (“I’m at the end of my rope, and I feel like swinging,” Stickles gasps on “A Pot In Which To Piss”) that it’s nearly impossible to untangle.

Yet even a cursory listen to The Monitor yields clues everywhere: in the back-to-back paraphrasing of famous lyrics by Bruce Springsteen and Billy Bragg on opener “A More Perfect Union”; and in the Ken Burns-style readings of passages by Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman and abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. It would all fall flat if not for Titus Andronicus’ spirited sound, triangulated somewhere between the blue-collar anthems of fellow New Jerseyans the Gaslight Anthem, the stadium-rock narratives of the Hold Steady and the cathartic vocal delivery of Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. For Titus Andronicus, reference points aren’t a sin—they’re signposts for a band that just wants to be understood while they rally you ’round their flag.

eMusic convinced Stickles to play tour guide and psychoanalyst with regard to The Monitor.

On the Billy Bragg-inspired lyric “I never wanted to change the world/ but I’m looking for a new New Jersey”:
The magical thing about Billy Bragg is that even though a lot of his songs are very specific about certain causes—whether he’s singing about a miners’ strike or labor unions—the spirit behind them is very palpable and universal. “A New England” is a song about love and sexual frustration, but it’s very aware of the world around it. In trying to invoke the spirit of Billy Bragg, it was in the hope that people who didn’t agree with our agenda would still be pumped up.

On “A More Perfect Union”:
The song is based on me moving up to Boston when I got out of college. I went because my girlfriend at the time went to school up there and got a job. We spent most of our first record (2008’s The Airing of Grievances) talking about how stifling it is in New Jersey to punk types, and I figured that Boston, with its great history of fighting for freedom and democracy, would be more of an ideological haven than New Jersey was. So our hero has some friends in Boston and a romantic relationship and things are looking up, but he quickly discovers that a distance of 200 miles doesn’t mean that people aren’t the same, for better or worse. At this point in the story, for worse.

On “Titus Andronicus Forever”:
This song sets up the following one. I lifted that device from the rhetorical style of Abraham Lincoln, who’s an important guy on the record. He would spend the bulk of a paragraph saying something in a flowery, circuitous way, then sum it up very concisely at the end to create an epiphany of sorts for the listener. Say it fancy, then say it plain. So I set up the idea of our hero getting away from stuff he doesn’t like and doesn’t agree with but finds out that the enemy is everywhere.

On the depression of Abraham Lincoln:
The last president we had who acknowledged he was a human being was Jimmy Carter, and look what happened to him. He never said anything like what Lincoln said in that famous letter to Mr. Stuart (“I am now the most miserable man living…”). That’s what makes him so fascinating to me. We think of him as this giant—literally, he was six foot four, our tallest president—who’s deified in our culture, but the way he was so willing to admit his weaknesses make him an exponentially more compelling figure. Lincoln’s life is just an enormous triumph of the human spirit, a truly American story. We don’t try to shy away from our miseries, but at the same time we don’t make that an excuse to not do our best and rock as hard as possible.

On “No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future”:
Another one of the themes of the record is emotional anesthetization. Most people seem to agree that it’s easier not to feel much of anything rather than acknowledge they are emotional creatures. Even though things are hard, it’s better to embrace all our weaknesses and imperfections and celebrate them rather than feel shame about them. I wrote this song during my senior year of college. My college years were an extremely depressing period of my life, and I decided to start taking antidepressants in order not to feel so down on myself all the time. I immediately felt better, but it got me thinking about the nature of feelings, and whether or not I could ever validate my feelings, if they were anything more than chemical reactions. I felt conflicted about breaking my promise to myself to embrace my feelings. That’s why I sing, “I took the one thing that made me beautiful and I threw it away.”

On the importance of Curb Your Enthusiasm:
Curb informed our methodology for recording the album. Just like Larry David, we got our most talented friends (members of Wye Oak, Vivian Girls, the Hold Steady and others) to get together and told them to help us get from Point A to Point B. And our first record contained a lot of references to Seinfeld, so it was fitting that our second record would have a little bit of an homage to Curb, Larry David’s great sophomore effort.

On the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn reading Walt Whitman on “A Pot In Which To Piss”:
[The Hold Steady's] Separation Sunday is one of my favorite albums. The story in Separation Sunday is easier to follow than The Monitor. The Hold Steady really exemplify the ability to make a collection of songs that can stand alone as singles but become stronger when you contextualize them. That was definitely a quality I hoped our record would have.

On Civil Wars and Culture Wars:
The Civil War theme is super relevant to today. We were taught as kids that the Civil War was fought to end all kinds of divisions. But sometimes I think all it actually did was teach those wicked things to be more insidious and subtler … Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant, even though they were in opposition, admitted a respect for each other. When I read stuff from that period, it seems like people had more open minds, bigger hearts back then. But maybe that’s me being a Luddite or a romantic about that stuff. Maybe they were the same dopes that they are now.

On “Richard II”:
The subtitle is “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,” which is the name of a book in another book, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Most people are reasonably mild-mannered these days, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have little fiery balls of hate inside of us. As soon as you can gather a couple hundred people who have the same wicked ideas that you do, that gives people license to indulge their most horrible impulses. I was thinking of the Conscription Riots of 1862; the Irish immigrants were scared that, if slavery were abolished, black people would come in and take their jobs. They wanted to keep their spot at the bottom of the food chain, and it compelled them to do shocking, unspeakable things like burning down an orphanage. Also in the song we talk a little bit about John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, in which [abolitionist raider] Dangerfield Newby was killed and lay in ditch all day; his ears were cut off as souvenirs and [U.S. soldiers] senselessly discharged rifles into his corpse. His remains were last seen being eaten by a pack of roving pigs.

On the album’s backdrop of violence—war, hanging, strangling, etc.:
I’ve never even punched a guy in the face.

On “Theme From ‘Cheers’”:
It’s about a bar in my hometown of Glen Rock called the Glen Rock Inn. Back when I was in college, my dad and I used to go there on the weekends. Even though the TV show Cheers is a sterilized version of bar culture, that theme song hit on why people love their neighborhood bars so much. Sometimes you really do want to go where everybody knows your name. The song ties into the theme of running away from your problems and trying to find any solution besides accountability.

On “The Battle Of Hampton Roads”:
Our hero has just spent 50 minutes taking the hard line, being militant and saying everyone sucks. In the first song he was saying, “I’m gonna kick everyone’s ass and stand up for what’s right” and all that stuff. At the end, he doesn’t feel much better about himself. He’s not an especially happy guy but he’s able to define himself by absence, to borrow a phrase from postmodernism. He doesn’t know what he stands for, but he knows what he can be opposed to. He realizes that if he’d succeeded in killing all the bad guys, where would he go from there? His life would be purposeless. It ends with us pleading with the enemy to stay with us forever, lest our lives be completely meaningless. For all that bellyaching, he’s really no better than the people he’s been yelling at.

In the actual Battle of Hampton Roads, nobody won. The [Confederate battleship] Virginia got blown up by its own crew. Rather than surrendering, they opted to blow it up—maritime suicide, if you will. And the Monitor just sunk somewhere off the coast of North Carolina with no fanfare whatsoever—it sank during a storm. Go figure. These two terribly beautiful warmaking machines, the best from each side, couldn’t kill each other so they just killed themselves. Kind of an apt metaphor.

Hey everyone! Laura Leebove here… I’m the new production editor at eMusic, so I’ll be posting on 17 Dots from time to time, as well as contributing some reviews and whatnot to the regular site. Before joining the eMusic team about a week ago (And what a week it has been! My head doesn’t know what to do with all this music!) I was freelancing full-time (aka broke), mostly writing for publications like Billboard, Spinner.com, Critical Mob, Under the Radar and Venus Zine. Feel free to stalk me on the Web here and here, if, for some reason, you are so inclined…

Some stuff I’ve been listening to lately: Owen Pallett’s Heartland (hands down my favorite record of the year so far), Anais Mitchell’s Hadestown (out next week on Righteous Babe — folk opera w/ vocals from Justin Vernon, Ani DiFranco, Ben from The Low Anthem, Greg Brown…), and, thanks to Joe, this fantastic Smiths-like debut LP from the Danish band Northern Portrait.

More important than any of that, though, is that last night I saw Mayer Hawthorne at Webster Hall — the first night of his U.S. tour — and, as expected, he was fantastic. This Michigan-born DJ-turned-soul singer’s debut LP, A Strange Arrangement, was one of my top records last year and while it’s almost a strictly Motown/soul set on record, it’s Hawthorne’s live shows that bring out a little more of his hip-hop background. Hawthorne (real name Drew Mayer Cohen) didn’t waste any time amping up the crowd: He and his band, known as The County, started with “Your Easy Lovin’ Ain’t Pleasin’ Nothin’,” an uncanny nod to the Supremes’ “You Can’t Hurry Love” and followed it up with “Make Her Mine” and “Maybe So, Maybe No.” Mixed in with his straight-up soul tracks was a cover of N.E.R.D.’s “Fly Or Die,” followed by “Green Eyed Love,” which broke into Biz Markie’s “Just A Friend.” Hawthorne’s best known track, “Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out,” was given the reggae remix treatment, and “The Ills” reminded everyone that despite all the crap happening in the world, everything is going to be OK, and Hawthorne made everyone believe it.

This guy is a charmer and it’s damn near impossible not to fall in love with him: Near the end of the set, he admitted that the whole touring-artist thing isn’t so much about the music — he actually just wants wants to go around the world and eat. “That’s love for me,” he said. Hey man, I think everyone is with you on that one.

So, as per a recent item on Pitchfork News, someone out there has opened a Wilco-themed sandwich shop.

We’ll give you a moment to let the implications of that settle in.

Honestly? Our immediate reaction, upon viewing the menu options at Toronto’s brand-new Sky Blue Sky Sandwich Company Ltd, was disappointment. Not because the “Outta Mind (Outta Sight)” doesn’t sound delicious– “a tasty new take on the classic ham and cheese with lightly toasted cinnamon bread, cream cheese and layered black forest ham” — but because THE PUNS, people. So many missed opportunities here! There is no “Ashes of American Cheese,” no “I Am Trying To Break Your Hummous.” If you’re REALLY going to open an indie-rock sandwich shop, you should at least capitalize on the literally INFINITE naming possibilities inherent in such a venture.

With that in mind, we immediately got to work thinking of other possible indie rock/delicatessen pairings. Below are a few opening shots — we fully expect you to shame us with your ideas in the comments section.

Brighten the Corned Beef

MGBLT

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Gyros

Codfish Kwassa Kwassa

My Bloody Roast Beef

Neon Indian Curry

The Pains of Being Ham On Rye

Pantha Du Parmesan

…And You Shall Know Us By Our Grainy Mustard

Florence and the Pastrami

Andddddd……….YOUR TURN!

Unbelievable amount of New Arrivals today, many of them from the WMG family. Rather than doing an album-by-album play-by-play — which would take an epic amount of time — I’m gonna to do this mostly by genre and top-level artist, and let you guys fill in the blanks in the comments!

The Rock Picks:

Joy Division and New Order: I won’t dwell too long here, because I’ve said my piece in the reviews I wrote for the two Joy Divison records. Suffice it to say I think both Closer and Unknown Pleasures are perfect records. You can read me going bananas in the individual album reviews. New Order I like, if slightly less so. I love Power, Corruption and Lies and vary on the others (I’ve gotten through reviews of Movement, PCL and Low-Life — the rest will be trickled in over the course of the week).

The Smiths: Right now, all we have is the hits compilation — but what hits! A master class in pop songwriting (and newly remastered for this collection) Morrissey and Marr belong in the pantheon with McCartney and Lennon and McLennan and Forster. There is not a bad song on this collection, and if you’re unfamiliar, this is the place to start.

Dinosaur Jr: Dino Jr’s Warner years are dicey (there’s an Icon hub on the way), but I rep for Green Mind and Where You Been?. Pretty hard. Without A Sound had their first legitimate Alternative Nation Chart Hit (”Feel the Pain” — complete with golfing video!) but the drop was swift and steep thereafter.

Faith No More: The Real Thing and Angel Dust show up today, and both are untouchable.

Tori Amos: I can hear some of you snickering from here, but not so fast! Under the Pink is excellent, and will surprise some of you who think you don’t like Tori. With a creepy guest spot from then-boyfriend Trent Reznor on “Past the Mission,” Under the Pink is Tori’s certified goth-macabre record, loaded with great songs. Little Earthquakes is also somewhat unfuckwithable, as is Songs from the Choirgirl Hotel. You’re on your own after that.

Sam Phillips, Fan Dance: THIS RECORD IS EXCELLENT. Spare, haunting folk music topped with Phillips’ perfectly ruined voice. Highly, highly recommended.

Brian Wilson, Smile: Perhaps you know something about this? Wilson returned to the studio and completed legendary unfinished Beach Boys record — it’s pretty much a masterpiece. Let’s call it a middle-aged symphony to God.

Fountains of Wayne, Utopia Parkway: Power pop perfection, the high water mark for Adam Schlesinger, where every one of his formidable skills was firing at their peak.

Gallows, Grey Britain: Angry post-hardcore band throws down more bile on this excellent, and somewhat overlooked, follow-up to the (also excellent) Orchestra of Wolves. This one’s a grower — I dismissed it at first, but time (as it usually does) proved me the asshole.

Jim Carroll Band, Catholic Boy: THOSE ARE PEOPLE WHO DIED, DIED! THOSE ARE PEOPLE WHO DIED, DIED! THOSE ARE PEOPLE WHO DIED, DIED! THEY WERE ALL MY FRIENDS — AND THEY DIED!

King’s X: I used to really love this band. That may be all I have to say about this. I’m putting Faith, Hope & Love By King’s X back on my iPod. We’ll see how that works out.

The R&B Picks:

Otis Redding: Dock of the Bay, Live in Europe and The Dictonary of Soul, all in today, all astonishing. “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)” is maybe one of my favorite songs ever. And, good god, Live in Europe will blow your hair back. If you’re unfamiliar, your Otis education should start here.

Brandy, Afrodisiac: Say what you will, this record is great — mature, elegant, hypnotic in spots — I had this on constant repeat when it came out. The title track, especially, is a beautiful bit of computer love. I can’t wait to listen to this again later today.

Cassie, Cassie: Another excellent record — fans of odd, experimental, synth-heavy production, this one’s for you. Seriously. Her voice is tiny and lovely and it glides over the spare backing tracks perfectly. Whisper quiet and lovely: excellent modern pop.

The Hip-Hop Picks

Das EFX, Dead Serious: Oh my God how good is this record? Seriously, do yourself a favor, spend one credit on “Mic Checka.” Classic 90s hip-hop with that great, grainy production and mile-a-minute lyrics. I m-m-m-make the wonder twins de-ac-ti-vate.

Little Brother, The Minstrel Show: Contemporary classic of conscious hip-hop. I think I may be the only one in the dept who likes this but, hey, I like it.

Trick Daddy: I am very much a fan of Trick Daddy, and you may be, too. Talking Heads fans, take a listen to the song “Sugar” on Thug Matrimony and prepare for a little surprise.

International Picks:

Buena Vista Social Club: How have I still not seen this movie? The album that gave much-needed global exposure to the lively, vibrant conemporary Cuban music scene. It’s pretty much excellent.

Cateano Veloso, The Best of Caetano Veloso: The title doesn’t lie: stone classics from one of the inventors of Tropicalia.

Cham, Ghetto Story: Excellent modern reggae record recounting tough times in impoverished Jamaica. Will appeal to fans of old and new school (skews dancehall in places, very ‘digital-reggae’ in sound).