The only real quibble I have with John M. Borack’s book on power pop is that it’s based on albums – the 200 greatest power pop albums of all time - as opposed to songs. The album as a stylistically and conceptually coherent musical document is an artifact of the era of rock. Power pop represents an attempt to shed the heaviness and artistic pretension that increasingly engulfed rock as the 60s started to go bad. One upshot of this is that songs reemerged as the main vehicle of artistic expression. All of which is to say that I think the top 200 power pop songs would have been more appropriate to the art form. …And yet, there's Chris Von Sneidern’s Big White Lies (1994), which I heard for the first time last week, another spectacular find courtesy of Borack, who places it as high as #6 on his all-time list. I’m still processing my feelings and responses after a weekend of listening to the album incessantly, but right now I think I can safely say that it’s one of the most amazing pop *albums* I’ve ever heard. And I want to underscore my feeling that it works as an album. Von Sneidern (whose real name I fear might be Chris Schneider) has a masterful grasp of songcraft, so much so that the dizzying wealth of material on Big White Lies is enough to constitute nothing short of an entire album of gems. If there’s any criticism I have of Big White Lies, it’s that the album doesn’t give you any time to catch your breath. It's too good, if that's possible. It reminds me of the way Vito, my beloved cat, bites me if he gets overstimulated, like if I rub his belly for a long time. He gets to the point where it's more pleasure than he can take. And so it is for me in hearing Big White Lies. Sometimes you want a little filler here and there so you can fully absorb the gems. Even Revolver and Pet Sounds provide a little downtime with some filler. ...My thinking with pop these days is that I’ve gotten my $10 worth if there’s one good song on any album/collection I download. A good song is worth $10 to me. Big White Lies is a collection of 11 great songs. Thankfully, there’s no conceptual connection between the songs, at least from what I can tell, because that would be taking this regression back to the album a little too far. One of my cardinal rules of pop: Just say no to concept albums unless, as is the case with Big White Lies, the unifying concept is simply the empyrean beauty of immaculate pop purity. The album overflows with the goodness of the pop life:*McCartney-esque melodies - check;
*celestial West Coast harmonies - check;
*devastatingly addictive hooks - check;
*guitars, guitars, everywhere guitars - check;
*romance, heartbreak, and unrequited love as recurrent themes throughout, but always with just enough sweetness and hope to give you reason to believe - check.
...I don’t say this kind of thing very often, but Big White Lies will blow your fucking mind. My mind has been blown now and again in my life, but it hadn’t been for quite some time, until I listened to Chris Von Sneidern for the first time last week. And after all the pop I’ve heard over the last 35 years or so, it’s gratifying to find that there’s still stuff out there that can affect me so dramatically. Music of such effortless power and vitality doesn't come along every day and deserves to be revered as the rare and wondrous gift that it is...
No comments:
Post a Comment