Monday, 4/21/97 Soundbites
Matchbox 20 "Yourself or Someone Like You" (Lava/ Atlantic)
Forget grunge and electronica. The hottest musical genre of the
’90s has been adult alternative and with the successes of bands
like the Wallflowers, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Hootie and the
Blowfish, the Dave Matthews Band and and Counting Crows, it
certainly seems to have more lasting power than its "alternative"
contemporaries. And as these groups slowly but surely became big,
tons of little bands around the country formed, finding inspiration
with a conservative guitar-rock sound that began in the bars,
garages and fraternity houses of America. Now, a year or two later,
these small-town groups have the material to enter the music world
for themselves. Enter Matchbox 20. It has debuted on the scene in
1997 with a sound that is unmistakably adult alternative. If Star
98.7 and VH-1 get ahold of its music, adult alternative fans will
snap up copies of "Yourself or Someone Like You" in seconds.
Matchbox 20 is already on Billboard’s Heatseekers Album Chart,
poised to become one of the top 200 bestselling albums in the
country. This album, however all-too-familiar, is 12 tracks of
catchy and singable guitar pop, suitable for almost any occasion.
Whether at the bar, making out, in the car or just hanging around,
Matchbox 20 has an almost perfect kick-back score for you. The
album’s opener, "Real World," is extremely catchy, especially if
you like that Toad/ Counting Crows/ Better Than Ezra sound. Your
head will not sit still listening to it, guaranteed. The same could
be said for "Long Day" and "Argue," which both create simple, happy
melodies almost perfectly. Even its "downer" songs, like "Kody" and
"3 a.m.," deliver the blues, but still bounce a bit to pleasantly
throw you off. "3 a.m." takes on the whole breakup-loneliness
theme: "She says it’s cold outside and she hands me my raincoat/
she’s always worried about things like that/ she says it’s all
gonna end and it might as well be my fault/ and she only sleeps
when it’s raining …" It is creatively basic yet thematically
sound, giving us a guitar melody we can smile to. "Back 2 Good"
shows off lead singer Rob Thomas’ gutsy yet vulnerable vocals,
sounding strikingly like Adam Duritz (Counting Crows) meets Glen
Phillips (Toad the Wet Sprocket). Matchbox 20 has made a good album
here. It’s not groundbreaking or complex, but are those always
prerequisites for good music? Of course not. Rob Thomas’ vocals are
emotional and harmonic, peaking at all the right times. It
complements the soft-core alternative rock wonderfully. The songs
do tend to blend into each other, making you feel sometimes if
you’ve accidentally pushed the "repeat" button on your CD player,
and thus "Yourself and Someone Like You" has little range. Still,
there’s something to be said for pleasant consistency and the band
does sustain a rhythm of feel-good vibes for most of the album,
save the pseudo-tender ballad "Push" or the somewhat darker
"Busted." All the choruses delight with superb consonance,
providing pleasing melodies throughout. Matchbox 20 has put some
fun and joy in its music, which may not be appropriate for all of
us, but ought to make most of us carefree, open-minded music
listeners share the cheerfulness. Mike Prevatt B+ Various Artists
"Nowhere" (Mercury) With soundtracks reaching the higher positions
of album sales charts, every studio is out to create a killer score
to their movie, no matter the potential size of the audience. With
the case of Gregg Araki’s independently-released "Nowhere," the
strategy seems to be simple: put together a hip alternative music
compilation and see if it can get butts in the theater seats. Well,
the vibe of this particular soundtrack certainly predicts a dark
journey into postmodern cinema. With styles ranging from college
radio rock, popular alt-rock, electronica and gloomy modern rock,
"Nowhere" takes us to a dead-end world in true "Generation X"
fashion updated for the 1997 world. But somehow this eclectic
offering doesn’t leave us begging for Prozac; rather, it warrants a
cruise in the car with heads moving along to the soundtrack’s
hypnotic beats. The album perks up with such songs from the
always-smile-inducing Elastica ("In the City") and pop
perfectionists the London Suede ("Trash"). Electronica rears its
head with the Chemical Brothers ("Life is Sweet"), Massive Attack
("Daydreaming") and, surprisingly, James ("Thursday Treatments").
KROQ faves 311 appear with their lyrically lame funkster, "Freak
Out," as does Marilyn Manson with the boring "Kiddie Grinder." Even
Chuck D stops by to give us his ragin’ "Generation Wrekkked."
British gloom-rockers like Radiohead, Lush and Catherine Wheel give
"Nowhere" an infectious gloominess, where the psuedo trip-hop of
Ruby and Coco & the Bean leave the listener feeling apathetic.
"Nowhere" is definitely an exploration of alternative rock’s every
style and sound. While some artists stand out, like the London
Suede and Catherine Wheel, this soundtrack on the whole is one for
the car ride home after leaving the independent moviehouse. Mike
Prevatt B Bettie Serveert "Dust Bunnies" (Matador/ Capitol) Outside
of clogs and chocolate, there ain’t much comin’ out of Holland
these days. Except, of course, for the three pretty great albums by
Dutch thirty-something college-style rockers (yet a new genre for
those indie folks who just don’t wanna grow up?) Bettie Serveert.
The band’s latest offering is a blend of the brash confidence of
its 1992 debut, "Palomine" and its more introspective and diverse
follow-up, 1995’s "Lamprey." Vocalist/ guitarist Carol Van Dijk is
a stand-out, as always, with pipes at once tender and rasping,
always unique. Though she has a great voice, it’s markedly
"unprofessional" in the best of ways – passionate and uneven,
conversational and spontaneous. The prominent guitars, more often
like the grit of "Palomine" or the louder parts of "Lamprey," mix
different ends of the spectrum as well, as crunchy riffs crash
against the more melodic melody lines and chord progressions.
Though easily classified as indie rock in an age when that label
has come to mean almost nothing, the band retains its own sound,
easily recognizable and enjoyable. Kristin Fiore B+ "Beyond Life
with Timothy Leary" (Mercury) Strange. LSD king Timothy Leary is
dead. Allen Ginsberg is dead. The Moody Blues might as well be
dead. Yet, their words are immortalized on the astral, chanting
album, "Beyond Life with Timothy Leary." Oh sure, Indian sitar and
drum incantations waft in and out of the Gregorian chant-esque
melodies, but don’t be fooled. This album is more than just
tranquil "zone out" music. It’s got Timothy Leary saying stuff
like, "I remember, back beyond flesh and bone, … beyond life,
beyond life, beyond life." That’s just cool, flat out. And, yes,
you may be induced to reach for your pillow after only two minutes
of such soothing sounds, but the album offers much more than gypsy
cymbals and snake-charmer beckonings. It has ’60s calm, meshed with
samples of ’90s trance beats to induce a spa-center feel of new age
euphoria. "So you’ll die happily for your sins? You’d rather die in
guilt, than live in love?" Leary asks of you. Man, he can’t be
wrong, there’s just no way. You must accept his words as truth and
groove along with his informational ramblings. Yet, you may find
yourself wondering at how inspirational a woman singing in a
foreign tongue to the backdrop of a repetitive synthesizer beat can
really be, regardless of Leary’s words. After all, do you really
want to go beyond life? Isn’t your every-day existence enough? Drop
a few tabs of acid, and you may understand the intricacies of our
reality a bit differently, and you may connect more completely with
Leary’s world, but is that actually a "Beyond Life" experience?
It’s arguable that LSD produces instead a sort of ultra-life
feeling, an increased sense of reality, wacky in its intensity.
Most probably, though, Leary is commenting on his own inevitable
death, preparing to let the disease which wrecked his body finally
take his soul. But, how much does anyone want to die, and why
idealize death as the beginning of eternity’s relaxation? It’s
death, it’s not a Club Med vacation. Yet, the album does offer a
serene pasture to graze on when the parties have died down and you
need a new realm to conquer. Vanessa VanderZanden B Soundbites runs
Mondays and Wednesdays. MATCHBOX 20 "Yourself or Someone …"