The Rake's Progress: "Hazards of Love" Review

Listen to it once. Listen to it twice. Listen to it five times, and you’ll still have no idea what it’s about. But you’ll like it.

“Hazards of Love” has all the makings of a great Decemberists album: a root in folk, blatant yet cryptic lyrics, odd instruments that pop up when you least expect them (harpsichord, anyone?) and a story that you must work to understand.

The story is what drives this album. It is a concept album, no doubt, with recurring musical themes and characters voiced by guest artists. But the Decemberists would never settle for something so easily done – instead of a straight narrative, the story of Margaret and her lover William is broken up by “The Rake,” a man hell-bent on regaining his freedom from life as a widowed father. The most frustrating (or delicious) part of this album is that it takes a few mighty listening to really decipher what is going on and to whom each voice belongs.

The story begins with William telling the tale of his true love entering a forest, or taiga, which requires a Wikipedia run to define (a biome covering Alaska, Canada, and upper parts of Europe). The album is full of words that aren’t so common these days, adding another layer of interest. Margaret, voiced by Becky Stark, encounters The Queen, voiced by Shara Worden. The tale of Margaret, William and The Forest Queen (and the mysterious child she bears) is convoluted at best, but the enigma of it makes it even more entertaining for the avid listener.

Margaret’s song, revealing thoughts during her journey early on (“Won’t Want For Love (Margaret in the Taiga)”) is the real gem of the album, juxtaposing Stark’s New Folk voice with a driving guitar accompaniment that could have come straight off a Led Zeppelin album.

After William finds Margaret, they sing a love duet, “Isn’t It a Lovely Night?” accompanied by sighing guitars and an accordion.

The Forest Queen makes her first appearance with “The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid,” and Worden’s full, rustic voice gives her an edge that could chill bones as the Queen reprimands her “son” for abandoning her. It is here that the narrative really starts to take shape and draw the listener in.

This is followed by “The Rake’s Song.” It details the marriage of the narrator (the only character to break the fourth wall to address the audience) with gritty, expressive lyrics that could only be pulled off in such a cavalier way by the Decemberists. “I was wedded and it whetted my thirst until her womb started spilling out babies,” explains the Rake. “What can one do when one is a widower, shamefully saddled with three little pests?” He goes on to detail how he rid himself of each child, which is most effective when heard for the first time with the music.

Cut to Margaret, who in “The Abduction of Margaret” is being picked up on horseback by a man (the Rake?) with unsavory plans. The Forest Queen is willing to help the abductor, who will remove the threat of Margaret from her son, and is willing to help him cross the river.

“Annan Water” is one of the more rhythmically interesting tracks, and the wavering accordion chords throughout the song add a layer of anguish. Here, William is attempting to cross the river in order to get to Margaret. He pleads with the river that if he is let to pass, when he comes again the river “may have [his] precious bones in return.”

Margaret’s abductor tells her to give up hope in “Margaret in Captivity” as she cries out for her lover to save her. This is followed by the third reprise of the “Hazards of Love” theme “(Revenge!)” and the voices of the children murdered by the Rake return to haunt their father. The warped children’s voices recount their deaths and assure their father they are still around him. The music is disjointed, with a harpsichord that feels appropriately out of tune. It is the most sound effect-heavy track on the album. The tongue-in-cheek, carefree attitude with which the children sing is creepy, but satisfying.

The story ends with the fourth and final tune in the “Hazards of Love” sequence, “(The Drowned).” William has retrieved Margaret, and the water around them is slowly rising. They exchange wedding vows as their ghosts join the water. The song is slow, almost textbook “indie” style, to end the tale with a wistful attitude, complete with whammy-heavy guitars.

This is a landmark album, taking the concept album beyond anything it has been before. The format of the storytelling is such that it is beneficial to read through the lyrics on their own. The words by themselves are a completely different artistic medium when experienced on their own and add a layer to the listening.

There has not been such a satisfying album in years. Because of its musical and narrative structure, it asks the listener to return to it over and over, without becoming boring. It requires lots of thought and attention before it fully reveals itself, which is what the concept album is all about.

Why Dollhouse "Man on the Street" Is Just Plain Good TV

Last night, over a bad, illegal download connection on my laptop (because I missed it live and couldn't wait for Hulu) I watched the "game-changing" episode of Dollhouse. I will admit, I wasn't expecting much. The eps so far have been alright, and that's giving it a bit too much credit. I've been hanging on to this show because I believe in The Joss Man and his vision, but slowly loosing hope. All doubt, though, left, when at three in the morning I ghasped my way through "Man on the Street."

Here's why: first of all, The Joss Man knows what viewers are thinking. He isn't trying to lead them along or hope they keep watching until the juicy scene or gimmicking his way through the show in order to keep viewers. He writes as if he is watching the show himself, and knows what we are thinking when we see it. This "third eye" enables him to play on our emotions at exactly the right moment. Ballard and Nellie are having another one of their "neighbor" conversations, as "just friends." He has his shirt off and I'm thinking, "He should just kiss her! That would be so cool!" and then SMACK he pulls her in and lays one on her. My jaw dropped! How often does television give you what you want, no build up, no explaination, just going for it? This is just one example of me, the viewer, having an urge to see something happen, knowing the writer woulnd never allow it, but I still want it, and The Joss Man being right there with me and going for it.

Another brutually amazing tactic The Joss Man uses is his dead-on ability to do exactly the opposite of what the viewer is thinking. He'll kindly lead me on in one direction, then crash everything to the point I am saying, "How are we going to get out of this? We can't fix this!" The Joss Man knows what the viewer is thinking and capitalizes on it by doing the exact opposite of what is expected. Nellie's about to be killed. I'm thinking, "They just had sex, therefore admitting they really do like each other, and there's no way she's going to survive this episode." I started tearing up. I LOVE Nellie! I'm thinking she's my favorite character, and now she's going to DIE! But at the last minute, when Ballard is running back to the house, calling on his cell phone, the message machine in the back of the struggle picks up and BOOM Nellie becomes a ninja. She's an ACTIVE? WHAAA? Brilliant. BRILLIANT. Of course, I say. Deus ex machina, without the cop out and confusion. It makes perfect sense. The Joss Man knows this. The Joss Man sees us coming, innocent and comfortable. The Joss Man isn't afraid to throw things at us, because he knows we can handle them. And we know he hasn't breached the Realm of Possibility. This is when really great writing happens. This is when a viewer can be shocked shocked SHOCKED! without being confused, dissapointed or blamful that the writer used "save yourself" writing.

The final note I will make on The Joss Man's writing is that he says things plainly. He doesn't go for flowery language. He doesn't attempt to say things in an elevated fashion or make characters sound more intelligent than they are. He writes the first words, the words people think before rephrasing them better. The truthfull words. This is why Buffy is fun to listen to. Even the quirky made-up words fit, because they are completely within the character's Realm of Speech. You can't see a writer feeding them words. Father Hesburgh once said something (in an article my grandfather read to my mother when she was little, so I don't have the exactly quote) about using the plainest words possible, because there's no need to use a word just because it is bigger. The Joss Man gets this. He says what needs to be said, not what "should be said on TV." The beauty of the quotes that come from his shows is in their cleanliness their precision. Its the principle of Shakespeare. It's funny because of how the words are said, how they have been moved around and how they have been joined together or ripped apart. In Shakespeare, everything is appropriate to the speaker, and nothing is ever our of place.

"You played a good hand."
"No, I played a very bad hand very well. There is a distinction."

Is The Joss Man Shakespeare? Not yet. But damn, it's good TV.

Taste Variation: Bluegrass

I love music from many genres. They are vast and varied. Today I would like to explain my attachment to bluegrass/banjo-based folk music.

There is something distinctly American about bluegrass music. It manages to weave the memory of folk songs with a balance of syncopated rhythms, appealing yet unpredictable melodies and expressive, particular voices. There is always an air of warning in a bluegrass song, a love that's wary of its own truth or a commitment that knows it won't last. It's also very rooted in immigration and the identity of a culture, another very American theme. It's hard to hear a bluegrass song and not hear the irish "jig" influence.

Bluegrass is simple. It came out of a tradition of community music. It had to be understandable by everyone. The lyrics are straightforward, but that doesn't mean boring. They're often witty or reveal deeper irony. This much is true: no song's story can be understood unless you wait until the last stanza.

The musical structure is very simple, with basic song construction (verse, chorus, verse, chorus, ornamented verse, etc.). But within that structure is the chance for unlimited variation. Bluegrass musicians are like jazz musicians. They understand their craft so well that they are able to reach around it, through it, and within it in order to vary the emotion experience by the listener. It is the true musicians who create the best music (Abigail Washburn, Bela Fleck, Alison Krauss). It's the people who know what they're doing that make it look so simple. Someone once described jazz music as "extreme creativity within extreme discipline." I think that's pretty true for bluegrass.

I also like it because my dad does, and it reminds me of him. What can I say, the man has taste.

Representative (and Darn Good) Songs:
Anything by Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet
"Notes from the Banjo Underground" Old Man Luekecke
"Oh, Agamemnon" Crooked Still
"Half Acre" Hem
Alison Krauss (preferably nothing done with Robert Plant) I appreciate the genre bending, but this was not so great.

My Brain Went on Spring Break on Monday

And it is Tuesday, and I still have things to do. God bless a week of relaxation, free of the torment of routinized living, but not at the expense of this week.

I officially started season 5 of Angel last night, howling aloud in the early hours of the morning after the lines, "Spike?" "Spike?" "BLONDIE BEAR!" It's the little things The Joss Man does that make my day.

The stressful days leading up to spring break and spring break itself seem to merit a section of music all its own. These are the changing times, the visible switching seasons, that change our listening habits. I've been pretty straight indie-mellow since the year's dawn, but yesterday I broke out the Euro metal. Nightwish a'blaring in me ears. Quality, I must say.

That is the beauty of the best. It's the music you can go back to time after time and still feel something. No matter how many times I listen to "Nemo," I always hear something new (a bass line, a string section, a hocket in the drums, etc). And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the real test of music. Like all things, it is the test of time. Will I like it in a year? Will I like it in three years? Will it mean the same thing it meant to me in high school? Is it strong enough to grow with me, or will it only be the music of memories? Some music has stayed with me because of association (Avril Lavigne - can't clean my room without her) and some music has grown to something completely new with time (Vanessa Carlton). Some music I have grown to like (Rush, Death cab) and some I still can't stand (Pink Floyd).

If you like a song, like it today. If you love a song, you won't know it until it's blossomed and evolved, months or years from now.

Escaping the Rain by Hiding in the Subways

Normally I am elated to see clouds that do anything other than snow or just sit there, looking putrid, stale and disgruntled. Basically, I like clouds that rain. Or clouds that are hanging off in the corners puffing up and reflecting the light, attempting to make this world a little more epic. I appreciate those clouds.

But, monsieur rahn clood, nut toodey. I feel lethargic, depressed, and hungry. My perfectly concocted hair has imploded, my joints are achey, and the "I'm Not Wearing Boots Today" clogs are...well...soggy. I have soggy clogs. :o(

On a more stream-of-consciousness note, I am currently listening to the Subways, and they are divine. Post-grunge, I-could-have-been-on-the-OC-but-I-want-more-from-this-world, guy with chick vocals in the background kind of divine. The first listening wasn't too impressive, but when music grows on me, it's delicious.

Highlight of the week: Gina Torres carries out a tacky Messiah metaphor on Angel, as viewed while on my elliptical trainer.
Dollhouse tomorrow night. Fingers still crossed for The Joss Man.

So Little Time

There is a great mother buttload of music out there. Everything exists. And because of our lovely friend Inter Net, we can find it all, listen to it all, download it all and love it all. Literally, millions of songs at our fingertips. If not billions. From the highly ranked iTunes toppers to the crappy Garage Band upload on your cousin's music MySpace, music is being heard, interpreted, reinvented and produced at a rate so rapid there is no guarantee any artist will survive more than a few weeks, or months if they are lucky. And if you miss an artist, too bad, they're lost forever into the void of "Once Was Popular."

With so many options, it's daunting to go fishing for anything new. We cling to iTunes charts and The Radio to tell us what's good, because we haven't got a snowball's chance in Miami at finding it ourselves. At least, this is the thought of the music muggle. This means that even though the indie artist is free to write, record and produce their own full album, if they haven't got a way to market it to the masses their music is moot. It takes the music geek, the guru, to fish out new music, and then popularize it through blogs, file sharing, mixes and word of mouth. Then, radios begin to pick it up and the ears at Spin perk up to catch it minutes before it bursts onto the scene. They get one to three hits on iTunes, perhaps a full album of popularity, some placement in ads and Gossip Girl, and then begin to be dubbed "Known Music." This is the kiss of death. No one really wants to listen to Known Music. It isn't popular enough to be Taylor Swifting its way into the hands and iPods of the muggles, but it is no longer indie-chic, and therefore the music geeks and uber nerds won't touch it. And then three years later it gets dumped on Rolling Stone. Every so often a band fished from the obscurity of its music MySpace will strike a real chord (or at least one that sounds different) and it will gain a true following of Diehards. These are the bands that have staying power, the ones that, in the end, really matter.

The corporate system plucks unsuspecting youngsters from their festering musical obscurity, dresses them up, tells them they're rock stars and spoon feeds them to the music muggles through movies, TV and The Radio. They play huge release concerts at Virgin and are begged to deign to put their name on a fashion label. The muggles eat it up. The gurus scoff.

The point is, there is way too much music out there for it all to matter. Even for most of it to matter. Music has one major flaw: it requires time. You need three minutes to listen to a song. You need forty-five minutes to appreciate an album. The only way to find music is to listen to it. We simply cannot love that much music. There is a limit to what can be popular, because we can't listen to everything that Should Be Popular. Even if every radio station everywhere never repeated a song, we wouldn't be able to get through it all. No one would go for that anyway, because the beauty of music is falling in love with it, and a lot of times it isn't love at first sight. We need to sit with music, to live with it, to associate memories with it in order to claim it. And in the end, that's all we really want to do. Muggle or guru. We want music that's our own.

Monteverdi & Doughnuts

I’m hitting a brick wall, here. I am supposed to be studying for an exam on Baroque music history, high points including Monteverdi versus Artuzi as to codified rules of counterpoint and…man, this stuff really bites. But I’m sitting here listening to The Duke Spirit (look ‘em up, kid) and all I can think of is, I want to move to London and be in a blues-tinged indie punk band and make predictable music with half-assed lyrics and appear on Jay Leno. It would be so EASY to just drop everything and make music. Anyone can become famous if you spin the music the right way (and I’m not talking about spinning records, here).

There are a million choices as to what to do with this life in front of me, rolling by like slices of cake on a conveyor belt behind a wall of glass, and I really want to reach out and eat one. It’s like being at a Krispy Kremes. I really, really want a doughnut but they’re all behind a glass wall and I’m not to the front of the line yet.