Yeah, I didn't post a prediction yesterday, so I might as well do one today, and you'll have to trust me that I didn't already check the Friday numbers. Most analysts are predicting
Flightplan to take the top spot, but even such a misanthrope as myself has enough faith in the American people to pick
Corpse Bride to take the spot.
More importantly, this is an
entertainment blog, and while I've mainly focused on movies, I figured it's about time to do some music reviewing. I picked up a copy of the new Rolling Stones alubm (actually, I downloaded it illegally...it's good to be a pirate. Arrr). And, see, God so loved the world that he gave them the Beatles. God also so loved the world that he ensured the Rolling Stones should not perish, but have everlasting life. That may sound extravagant, but it's important to keep things in context while writing about the Stones. If rock and roll has a Jesus…it would be the Beatles. But if rock has a Christ-given-in-to-temptation, it's the Rolling Stones. While the Beatles broke up so that their back catalogue may be impeccable, and John Lennon was shot in the back so that we may be forgiven for our sins, the Rolling Stones will continue dragging their geriatric selves onstage as long as there's a buck in it, so that Mick Jagger may continue to benefit from his London School of Economics education.
Considering this, it is therefore both a blessing and a curse that their new album,
A Bigger Bang, sound like a Rolling Stones album. Yes, there are some exceptionally good tracks, "Streets of Love" and "Biggest Mistake" being two of my personal favorites. There are also some horribly bad tracks, such as "Let Me Slow Down", which sounds like "Wild Horses" without the beauty, or perhaps "Far Away Eyes" without the humor, and "This Place is Empty", in which a croaking Keith Richards manages to evoke the image of an anthropomorphized Marlboro cigarette singing in a karaoke bar.
For the most part, however, songs on
A Bigger Bang sound like everything else Mick and the boys have done before. "Rough Justice", the leadoff track and single from the album, seems to take the essence of the musical adjective "Stonesy" and morph it into a 3:10 song. "Look What the Cat Dragged In" sounds like an outtake from the
Some Girls sessions, and "Driving Too Fast" is essentially a rewrite of "Can't You Hear Me Knocking", right down to the long fadeout jam. The only glimmers of innovation on this album are found in the two songs I singled out, "Streets of Love" and "Biggest Mistake", which mix 12-string guitars and high vocal harmonies in a way that is almost Beach Boys-esque, yet is performed with a definite Stones-swagger. It is a shame that they did not record more songs in this idiom.
No review of this album would be complete without a mention of "Sweet Neo Con", the most publicized song off of the album, which castigates President George W. Bush. To dwell on the political message of this song is to miss the point. The point is that, musically, the song is a pile of crap. It is performed in a moody, jerky style that sounds like it was composed by a suicidal adding machine, and even the most fervent Bush-hater must admit that the lyric "You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite" is so terrible as to make "Louie, Louie" sound like a Shakespearean sonnet. I honestly believe that the reason they released the song is because they had a groove they were working on that they couldn't use because it was so shitty, and then the genius that is Mick Jagger realized that if he wrote liberal politically-charged lyrics, he could get publicity for any song, no matter how terrible, and sell another million albums. I'm not joking when I call the man a genius.
