Wednesday November 26, 2003 michigandaily.com artseditor@michigandaily.com Ulb £di 46,an ltI ARTS 5 By Alexandra Jones Daily Arts Writer You'd expect the mood backstage at Detroit's Majestic Theatre to be jubilant, chaotic, outra- geous - groupies hanging on band members alcohol flowing, other substances available in the tiny alcoves that flank the cramped hallway. If not for theasweat drying on bassist Dave Her- nandez's forehead, you wouldn't know that the Shins had just played a galvanizing set to a rapt audience. Singer and songwriter James Mercer sits in a folding chair against the wall of the Majestic's green room. He looks like a Vincent van Gogh self-portrait, piercing eyes and receding hairline, but he's friendly and relaxed. "We've been the Shins since 1996, when thex only other band (with a "the" name) was the Drag. We were way before the Strokes and all those bands," said Mercer bemusedly. "We sounded like shit (tonight)," says Hernan- dez. Levels had been set at sound check, but when they took the stage, the band didn't hear what they'd expected. "Somebody fucked with the lev- els or something," says Mercer, his voice tinged I can dance like the king of the eyesores. with disappoint- ment. Despite their dissatisfaction, the show sounded fan- ODD BAND OUT tastic and the audi- ence hung on their TH SHINS SPILL ABOUT FITTING IN every action. Their reputation has THE HOTTEST PICKS IN ENTERTAINMENT FROM A DAILY ARTS WRITER St Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list - Alright, so everyone knows that Big Star's #1 Record - quite obviously the 437th best album ever released - should not have been buried at 438. Otherwise, the list is flawless. Anthropology 425, "The Evolution of War and Peace in Unstratified Societies" - Actually overheard at a University counseling appointment: "You don't want to take that, not unless you want to learn about thousands of natives running at each other with spears and boomerangs. Besides, it's only two hours a week, and they give you three credits for it." Handclaps - Please see Broken Social Scene's "Stars and Sons" and the Strokes' "12:51," during which indie rock poses the question, "Do you love me, now that I can dance?" grown since their debut album, Oh, Inverted World. "It's crazy, the last time we played Detroit we were at the Magic Stick, and this is so much bigger, a huge show." Although the Shins work with standard pop ele- ments - sparkling, driving guitar lines, efferves- cent keyboard hooks - their songs have a numinous quality not found in most modern rock. "I don't really think we fit in," says Mercer of the indie rock scene. The Shins have been touted as Beach Boys successors since World became one of the most talked-about albums of 2001; they cite Echo and the Bunnymen, the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Cure as influences. "I find we've got kind of a super '60s R&B pop thing, like Sam Cooke would do." Whatever their inspiration, the Shins' sound on sophomore release Chutes Too Narrow has tight- ened since their debut. "With the first album, I was left fiddling with it on my computer. At the time we had really cheap equipment, so we already had this low fidelity sound. Reverb made things sound a lot better. If I'd been able to fiddle with (Chutes) for six months, it probably would have sounded more like that. I get clouded up and tend to overthink," Mercer explains. Mercer's lyrics possess a rare combination of universality and quirk, specific verses and acces- sible choruses that hold listeners' interest. "I just try to write original metaphors. People across the board need to make sure not to use cliches. They're inherently dishonest, like you're lying because you can never feel exactly the way the guy who first wrote that felt." "I guess I remember how I felt when I wrote the song when I'm singing, but not all the time. I had a girlfriend who used to say, 'You need to stop writing songs about such depressing shit,' and a lot of it is depressing. I don't know - sometimes you're faking being emotional, and sometimes you really feel it." 2r "Die Hard" and "Die Hard 2: Die Harder" - The finest holiday films ever made. Not to be confused with "Die Hard: With a Vengeance," the finest summer film ever made. Hypin' the new Jay-Z album - The new "Hypin' the new Outkast album." 'Kast got the early press, but give the slight edge to Hova and his Hall of Fame lineup of producers. Real Bronx Bombers don't get dropped by the Marlins in six. jw r' < :v :: tY'. . Blink boys return with self-titled gem Naked strips much of Beatles' charm By Alexandra Jones Daily Arts Writer By Sean Dailey Daily Arts Writer Music REVIEW Pop punk. Poser Punk. Mall Punk: No matter what you call it, blink 182 (yeah, it's a lowercase "b" now) more or less invented it, or at least brought it to the mainstream. Bands like Good Charlotte, New Found Glory and The Starting Line owe their liveli- hoods to blink. blink 182 The band's fifth b full-length album blink 182 finds Mark, Tom Geffen and Travis going through more changes than merely capitalization issues. Blink 182 is a large step forward for the boys, fur- ther blurring the line between emo and pop punk. Yes, there is a line. In the interim between the band's last album, 2001's Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, all three members explored differing solo projects. Guitarist Tom DeLonge and drum- mer Travis Barker collaborated on Box Car Racer. Barker also formed the Transplants with other punk rock notables. Bassist Mark Hop- pus, well, he did vocals on that A Simple Plan song. The influence of these diversions can clearly be felt on this album. Most notable, is the larger presence of Delonge vocally, as well as a songwriter. Blink 182 almost feels like a Box Car Racer album, featuring Hoppus. But where Box Car failed in repetition and mediocrity, the new blink succeeds with a new-found diversity. Gone is the toilet humor and silli- ness of the former blink. Blink 182 is dark and brooding, at times very angry and at others incredibly somber. "Violence," with its abra- sive guitars, has Delonge screaming "Like violence, you have me, forev- er and after/Like violence, you kill me." That's not to say that the usual poppy singles aren't still thrown into the mix to add a bit of levity. Opening track "Feeling This" fits right in with the band's former efforts. "Go" is an equally fun song as well. The rest of the album does its best to break the conception of what a blink song is. "I Miss You" and "The Fallen Interlude" experi- ment with samples and drum machines. With more than just the usual guitar/bass/drums combina- tion, the album on the whole feels fuller than previous releases, and much more mature as well. "All of This," perhaps the most moving track on the album, features bitter- sweet vocals from Robert Smith of the Cure. Since when are blink songs moving? It only makes sense that the band is beginning to mature. Now in their 30s and with wives and chil- dren, it was about time. Perhaps because of their past, not in spite of it, the band's latest shines more brightly. Blink 182 is an unexpect- edly strong album from three guys known for adolescent skateboard punk. Hopefully, they'll continue in this direction. ,Music REVIEW **I Paul McCartney intended Let It Be ... Naked to correct a perceived injustice, but this sterile, artificial attempt to clean up musical history can't compare to the original. - Originally a musical film project, "Get Back," Let It Be was recorded dur- ing the death .______..___ throes of the Beat- let it Be les' career. When e d the band was Naked unable to create a The Beatles cohesive product, Capitol John Lennon insisted that producer Phil Spector fin- ish the album. Attempting to dress up lackluster tracks, Spector padded "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road" with syrupy string arrangements and choral backups. Paul McCartney expressed dissatisfaction with the album for years, but only participated in Naked's inception: Remastering was done by three Abbey Road Studios engineers who were instructed to cull a new Let It Be from 32 reels of raw tape. Surprisingly, McCartney was satisfied with this new version and made no changes before its release. Naked features high-fidelity sound, minute edits and a modified tracklist, as well as Fly on the Wall, an inconsequen- tial bonus disc featuring boring, barely- intelligible dialogue and guitar noodling. Now "Get Back" starts the album, and the unadorned "Let It Be" is a somber finale. "Don't Let Me Down," the only unfamiliar material on Naked, compliments the album well, Lennon's harsh vocals communicating desire and fear borne of drug addiction and need. De-Spectorized, "The Long and Wind- ing Road" sounds clear, pretty and sin- cere with Paul, piano, bass and Billy Preston's keyboards. "Let It Be" fea- tures a new guitar solo. The changes made to "Across the Universe" are insignificant; Naked's version evokes the same meditative calm as the others. While Spector left intact snippets of silly dialogue between tracks from the original "Get Back" sessions, they're nowhere to be found on Naked. Without John hollering nonsense phrases, the album loses its twisted feel: the origi- nal's appeal lay in the disjointed produc- tion, the juxtaposition of maudlin strings and piano with wiseass com- ments and casual conversation. "Get Back" loses meaning without John's wry "I hope we passed the audition" farewell. This remark served as a wink from the band, a reassurance that the music would last. Naked is cleaner, a cohesive work that realizes McCartney's back-to- basics concept, but the revamped ver- sion cannot replace the original. If art imitates life, the spite, despair and dis- solution of the Beatles' final year together should be apparent in the album. Let It Be documents the end of the most analyzed, idolized and dissect- ed group in the history of popular music, and shouldn't be disregarded because their lives interfered. Let It Be and its peculiarities are the Beatles'. It doesn't matter who pro- duced or if John plays bass horribly or the choral "aahs" lurking in the back- ground are cheesy. Naked might sate fans' curiosity about "Get Back,"but it's inherently a lie, an altered version of a historic document with all the sad, angry truth polished away. Sanitized and reorganized, the songs lose their original meaning in Naked's context. Let It Be was never a swan song, a planned denouement to the most fascinating musical group of the twenti- eth century - who could plan that end- ing? It's circumstance captured on tape, four people's careers, art and lives col- liding and splintering in all directions. "Get Back" may contain the whole story and Naked the ideal, but Let It Be really happened.