1 The Michigan Daily- michigandaily.com Tuesday, October 23, 2012 -5 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - 5 DIU IVIMJ11114t "Imma let you finish." t nsu i ngrpr S1 Wift ai You You're ing tr as st to ma bedaz guitar sequin dress, ing to dozen songs same f forced world lions breaki haal ( ting b famou humil So dealin life - huntin rest of being she ha Red the he mente compo sassy Never er" an panyin lanky Red' can't add pop star is growing up. She's now on boyfriend number 321, who nything new to is not only a Kennedy, but is also still in high school. How's that for pOp repetoire maturity? To be fair, Red, in many ways, By EMMA GASE is a step forward. Swift is try- Daily Arts Writer ing, perhaps for the first time, to sincerely and completely depart r early twenties are tough. from her CMA, G-rated, big- asked to deal with tax- haired pop-star-by-the-numbers ials and tribulations such persona. The physical changes truggling are all there: the Instagram itch your album cover, the matte red lip- zled stick, the striped shirts with to yourT4 TayoSwift oxfords. Ted mini Musically, it's there too: The or try- Red songs on Red are a little longer, compose Big Machine a little darker, a little richer lyri- s of love cally. But the funny thing about to the departures is they require abso- four guitar chords. You're lute and genuine commitment. A to wrangle with real- little red lipstick and a duet with issues like selling bajil- Ed Sheeran isn't quite enough to of records and dating and catapult Swift into the musical ng up with Jake Gyllen- elite, but like with the rest of her and never ever, ever get- music, it's fun as hell listening to ack together). Sometimes, the attempt. s rappers call you out and But still, it's definitely saying iate you on live television. something that Swift is one of Taylor Swift may not be the last major pop stars stand- g with hampering tolls of ing who has the guts to produce coming up with rent or job actual hit songs that are (for the ag in this economy like the most part) predicated on gui- 'us - but where amore and tars, bass and drums - a setup. a mega-star is concerned, which is quickly marching into s been through the ringer., archaic territory. , her fourth LP, comes on "State of Grace" capitalizes on els of Swift's highly docu- some heavy arena-rock drums d summer at the Kennedy and reverb-laden riffs. "Sad 'und in Hyannis, Mass. her Beautiful Tragic" is pure college- breakup single "We Are radio lite rock along the lines of Ever Getting Back Togeth- '90s staples the Cranberries and d the hipster-tastic accom- Mazzy Star. "I Knew You Were ig video. America's favorite Trouble" is perhaps the cutest blonde country bubblegum use of dubstep in modern pop (don't question it). For a star with some of the best pop instincts in the biz, unfor- tunately Swift's duds stand out pretty starkly. "The Last Time" is over five minutes long, and limps along lethargically with a mopey orchestra telling you the appropriate sad emoji to resemble while listening. Presumably, the song is supposed to be a serious ballad-slash-duet with a serious male singer (Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol) who awkwardly dominates the song. And as for the country in her music ... there is no more country in her music. There is absolutely no reason, ever, for anyone to classify T-Swift in the country category anymore. She has offi- cially crossed the thin glittered line into non-country territory. A lone banjo in the title track a country record does not make. You have to hand it to her: At this point, Swift certainly isn't lacking in the experience depart- ment. Girl has loved, girl has lost and girl has written a crapload of hit songs about it. But come on now - this is her fourth album spinning the same tired wheel. We get it. Break-ups are hard, relationships can be tangly (espe- cially when it's pouring rain) and it's good to be pissed off some- times. These components work for Taylor Swift; they are her bread and butter, the very foundation upon which her fans worship her. And honestly, would you really change your formula if your album was projected to sell a million copies in its first week? he signi icance o songs at sporting events T he stage is set: Denard rial desks are on opposite sides of - owes much of its efficacy to Robinson just dashed the Daily's newsroom. the music picked by the athletics off for a 40-yard touch- Yet it's still undeniable: Music department. down, and Michigan gives the makes sporting events better. Make no mistake, it works ball back to the opponent with Michigan football was first the other way, too. Let me tell just a few formed in 1879, and it only took you a story from my own ath- minutes left. 17 years for the corresponding letic years - yes, music writers The boys marching band to take the field. can sometimes be athletic too. in blue are "The Victors" is so important a As one of my high school's down a scant piece of music that it even has a lacrosse captains, I led our team couple points; place in the College Football Hall down the hill behind our school a defensive of Fame. to the field. We were excited stop here .£ You could say it's just a and ready for a game under the could swing ELLIOT distraction, that music is aby- lights, when the speakers all the game ALPERN product of downtime between began playing our supposed and put one plays and quarters. But if that's . pump-up music. more "W" on the case, why does the University Normally, the pre-game the board. The air crackles with give out nearly 60 scholarships music was electrifying: Rage excitement. to the marching band alone? Against the Machine, Audio- And then, you hear it - an And why pay licensing fees for slave, assorted hip-hop "I'm electric guitar strum echoes songs by blockbuster artists like king of the world" tracks. This throughout the Big House. Eminem and the White Stripes time, however, someone else Adrenaline pumps through when some stock rock track will had supplied their own warm- veins, fans hop with nervous do just fine? up tape, with decidedly luke- enthusiasm, Eminem's voice warm results. In place of the booms. "Look ... if you had ... one badass "Killing in the Name" shot ... one opportunity..." Pleased n wasGreen Day's "Know Your Outstretched palms bob up UOflL Enemy." Maybe my teammate and down; the stadium appears la had picked by song title alone, as a roiling sea of hands and play T-Swift at or it had some special signifi- arms. The crowd chants along, th cance,"butnone of us felt like something about mom's spa- the next gam * a warrior (a feelinga pump-up ghetti. The players, the fans, the song is prone to inspiring). coaches - everyone is amped, Truth be told, I began to feel and "Lose Yourself" becomes the It all really boils down to a embarrassed. The fact thatwe theme song of sports destiny. fundamental point: People like had picked "Know Your Enemy' In that moment, Eminem has music because it makes them feel as our battle hymn seemed to let done something that the exalted a certain way. And those same our enemy know how lame we Brady Hoke himself couldn't people really like the songs they really were. accomplish. He has convinced know. See, music and sports are the entire Big House that this is So whenever "Seven Nation more than inseparable - the Michigan's "one shot, one oppor- Army" starts thumping with its latter can rarely survive with- tunity," as the Oscar-winning seven-note bassline, it becomes a out the former. Look at the track has at countless games and societal moment, not just enter- majors: Baseball sluggers pick stadiums throughout the coun- tainment. Rows of students jump their own walk-up songs to try. And every time, it's the same to the beat, and the crowd hums put them in the zone. Hockey - this is our time, our chance. along as closely as it can. arenas select their particular Regardless of the outcome, But even then, the music tran- goal tracks (like the Fratellis's the feat is impressive - to instill scends the audience by moving "Chelsea Dagger" for the Chi- such an air of legend and myth through them. The noise, the cago Blackhawks). And no Super to any game, for any team. The commotion, the excitement - all Bowl is ever complete without a relationship between music and of it is tough to ignore, especial- high-profile musician. After all, sports is both special and curi- ly to an intimidated opponent when music can transport you ous. One would be hard-pressed in a foreign place. Arguably, the to a completely different feel- to find another arena in which crowd becomes the twelfth man ing, why not assume yourself as the arts tangle with athletics: on the field, fully affecting the champion? Painting rarely goes hand-in- outcome of the play. One could hand with exercise, nor do even make the case that home Alpern feels like a champion filmmaking, theater or creative field advantage - typically con- To bring him down to earth writing. Even the arts and edito- sidered having one's own fans e-mail ealpern@umich.edu S n l , ,t , . n. n, . Titus Andronicus remains Kendrick's new classic excellently disillusioned By JOHN LYNCH Daily Arts Writer Among the hip-hop commu- nity, it's practically blasphemous to describe any post-millennium hip-hop album as "classic." ***** Any ' rap fan born before Kendrick Bill Clinton's Lamar presidency will be quick to shit good kid, on the slightest m.A.A.d city inclination that a classic album Interscope/ could exist out- Aftermath side of the '90s Golden Era that produced All Eyez OnMe,Ready ToDieand The Chronic. These hip-hop heads say that rappers today lack the con- viction and commitment to make a classic LP and record labels - with their artistically crippling profit motives - won't get out of a rapper's way to create such a body of work. It's very clear, however, that Compton rapper Kendrick Lamar set out to annihilate these theo- ries with his major label debut, good kid, m.A.A.d city. Kendrick's debut is a cohesive, sonically innovative - and, yes - classic rap album that parallels Nas's 1994 masterpiece, Illmatic, in lyrical vision. Both albums are devastatingly detailel represen- tations of the ghetto microcosms these rappers hail from. Where- as Illmatic was an enthralling 39-minute boom-bap excursion through Nas's Queensbridge, New York, GKMC is more of a fea- ture-length, Boyz-N-The-Hood style, audio film study of Comp- ton, Calif. - filled with skits that follow a storyline of Ken- drick's family problems, shady sexual encounters and firsthand accounts of brutal gun fatalities. One of the two title tracks, "m.A.A.d city" - m.A.A.d being an acronym for "My Angels on - Angel Dust" that defines Kend- rick's reserved love for his city's drug-fueled inhabitants - is a shocking account of gang vio- lence that first takes place over a menacing trap beat and switches halfway through to a power- ful wave of orchestration and INTERSCOPE/AFTERMATH 1 l G-Funk synths. In the first half, that further proclaim his domi- Kendrick details the street bat- nance. ties of Compton - where there's a What really separates Kend- war zone like "Pakistan on every rick from the rest of today's rap porch" - and in the second half, artists is his 2Pac-esque ability he explains why he doesn't smoke to seamlessly mix heavy subject weed (his first blunt was laced matter with more laid-back and with cocaine and had him trip- accessible tracks over the course ping for a week) and calls himself of an album. "Poetic Justice," a "Compton's human sacrifice." song featuring rapper Drake and a soulful Janet Jackson sample, recalls the sex-driven jubilance 2Paci inof Pac's "I Get Around" and is a sure-fire hit. "Money Trees," back H is new which samples indie band Beach House, and "Bitch, Don't Kill name is Lamar. My Vibe" are chill-rap at its nLfinest, and the closing track, "Compton," is Kendrick's mod- ern, hard-hitting take on "Cali- With "The Art of Peer fornia Love." Pressure," a vividly painted At a summer concert in 2011, first-person tale of a risky break- Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg cer- ing-and-entering job with his emoniously passed the torch to homies, Kendrick has crafted Kendrick Lamar and crowned one of the best storytelling rap him the new king of West Coast songs of the past few years. On hip hop in front of his hometown the vicious "Backseat Freestyle," L.A. crowd. Though Kendrick Kendrick spits like he's trying only stands a miniscule 5-foot-6, to convince every set of ears in this heavy crown seems to fithim America he's the greatest rapper perfectly. alive, producing emphatic lines good kid, m.A.A.d city is indeed like "All my life I want money a classic, and it will undoubtedly and power / Respect my mind or go down in history as one of rap's die from lead shower" and con- greatest debut albums. It looks cludingthe song in a remarkable, like this generation has finally frenzied flow of shouted lyrics found its 2Pac. By ANDREW ECKHOUS Daily Arts Writer Nihilism can be so liberating! Just ask Patrick Stickles, the lead singer/shouter of Titus Androni- cus. Local Busi- ness,the group's **** upcoming third album, embrac- Titus es the unceas- AndroniCus ing absurdity of the universe, Local Business and adds to the already brilliant catalog of Titus Andronicus' paradoxically opti- mistic music., After three years of EPs and smaller releases, Titus Androni- cus fought its way out of Glen Rock, New Jersey and onto the national scene in 2005, with its debut LP, The Airing of Grievanc- es. The group's seething anger has yet to subside. Titus uses a punk- infused blend of rock to battle fate and the randomness of the universe, cursing what the world hath wrought, rain or shine, 24 hours a day. What else would you expect from a band named after Shakespeare's most violent and vengeance-filled play? Like a shark risking death if it stops swimming, Titus Androni- cus's very existence is predicated on the venomous disillusionment and optimistic nihilism of Stick- les, the only original member remaining. His backers have come and gone often over the past seven years, leaving Stickles as the face, brain and heart behind every- thing Titus Andronicus does. Luckily for listeners, Stickles feels sufficiently wronged by the world to continue fightingthe good fight and making great music. It'sdifficulttojudgeLocalBusi- ness on its own. Titus Androni- XL So this is what Metal Frat looks like. dus's f Grieva energy storyte more Andro a conc Ameri for, yot lusionr album fear, g to figh mount graced lists as LocalB ai "Ec album I thin lished worth in the object sound tion fr irst album, The Airing of tions, allowing him to excel for nces overflowed with raw the rest of the album. and Springsteen-esque The lyrics on this album are tlling, albeit with a few just as good, if not better, than snarls. The Monitor, Titus anything Titus Andronicus has nicus's magnum opus, was done before. "In a Big City," the ept album that used the first single released to the pub- can Civil War as a metaphor lic, tells the story of life in a city u guessed it, Stickles's disil- that just doesn't care about you. ment. Critics lauded the Lines like "Male or female, beg- for its sincere lyrics about gars still the only ones calling rowing old and the resolve me mister" and "From Jersey I t back in the face of insur- come, but I pump my own gas / able odds. Both albums I'm a dirty bum but I wipe my reputable best-of-the-year own ass" give listeners a direct nd inflated expectations for connection to Stickles' thoughts Business. and make the album an inti- mate experience. Others, like the magnificently titled "Titus Let's all be Andronicus Vs. The Absurd Universe (3rd Round KO)," are ngsty today simple and visceral. In that song, Stickles yells, "I'm going insanet" over meaty punk riffs for two minutes straight. ce Homo" contains the Overall, Local Business is 's thesis statement: "Okay more straightforward than k that now we've estab- Titus Andronicus's previous two everything is inherently albums. Stickles decided to ditch less / And there's nothing the concept album format and universe with any kind of return to the roots of punk: play- ive purpose." While it may ing loud guitars and cursing the depressing, this realiza- universe until he's too drunk to ees Stickles from expecta- walk.