My Morning Jacket, Evil Urges

Let’s talk a little about a music phenomenon I like to call The Gear Change. It’s when a band gets tired of the sound that made them famous, and branches off into new musical territory in an effort to stay fresh. The Beatles did it. U2 did it. Radiohead, Wilco… and now, with their new album Evil Urges, My Morning Jacket’s done it too. The Gear Change can result in some inspired material (Sgt. Pepper’s, Achtung Baby), to be sure. But more often than not, it results in a strained, unfocused album that’s more interested in being different from previous albums than in being good. Unfortunately, that description pretty much sums up Evil Urges, My Morning Jacket’s weakest studio album to date.

MMJ carved out a niche for themselves on indie albums The Tennessee Fire and At Dawn with their spacey folk-rock jams, culminating in their epic major label debut (and best album so far), 2003’s It Still Moves. Their last album, Z, showed signs that a Gear Change was in the making—but there, the genre-hopping was more or less integrated into the classic MMJ sound. On Evil Urges, that sound only makes an occasional appearance among all the odd funk and pop experimentation. And for us fans, it makes for a frustrating listening experience.

The opening title track might be okay—if lead singer Jim James didn’t insist on singing it in a grating falsetto. His fragile, otherworldly voice is what lifts most MMJ songs into the stratosphere. But here, that voice is mangled, and the song suffers for it. We do get a welcome dose of vintage MMJ next: “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 1″ continues the Z sound with an almost sexy bassline, and the pure stadium rock of “I’m Amazed” ranks with the band’s best. But sandwiched between those two is a genuine turd: “Highly Suspicious,” a half-baked funk jam packed with even more falsetto and a wildly annoying grunted chorus. If this were the first My Morning Jacket song I ever heard, it would also be the last.

The album takes a strange turn in the middle, into a MOR/adult contemporary/VH1 vein. “Thank You Too!” and “Sec Walkin” are pleasant enough, I guess, but the synthesizers and high-pitched harmonies just give me bad Bee Gees flashbacks. It’s as if the band knew the other tracks were too weird, and they tried to overcompensate with some crowd pleasers. But they end up sounding more like dusty ’70s AM radio staples than the MMJ we know and love.

Evil Urges does find some kind of familiar footing later on. “Librarian” is a nice quiet interlude with heavy drums and delicate strings, and the squealing guitars on “Aluminum Park” recall the shaggy rockers of albums past. The low-key “Look at You” and “Smokin’ From Shootin’” thankfully fit into the classic MMJ mold. But the 8-minute “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream Pt. 2″ meanders to the point of exhaustion. And as a whole, this album lacks any kind of cohesion; it sounds like two or three totally different bands jumbled together. (Plus, did they really need to tack on the pointless 5-second sound collage “Good Intentions” at album’s end? That’s just irritating. Guys, you’re not the Beatles. So don’t try.)

I understand bands don’t want to stand still and release variations on the same album every two years. And My Morning Jacket showed on Z that they’re capable of enriching their sound by expanding it. But with Evil Urges, they just go too far off the deep end. The good news is, bands that make The Gear Change and flop with it (i.e., most of them) usually come back with a great back-to-basics album next time out. (Two of my favorites from last year, Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky and Radiohead’s In Rainbows, fit into that category.) So if form holds, we can expect a nice comeback album from MMJ in 2010 or so. I’m already looking forward to it.

Evil Urges is out now on ATO Records; it gets a 4.

Recommended If You Like: Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief; Wilco’s A Ghost is Born; other crap music by great bands

Stop the Madness

Yep, you guessed it: It’s time for another session of Let’s Make Fun of an ’80s Video Cuz I’m Bored. Not sure if you’ve seen this one before, but they ran clips of it in the great VH1 documentary series The Drug Years (check it out if you get the chance; highly recommended). This is a White House-sponsored PSA aimed at stopping the rampant drug epidemic of the 1980s—and like all anti-drug propaganda of that time, it’s both highly realistic and highly effective. Nah, I’m just kidding—it sucks royally.

Some thoughts:

* Well, no wonder they were so worried about drugs back then. Apparently people were doing entire mountain ranges of coke.

* Good to see they’re taking on the menace of alcohol. I feel better knowing that that’s illegal like all the other drugs… wait…

* A major coup to get jazz trumpeter Herb Alpert on board for this. Because the kids of the ’80s sure loved them some jazz trumpet. (Plus, it’s not like any jazz musicians ever did drugs…)

* Okay, say what you want about drugs, but that monkey looks like he’s having a pretty good time to me. Just saying.

* I’m really not understanding some of the quick cuts here: An X-ray of a skull? A beating heart? Like, if you do too many drugs, your heart’s going to beat its way out of your chest? Please—I’ve only seen that happen once. And the guy was totally fine the next day.

* Wait, check out the family scene around 1:18: Is that grandma on the couch huffing helium out of a balloon? Not you, Granny! Drugs really have gotten out of control, you guys…

* Thank you, New Edition, for your smooth rhymes—and for your exemplary DTMs (Dirty Teenage Mustaches). Unfortunately, Bobby Brown couldn’t make it, as he had a prior commitment to do drugs.

* No idea who this white guy is… one of The News? (You know, Huey Lewis’s band?) Seriously, who the fuck is this guy? Was Oates not available?

* Wow, Whitney! She looks so young, so pure, so… un-crackified. That’s the best anti-drug message of this whole video. Just show Whitney here, and then Whitney from the “crack is whack” era. That would scare anybody straight.

* Fine, LaToya—I’ll quit drugs… just as soon as you quit those headbands.

* Alright, I gotta say, if your drug habit has progressed to the point that you have a skeezy old man living in your closet for the express purpose of selling you drugs—you may have a problem. Can’t argue with the convenience factor, though.

* THE HOFF. That man’s chest hair alone could win the War on Drugs.

* Also, don’t smoke drugs, or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will hit you in the head with a basketball.

* What the hell is going on in this kitchen? I don’t know what kind of drugs make you see pink and blue toast and Stacy Keach in the freezer, but I’d recommend quitting those immediately.

* Look out for Toni Basil. She’s karate-chopping the hell out of those drugs.

* Wait, Tootie wants me to stop the madness? *The* Tootie? Then consider the madness stopped. (Fun additional viewing: The Facts of Life episode where Tootie thinks bongs are for storing jellybeans. Also starring a young Helen Hunt as an evil drug pusher!)

* Is the song supposed to be a representation of what music sounds like when you’re on drugs? If so, I vow to never touch a drug as long as I live.

* Gerald “Major Dad” McRaney? Casey Kasem? Wow, they really pulled out the big guns for this one. You would think with all the money the Reagan administration sunk into the War on Drugs, they could shell out for some better celebs.

* Arnold! He’s so delighted to be a garbageman. With a hard hat on…? Maybe he’s waiting for those kids to leave so he can root through the trash and salvage their drugs. Yep, that’s my governor! (Sorry—I need to remind myself of that every time I see him mowing people down with a rocket launcher on cable.)

* I understand that this is like shooting fish in a barrel, but just so we’re clear: Bobby Brown did drugs. Whitney did drugs. Hasselhoff’s an alcoholic. Kareem did drugs. Lyle Alzado (the huge shirtless guy yelling at us from the pool) DIED of drugs. Even Arnold toked up during his bodybuilding days. And those are just the ones that are public knowledge. I’m not saying this video is full of shit, but… well, yeah, I guess I am.

* Remember, kids: If you do drugs, you won’t be able to participate in any spontaneous dance numbers in the city streets. Something to think about.

* Ohmigod you guys, even the Goodyear Blimp agrees! How can you argue with the Goodyear Blimp? You can’t. It’s unpossible.

* Tim Feehan? That’s who that white guy at the beginning was? Who the FUCK is Tim Feehan? I’m sorry, but if you want a nation of kids to stay away from drugs, you’re gonna have to do better than Tim fucking Feehan. No wonder we still have a drug problem in this country. Thanks a lot, Feehan.

Mad Men

I don’t watch too many TV dramas—mostly because I’m not into the typical lawyer/doctor/cop show that every network insists on filling their schedules with. See, the networks are scared shitless of trying anything that doesn’t fit into their pre-established, consumer-tested parameters, so we get stuck with CSI: Toledo and Law & Order: Creepy Fetish Unit. If AMC’s Mad Men had made it onto a network, you can bet it would’ve been a lot safer, a lot dumber… and probably would’ve been canceled after two episodes. Luckily for us, AMC took the plunge—and gave us one of the richest, most thought-provoking, hands-down best shows on any network.

Mad Men is the creation of Sopranos writer Matthew Weiner; he first took the pilot script to HBO executives… who promptly rejected it. After Showtime passed as well, Mad Men finally landed at AMC—and honestly, you can kinda understand why this show was a tough sell. It’s not exactly fast-paced, and the writers don’t spell everything out for you; it’s the kind of show that requires your full attention, and rewards your patience. I’ll admit, three or four episodes into the first season, I didn’t understand what all the hype was about. But by the season finale, I was hooked.

The story: High-powered ad exec Don Draper (Jon Hamm) presides over his 1960s Madison Avenue agency like a rock star; he drinks three martinis at lunch, smokes like a chimney, and juggles a virtual harem of mistresses. But he’s keeping a deeply buried secret that could destroy everything he’s built for himself. Meanwhile, Don’s family life, with wife Betty (January Jones) and kids, looks picture-perfect from the outside, but hides its own sinister dysfunctions beneath the surface.

That’s enough plot for at least one show, right? But that’s just scratching the surface of Mad Men. There’s Don’s boss Roger Sterling (John Slattery), who’s learning that all his years of drinking and carousing may be catching up on him. There’s weaselly ad exec Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), who’s looking to climb the corporate ladder by any means necessary. There’s Don’s secretary Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), who’s struggling to find her place in a male-driven workplace after being promoted to copywriter. There’s… well, there’s a lot. This show’s as dense as an 800-page Russian novel, employing the kind of dramatic storytelling that only television can attempt: the slow unfolding and overlapping of multiple plotlines over weeks, months, years. And Mad Men takes full advantage of that.

Visually, the show is a treat as well; it’s steeped in stunning early-’60s period detail, from the fashions (fedoras for the men, bullet bras for the ladies) to the “technology” (a Xerox machine the size of a battleship) to the morals and customs of the time. Part of the show’s humor is a modern-day winking at our “innocent”/ignorant past; we get to have a good laugh at pregnant mothers smoking while their kids play unsupervised outside. But it’s more than just a quaint setting: Weiner and his writers use the time frame to examine how far we’ve come in the past 45 years—and how far we still have to go. And as the show progresses, we can see glimpses of the late-’60s cultural revolution on the horizon. It’s a fascinating bit of dramatic irony, as we know how radically these characters’ lives will change over the next decade—but they don’t.

All that being said, the show’s second season (which began July 27) has been a little slow out of the gate. Plot threads from last season have been pushed aside, along with a lot of the best relationships (Pete and Peggy, Don and Roger), and there’s no overarching mystery like last season’s compelling “who is Don Draper?” plotline to keep us guessing. But it did take the first season a while to find its footing, so I’m gonna reserve judgment until we get a little further in. Overall, Mad Men is really a monumental achievement in television—and one that has me ready to give TV dramas another try.

Mad Men airs Sunday nights on AMC. The first season merits a 9; grab the DVDs if you need to catch up. For now, the second season’s an incomplete 6; check out Television without Pity for plenty of post-ep discussion. And for all you Mad Men junkies, this behind-the-scenes piece in The New York Times Magazine offers some great insight into the show’s creative process.

Pineapple Express

After last summer’s Knocked Up and Superbad, Seth Rogen can pretty much write his own ticket in Hollywood… which is good, because there’s no other way I can see a movie like Pineapple Express getting made. It ushers in an entirely new film genre—the stoner action-comedy—and takes each aspect of that genre seriously, delivering big tokes, big explosions, and big laughs. This weird mishmash of film styles could’ve been an outright disaster, but Rogen and company surprisingly pull it all together for one of the funniest movies of the year.

Now you may have seen Pineapple Express categorized as a mere “stoner” movie, but that’s not really fair. It’s about stoners, sure, but it’s not like they’re asking you to giggle while staring at a blank wall; there’s plenty here for the non-chemically-enhanced to latch onto. The plot, in which pothead process server Dale (Rogen) accidentally witnesses a murder and goes on the run with his space-cadet weed dealer Saul (James Franco), instantly recalls the Coens classic The Big Lebowski, with stoned protagonists bumbling through a vast criminal conspiracy way beyond their comprehension. But Edgar Wright’s great zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead also comes into play here; like the heroes of that film, Dale and Saul can’t believe they’re actually in the kind of peril they’ve only seen in movies—and they’re kinda stoked to give it a try.

Rogen’s deadpan humor is as sharp here as ever; sure, he basically plays the same guy in every movie he’s in, but what’s wrong with that? He’s like the chunky Jewish version of Clooney; he’s happy doing variations on his sarcastic slacker Everyman thing, and we’re happy to watch. And pretty boy Franco is revelatory as Saul. He showed flashes of comedy on that great lost TV gem Freaks and Geeks (co-starring with Rogen, actually)—but nothing he’s done since then could prepare you for Saul’s zonked-out philosophical ramblings and sweetly naïve nature. Here’s hoping he finds time for more comedy in between all the Spider-Man sequels.

Rogen and Franco’s chemistry keeps the movie chugging along, with an at-times-uncomfortably-close bromance lifted directly from Superbad. (You have to think Rogen and writing partner Evan Goldberg sleep in the same bed together or something; it’s the only possible explanation.) They even take the usually latent homoeroticism of buddy action movies to explicit extremes; a tied-up Saul’s escape attempt with the help of Dale’s belt buckle is the funniest man-on-man scene since the nude wrestling match in Borat.

The plot does get a little clunky at times, like it’s not sure whether it’s mocking action movies or actually trying to be one. The great Gary Cole is wasted as malevolent drug kingpin Ted Jones; his expository scenes with corrupt cop Rosie Perez, complete with bad ’80s synthesizer music, aren’t bad enough to qualify as parody, and aren’t good enough to merit watching. And Dale’s scenes with his 18-year-old girlfriend (Amber Heard) only make you wonder why a beautiful young girl like that would put up with a lazy stoner boyfriend who looks like Seth Rogen.

But even when Pineapple Express devolves into an overly violent guns-and-’splosions action flick in the last act, the script’s humor always circles back to let us know the filmmakers are in on the joke. (Witness Dale’s triumphant rescue of Saul in the pic above—sans pants.) Co-star Danny McBride is a saving grace as Saul’s hapless friend Red; his scenes are some of the film’s most gruesome, but he just wanders through it all obliviously, taking the edge off all the bloodshed.

Indie director David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls) seems an odd choice to handle this material, but he gives the film a nice gritty ’70s-exploitation look, and grounds the off-the-wall violence in everyday reality. That’s basically what this boils down to: a crazy action movie starring guys who shouldn’t be anywhere near an action movie. And despite a few stumbles, it works. I can definitely see Pineapple Express blossoming into a cult classic a few years down the road—even for people who don’t have the munchies.

Pineapple Express is in theaters now; it gets an 8.

The Dark Knight (a dissenting opinion)

The Dark Knight stormed into theaters with an avalanche of hype, rapturous critical praise, and the biggest box office opening in history. Critics love it, moviegoers love it, children and small animals love it—everyone loves it. Except me. I feel like I’m either crazy or the only sane one left, but to me, The Dark Knight was grim, confusing, and just not very good.

I did enjoy Christopher Nolan’s first crack at Batman, 2005’s Batman Begins, and the new verité spin he gave to the franchise. And believe me, I’m not asking for a return to the cheesy/campy comic-book sheen of the Joel Schumacher iterations. (How Clooney survived that with his reputation unscathed is one of our greatest mysteries.) But would it kill Nolan and company to inject a little human feeling into this hulking warship? This movie’s like The Terminator: violent, unrelenting, devoid of emotion. I didn’t feel entertained; I felt mowed down.

The Dark Knight finds Batman (Christian Bale) still patrolling the crime-ridden streets of Gotham City, now with the help of heroic district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). But psychotic criminal The Joker (Heath Ledger) is hard at work bringing a new wave of terror to Gotham. I’d like to explain further, but I actually don’t have a real good idea what happens from there. There’s a Hong Kong crime lord, a few mob bosses, corrupt cops, fake deaths, double-reversals… the movie piles on so much plot that it doesn’t even seem to care whether we’re following along or not. And all the twists don’t add up to anything; they’re just meant to keep us busy until the next action scene.

Granted, the opening bank robbery is unnervingly tense, and I appreciate how Nolan brings the real consequences of violence to a genre that typically glosses over such things. When someone dies in this movie, it’s not exciting; it’s nauseating. But at the same time, there’s no joy here at all, or hope, or any sense of wonder. It’s all just a dank slog from one numbingly violent set piece to another. I understand Batman’s not supposed to be a laugh riot, but I need some humanity, something to identify with, something to hold onto. There’s nothing like that here.

One aspect of the movie that works, though, is Ledger’s performance as The Joker. His untimely death brought with it an ungodly amount of buzz about his performance, and I was a little afraid I’d be disappointed. I wasn’t. Ledger is fully committed to exploring the rancid depths of The Joker’s psychosis, and he brings a much-needed dose of humor to the film. His sociopathic glee in inflicting pain and spreading chaos just for the hell of it recalls Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh in last year’s No Country for Old Men—and if there’s any justice, he’ll be joining him as an Oscar winner next year.

The rest of the cast is more hit-and-miss. Eckhart’s been delivering solid performances for a decade now, and his Harvey Dent at least lends some semblance of humanity to the proceedings. Bale brings the required gravitas to Bruce Wayne, but he has this ridiculous fake-gravelly voice when he’s in the Batsuit that makes it hard to take anything he’s saying seriously. Maggie Gyllenhaal replacing Katie Holmes is definitely an acting upgrade, but her Rachel Dawes isn’t given much to do here besides look depressed—like everyone else in this movie.

And the self-seriousness extends to the script as well. Nolan wrote the screenplay with his brother Jonathan, and they seem to want to infuse all this with a higher purpose. But they can’t decide on a theme, so they throw a new one at us every ten minutes, hoping we’ll mistake all the pontificating for “depth.” They even sprinkle in some gratuitous mentions of “terrorists” to tie Gotham to our country’s current predicaments. (Side note: I’m not sure what it says about the collective mood of our country that such a dark, hopeless movie is a runaway hit—but it’s not good.) It’s all just a muddle of half-baked ideas and undeveloped characterization—and then something else explodes.

The Dark Knight is certainly technically impressive; the $185 million budget is all up there on the screen. But I can’t help thinking that all the hype and the ensuing ticket-buying frenzy has blinded everyone into thinking this is The Best Movie Evah. (And I’m not exaggerating. It’s actually the top-ranked film of all time right now on IMDb. Of all time, people.) Maybe after some time and distance, others will start to see the flaws that I see. Maybe not. But I’m just not onboard.

The Dark Knight is in theaters now; I give it a 3.5.

SYTYCD: The final four

Yes, the finale of Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance is upon us, and only four dancers remain. So now’s as good a time as any to break down the finalists’ chances, and relive some of this season’s best moments.

Let’s start from the bottom, with Courtney. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a sweetheart—and might I add, the show’s resident hottie. (Guys, three words: Knicks. City. Dancer.) She’s definitely given every dance her all, and shown herself to be quite versatile. But her contemporary solos always feel a little watered-down and generic. She’s good at everything, but not really great at anything. But I’m glad she made it all the way to the finale—if only for the eye-candy factor.

Highlight: Her rhumba with Gev. Mostly for the dress.

Now we come to Katee. She pissed a lot of people off (including my wife) when she almost quit before making the Top 20. But she really grew on me over the course of the season; her technique is flawless, and she has a great vulnerability to her. She’s my favorite girl this season—but again, her solos are a little bland, and aren’t in the same league with some of the others. Still, glad you stuck around, Katee.

Highlight: I’m saving her real highlight for later, but this contemporary piece with Twitch was a lot of fun.

Alright, now we get to the good stuff: TWITCH. This guy’s hip-hop solos are hands down the best I’ve seen on four seasons of this show. He’s creative, he’s fun—he’s just pure entertainment. Yeah, he’s not the best at ballroom; who cares? Like he’s gonna do ballroom ever again. He’s the best at what he does, and that’s good enough for me. Keep doing what you’re doing, man.

Highlight: His solos are always great, but this hip-hop routine with Comfort really brought the best out in both of them.

And my winner? Joshua. He doesn’t look like your typical dancer; the guy is built like a goddamn linebacker. But not only is he amazing at his own style of hip-hop/popping, but he’s kicked ass at everything the show’s thrown at him. Contemporary, ballroom, Latin—he and Katee made the paso doble watchable this week, for God’s sake. And the guy’s had zero classical training, so he’s really come a long way. He’s my favorite—and the only one I actually pick up the phone to vote for.

Highlight: So many, but his and Katee’s hip-hop routine to “No Air” is easily the best dance of the season. Crisp movement, artistry, emotion—this is what this show is all about.

Special thanks to “kelxk3l” for uploading all these dances onto YouTube; click the link to check out all this season’s dances (in high quality!). And we’ll see what happens on Wednesday/Thursday…