So, I picked up FEVER TO TELL.....

Examples? Errr, no.

True. I do rate the guitar playing, actually. What made you pick it up? Just curious?

The fact that one of them looks like the dad from American Pie?

Which? The music? Or her schtick?

Music-wise, yes...but I do think they have a nice, fresher take on it.

As far as Karen O......gosh, a sexually-assertive hellcat with a screw loose? Who'da thunk up THAT? (Hello, Wendy O Williams, Lydia Lunch, Patti Smith, Katie Jane Garside, etc. etc. etc. etc.)

B-B-But Maps is great!

i read this, and had to laugh. of COURSE there are precendents for what karen's doing. name me an artist right now who isn't derivative in some sense. although i'd argue karen's schtick is less purposefully or consciously schtick-like than her detractors would like to think. and i doubt she's ever heard of katie jane garside.

i'd say the route from Wendy O to karen O is a lot more tangled than, say, from Kurt to Craig Nicholls.

For a start, I wasn't comparing them, I was merely stating that Karen's shtick wasn't exactly entirely original....and anytime you wanna go head to head on Plasmatics appreciation/trivia, you just give me a call.

http://www.plasmatics.com/Olympic.gif

Whether she's heard of her (her being the lead singer for the criminally undersung Daisy Chainsaw) isn't really the point. It's that it's not that wildly original an idea anymore. In fact, it wasn't really that original when Katie was at it either (tho' she did it with far more passion that Karen, I'd suggest).

You're completely spot-on about the Kurt/Craig correlation, by the way.

I didn't say you were comparing them. I just expressed my um, discomfort at seeing both Os so close together. And I have no desire to get into a Plasmatics pissing match. But I'm quite thrilled you offered. (I have an original Bond Theater Plasmatics poster hanging in my room -- like the one you posted, but without the red.) Oh wait, I said no pissing match. Sorry!

POX: PlasMaticS

i don't wanna come across all Dave Spart here, but i just perused the Pitchfork review of Fever (dunno why, the writing there just seems to become more clueless, smug, unfunny and unworthy with every passing day), and the writer basically spewed on for ages about how YYYs THE BAND were great, and dragged down into the mire by karen's frothy onstage antics and overbearing character, and that her best contribution to the album was 'maps', where she displays a vulnerability missing elsewhere in the album (i am paraphrasing *hugely* here, but check the review out and disagree with me...), and it got me thinking.

A lot of the stick Karen gets is in terms of being sexually assertive. this really seems to stick in a lot of peoples' craws; i find it really interesting that this quality of hers is so often focussed upon, and in such a prurient way - and i mentioned, in my Kerrang! feature, the almost-fetishised way NME treats her, a strapline of "Drunk!" or "Oversexed!" never more than a column-inch away. It's weird, in terms of strict contemporaries, Jack White can sing 'ball & biscuit', Julian can invite girls to meet him in the bathroom, Dolf Datsun can get all sweat-drenched and launch hilariously, ludicrously salacious come-ons over tumescent hard-rock, and no-ne seems to flinch. karen gets sexually assertive, and its instantly a matter for fevered debate and whispered or inferred 'tut-tut's...

now i don't wanna get hung up on this; sure, Wendy O did it all before and took it a lot further (though i'd rather listen to Fever To Tell than *****) (and, fuck, is karen any less original or without precedent than her contemporaries? if anything, her sources are more fascinating, her taste better) but karen's doing it now. doesn't anyone else think that Karen's sexual lyricism and performance seems to rile a certain portion of the indie-rock reader/writer/listenership in a sort of hilarious way?

the pitchfork review seemed to crystallise this; criticising O's persona throughout the album until she was willing to play the heartbroken wretch and occupy a trope the critic was obviously more comfortable haviing female popstars sing within... does anyone else see this?? am i the only one???

for what its worth, the extent to how seriously people take O's lyrics is laughable to me; they're obviously personae she works within for each song, and i'm sure that's part of their appeal (again, i wrote about this in the Kerrang! feature). that some critics can't see past the surface details in single specific lyrics, to the big picture they sketch in, seems moronic.

sigh.

actually, that's just cuz i'm a stubborn jerk.

is a perfectly valid way to process shit. If you have 6,778 CDs to listen to, there is nothing sweeter than crossing one off your list. The YYYs, happily, will be fine.

If I may, at the risk of defending them, it seems to me that "Maps" is cited as impressive for some sort of prevailing sincerity, which the critic finds to be in short supply elsewhere. A-gosh, gosh, gosh; maybe I'm just being naive! Maybe, but maybe not. Excess of character? Overbearing? The reviewer seems to recoil from her "excess of character", true; except, after seeing her shtick onstage... I find that I can at least see get where the review is coming from. I don't exactly agree, but the whole point of this is that I think it's a little convenient to blast someone for citing Karen O as "insincere" and calling it repressed gender bias.

If Karen O. threatens the boys and turns things on their heads, so to speak (if that's really what she's doing), more power to her. There's more than enough examples of male rockers excluding girls from the party. A little dose of your own medicine can't hurt.

Now I'm starting to have second thoughts. Close-mic stuff can also carry a weight of real gritty intention. It's been around long enough now, I guess. It's become a stock film-acting technique: the tough guy (or femme fatale) (or whoever) leans in close and whispers an ultimatum.

And KO can get loud!! Lord she doesn't half-shout on half the songs! But what I think she really leverages, and what gets me, are the quavery decays of her voice, the burbly ways it sputters up and out over the song. She's not "delivering" the song she's kind of lobbing it, and it takes a funny hop. In any case, I'm wondering if the "insincere" barbs KO gets are a legacy of "loud and firm" = conviction?

Would you clarify, Jess? Do you mean unfairly expecting an audience to read what's being said sans subtext, as in nothing more than a literal level? 'Cause if so, I'd argue that it takes as much effort in this particular case to find the opposing viewpoint, as well. If not that, then I need a little more to understand what you're trying to get at.

As for "loud and firm = conviction", I think this is indeed an intriguing possible parallel. From just an album-based standpoint, I'd probably be inclined to agree with you, Tracer. I've gotta say that there's something about the live show that really gets to me beyond vocal dynamics. It's not an easy thing to nail down... Most bands rehearse their stage presence, antics, whatever, but I guess I get the feeling that the YYY's practice their "spontaneity". It seems ingenuine (in a very negative way), but it's seriously possible that I'd just rather be fooled by the act.

pitchfork writers in fear of bodies shocker.

that's not what i'm suggesting at all. i'm just questioning the reasoning behind it; like, why don't threads on White Stripes centre around whether Jack White is 'sincere' in his lyrics? and why is Karen instantly considered more 'sincere' when she sings her torch song, but not when she sings, say, 'Y Control' (a pretty fucken cool song about possessive relationships) or 'Man' (the strongest lust-rock on the record)...

what's most laughable is that, because Karen sings from these supposedly opposing places, her 'authenticity' is somehow compromised. why is 'maps' more sincere than the other songs? can Karen only be sincere when exppressing sadness, is not expressing lust and strength and confidence also sincere? and are vulnerability and confidence necessarily such strange bedfellows? one of my favourite things about 'Fever To Tell' is that it contains such contrasts in atmosphere and tone. again, Jack White can write fargile ballads and storming, crotch-inflated rockouts on the same album, and no-one questions his sincerity...

this isn't an argument about Political Correctness, this is about questioning the reasoning behind the strong feelings Karen stirs in audiences and critics. the fact is, she's under a hell of a lot more scrutiny and more severe investigation than her (entirely male) contemporaries, and you'd be a fool not to see that, and maybe wonder why.

The singing is bad, the guitar is bad and there is no bass. And each one of these twerps has way too much attitude backed up by nothing: not shocking originality and certainly not muscles.

My guess is: bratty rich kids?

And that guitarist SUCKS! I can't believe anyone above thought it was good. Anyone can play like that, especially with no bass and no singing to worry about.

Yes, this is what I have heard as well.

Changes "suck" to "act tough" and you've got a sentence that makes sense. That guitarist is reaaaaalllly tiny. Man, he must get have had his ass kicked all the time.

look at this shrimp!
http://www.thebeatsurrender.co.uk/images/news/3.jpg

Changes "suck" to "act tough" and you've got a sentence that makes sense. That guitarist is reaaaaalllly tiny. Man, he must have had his ass kicked all the time.

look at this shrimp!
http://www.thebeatsurrender.co.uk/images/news/3.jpg

ka da te

I can't play guitar like that guy. I loved watching him play live.

ihttp://www.pediatric-orthopedics.com/Topics/Fitness/Muscles/Arm_MusclesSurface_0_102_204.jpg

ihttp://www.pediatric-orthopedics.com/Topics/Fitness/Muscles/Arm_MusclesSurface_0_102_204.jpg

Ha,ha, ha!! This is my new favorite picture! Is that a black albino or what the fuck is that guy and why on earth would anyone choose him for a muscle diagram?

I don't know if that poor muscular freak can play guitar, but that's not really the point of his muscles. The point of muscles like that is that he can look like a tough asshole if he wants to because he clearly is not a fucking break-me-in-half 90 pound weakling. There ARE plenty of scrawny musicians, but not THAT scrawny acting THAT tough. It's just kind of ridiculous. Just put yourself in that position. Are you a total pussy? If so, don't you think people would laugh at you if you started acting all defiantly tough?

Then a few months back I heard Y Control on MTV2 and thought, "Fucking hell that is BRILLIANT". Then I never heard it again and went on my way until The Tears did a "pick your music" thingy on MTV2 and Bernard picked "Maps" which was so fucking amazing I regretted ever turning the channel when I saw Karen O in the past.

I've been listening to the album a fair bit since buying it. Second half is great, first half is patchy - Date with the Night is infuriatingly tuneless, which is a great shame. More like Modern Romance/ Maps and Y Control would be preferable.

Gonna copy this and give it to my gfriend to see what she thinks.

Let's see your girlfriends then. Don't have any, do you?

I'm sorry. This is the last time I'm posting this, I promise.

I got one song and it's not so good.

Er... thanks chaps.

"Hey, I brought this CD, can you put it on?"
"No, I've told you, we don't do that."
"But -"
"No. Here, take this label sampler, it's free."
"Can't you just play 'Maps'?"
"Please don't make me call security."

Next time, just bring an iPod.

I gave you prophecy on my first joint, and ya'll lamed out
Didn't really appreciate it till the second one came out