ATTN: Pharrell

I would really appreciate it if you didn’t release any more songs where you yell “Niggas and Bitches!” at the beginning. I know the song in question (“When the Last Time”) came out in 2002, but I just want to make sure that you don’t do it again. See, I like Clipse a lot, but I don’t think either of those two categories applies to me, and it makes me feel uncomfortable when I sit at red lights blasting music addressed to somebody else. At the beginning of “Izzo,” some guy in the background says “Ladies and Gentlemen,” and I feel like you’d have a much better chance of including everyone if you said something like that instead.
Thanks,
-Swim Through Frequencies

Girl Rock Can Save the World #1

The two men behind Jason and me in line were of the opinion that, “when I got older,” I would learn how bad Grizzly Bear was. In time, I would grow to understand what they already understood, that Grizzly Bear and bands like Grizzly Bear sucked it hard, and that the only music really worth a damn came from Britain. (This last part was inferred.)

These two gentlemen, in their late twenties or early thirties, had seen Jarvis [Cocker] (who has Madonna’d himself for some reason) and were disappointed by the opening band, The Dirty Projectors, whose songs “didn’t make any sense.” “They’re like Sigur Rós’ retarded cousin,” one of them said. I would have pointed out the irony in the fact that they were telling me what I wasn’t going to like in ten years while they were still going to shows of a guy whose band had its heyday ten years ago, but there was one common bond between the four of us that transcended any generation gap we may have encountered:

We were all waiting for autographs from The Pipettes.

In what I hope will be an ongoing series of posts, “Girl Rock Can Save the World” will explore various bands, songs, specific girls, etc., in hopes of unifying each and every person under the banner of catchy, intelligent, girl-fronted music.

A friend of mine from school, one of the more metal kids I know, has a tendency to call a lot of things “gay” or “fucking stupid.” Things that fall in to these categories for him could be dear friends of his, Modest Mouse, the movie Volver… pretty much anything. However, in what must be some of his weaker moments, he has been known to voice his love for The Cardigans’ “Lovefool.”

A great Girl Rock song can bring together even the most diverse people. Think about everyone you know who loved “Since U Been Gone.” If you’re like me, that list probably literally encompasses everyone you know. The free Pipettes in-store performance and signing brought together frumpy, middle-aged dudes, dads with their ten-year-old daughters, twenty-something couples, and three kids who leaned against the wall looking cool the entire time, one of whom was wearing an Anti-Flag t-shirt.

Sights like that give me hope. Hope that everyone’s respective differences can be put aside for some good, old-fashioned pop music. And, when I say pop music, I don’t necessarily mean Billboard Hot 100-worthy stuff, even though some of it can be really awesome. Lord knows The Pipettes will never see a Number 1 hit on the Billboard charts (unless the world becomes a much better place than it is right now). I just mean a group of girls (and guys, if they want to come along for the ride,) who put their voices together to make the world a better place.

So I’m calling upon you, The Pipettes, Girls Aloud, Lucky Soul, Vanessa Carlton, Natasha Bedingfield, Hello Saferide, Kelly Clarkson. You are music’s freewill ambassadors to the world. You must go forth, bringing Outkast and Gnarls Barkley with you, to spread your message of peace, love, and sexyfuntimes to a human race that desperately needs some sexyfuntimes.

ATTN: 50 Cent & Cam'ron

vs.

Listen. Both of you guys have made a pretty good showing so far. 50, I give you props for not mentioning your cock once in “Funeral Music,” and it ending up a pretty decent diss track, even though you look silly waving so many guns in the video. Cam, you get points because everything you’ve aimed at 50 so far has been fucking hilarious. So, this could turn in to a long-running hip-hop feud (which would be awesome) but I just gotta warn you guys about something.

Both your crews suck. Tony Yayo? Jim Jones? Come on. Plus, there’s like four guys in G-Unit now. They keep trying to back you up, but they just sorta end up making you sound silly. Yeah, every once in a while Juelz says something pretty great and I enjoy Young Buck despite myself, but they really do more harm than good.

So here’s how I will settle this feud: Rappers are notorious for having really silly names in real life, to the point where I can’t blame them for renaming themselves stupid shit. So right here, right now, Swim Through Frequencies settles the Diplomats vs. G-Unit Feud, declaring which ever group’s rappers have sillier names the winner.

For starters, we have “Curtis James Jackson, III” and “Cameron Giles.” This one’s easy. Hell, Cam’s name is actually pretty cool.
Winner: 50 Cent

Alright, now we have “Christopher Charles Lloyd” vs. “Joseph Guillermo Jones, II.” Slightly tougher, but Lloyd Banks’ has to take this one. Plus, I give Lloyd points for having the balls to take arguably the geekiest of his three named and make it his hip-hop moniker.
Winner: Lloyd Banks

Moving on, we go to “Marvin Bernard” and “LaRon Louis James.” Jesus H. Christ, who is naming these G-Unit cats, the British aristocracy? I know Cam picked on Curtis already, but you could write an awesome diss track about “Marvin,” if Tony Yayo was even worth dissing.
Winner: Tony Yayo

Last but not least, we have “David Darnell Brown” and… hell, I have never heard of any of the rest of The Diplomats, even though there are like a million of them. Cheating slightly, I’ll pick Freekey Zekey, cause even his rap name is retarded. Sure enough, we get “Ezekiel Jiles” which is pretty lame, I guess. His next album’s called The Book of Ezekiel, though, which is kinda sweet. Plus, there’s something about “Darnell”…
Winner: Young Buck

So there you go! A clean sweep by G-Unit over The Diplomats! Who’da thunk it? Swim Through Frequencies would like to thank all of the participants today, and would like to remind both teams that we’re all winners, when you think about it.

Album of the Month: May 2007

The National - Boxer

There are a lot of weird and crazy bands out there, making weird noises on their crazy instruments. A lot of them are really good, and their output serves as a reminder that, no matter what you might hear on the radio, not all music sounds exactly the same.

The downside to these bands is that a lot of times their music sounds like they threw every instrument, vocal effect, friend, neighbor, pet, and/or article of clothing at the microphone just to see what would make noise. This often results in something like Avey Tare and Kria Brekkan’s woefully misguided Pullhair Rubeye, which, for those of you who don’t know, is a normal album that they then recorded backward for some reason, and released it that way.

It’s albums like that that make me, teenage American white kid that I am, long for a non-sucking rock album just to put all those “weirdos” in their place. When The Fiery Furnaces put out Rehearsing My Choir, The Hold Steady was there to kick them straight in the nads. This year it’s The National’s new album Boxer, reminding me why Joan Jett wrote that song that everybody covered.

But it’s unfair to call Boxer ‘rock n’ roll’ and leave it at that. Rock music gets a deservedly bad rap (which is different from bad rap music, which also exists) because there are very few rock bands out there that are doing anything different. Even worse than that, bands that everyone thought (or at least hoped) died 20 years ago are making comeback albums and touring and getting Rolling Stone to fellate them, causing mainstream rock music to all sound exactly the same.

Lyrics are often a problem, with bands like Green Day suddenly attempting to sound intelligent and informed after a decade of founding their career in gleeful stupidity. Rock bands often sound dumb, boring, or bored.

So, let’s just turn this right around then and look at why we here at Swim Through Frequencies love Boxer. Well, for one thing, Matt Berninger’s lyrics are fantastic. His characters revel in melancholy, trying to walk the line between white-collar businesspeople, soldiers, and slackers without being able to find a happy medium. Some of the best lines sound like he gave up halfway through, reflecting the mood of the character. Lines like “Sometimes you get up and bake a cake or something, sometimes you just lay in bed” from “Racing Like a Pro” is balanced tragically with the chorus’ “One time you were a glowing young ruffian. Oh my God it was a million years ago.” Even these revelations sound like characters realizing them are lying on their couch, unable to escape.

It is almost impossible to avoid cliché when discussing “love” in music, as sad as that is. Berninger manages to do it, however, with a few stellar lyrics on the subject. In “Slow Show,” the narrator is stuck at a party (given the rest of the album, I assume a business party) when all he wants to do is go home to his girl. The narrator’s desire to “hurry home to you, put on a slow, dumb show for you and crack you up” coupled with the bridge, “You know I dreamed about you for 29 years before I met you” is heart-wrenching as a plea for a lover to stay, an emotion that is rarely conveyed anymore in music.

To focus too much on Berninger, though he deserves every second of it, detracts from how truly excellent the rest of the band is. During their live sets, they switch instruments, harmonize, and seem to truly love what they do. On the album, the instruments and the vocals blend beautifully, setting an atmosphere that reflects and compliments the tone of Berninger’s lyrics.

To be completely blunt, Boxer is the best thing I’ve heard all year. Sonically, it creates a landscape that never falters without becoming tedious. Lyrically, Berninger is as literate as John Darnielle or Colin Meloy, but plays a whole different sport, one where he and Okkervil River’s Will Sheff are kings.

With that, The National’s Boxer becomes Swim Through Frequencies’ first Album Of The Month.

Please Go Away #2: Gym Class Heroes

"Ba ba da da!"


How could you not want to beat the shit out of that guy?

"Cupid's Chokehold" by Gym Class Heroes is one of the dumbest songs I've ever heard. Let's get one thing perfectly clear: It's not a "cover" of a Supertramp song. That implies that Supertramp wrote those God-awful lyrics and performed them originally. Not the case. It samples the song "Breakfast in America" by Supertramp, which is guess is another attempt by GCH to prove to the world they have ANY sort of hip-hop ability.

Cause they don't.

I hate on this song a lot around my friend Chris, who defends it with the words "It's Catchy!" which is the second-worst defense of a song ("It's Cute!") in the entire world. Anything can be catchy, you just need rhythm and the ability to play up to three power chords.

The thing about rap-rock is that it is almost exclusively made by "artists" with minimal skill or understanding of either genre. See Insane Clown Posse, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, etc. Gym Class Heroes is a bit of a different beast than those other artists, because instead of infusing some sort of shit-tastic Nu-Metal chug-a-chugs in their music, they meander toward softer, funkier, poppier instrumentation. And Travis McCoy, instead of resorting to shitty lyrics about kicking someone's ass or being super duper mad n' stuff, instead resorts to shitty Nu-Emo lyrics.

The song that got them "discovered!" by Patrick Stump was called "Taxi Driver," and it was a narrative of some sort incorporating the names of several terrible bands (and also Jets to Brazil).

Example:

"Not once not twice she was thrice times a lady
Mackin on brand new but I had to
Bounce over to the postal service to pick up these pills
To take care of my nervousness"

That just doesn't make any sense. Especially the random-ass Brand New line. On top of that, GZA has written at least two songs that do this same exact thing, only not lame.

Back to "Cupid's Chokehold," though. I guess if I had to choose, my biggest problem with GCH is that they pretend for even a SECOND that they're hip-hop. Guy barely raps in the first place, and his lyrics are sillier than a Shifty Shellshock song. I'll actually give him credit for the line "If I had to choose her or the sun, I'd be one nocturnal son of a gun," because that actually uses some imagination. Unfortunately for Travis, any line with a hint of style is destroyed by shit like, "I love it when she calls my phone, she's even got her very own ringtone. If that ain't love I don't know what love is."

No, fucker, apparently you don't.

The BEST Songs #1

As opposed to "Download This Song," where I'll be highlighting more current singles/songs that I happen to be, as the kids say, "bumpin," "The BEST Songs" will be a recurring department where I gush over slightly older/much older songs that make my life a little bit better.
That said, on to Number One!


I'm not even sure where to begin with this song. It is the opinion of Swim Through Frequencies that Ms. Carlton has penned three of the greatest pop singles of the decade: The universally-adored "A Thousand Miles," the less well-known (even, until recently, by me) "Ordinary Day," and, most importantly, the exquisite "White Houses."

Of her albums I know very little, because I'm sure that they will only disappoint. As is the problem with Sir Robert Kelly, it is very difficult to spread the glory of a perfect pop song over the span of an entire album. The thing is, girls like Vanessa never sell albums. Whereas Britney Spears and Beyoncé sell roughly a thousand million copies, for some reason, girls who write kick-ass piano riffs backed by full string arrangements and sing their little hearts out only get their songs played on Kay Jewelry commercials and rapped over by Raw D.I.

There is no justice, so Swim Through Frequencies is about to get all vigilante up in here.

"White Houses" begins with a single piano note, which plays five times before Vanessa floats in. The first few lines set everything up pleasantly enough: Girl gets some new roommates, has a lot of fun with new roommates, expects to be BFFL with new roommates. They start drinking, and playing co-ed games of spin the bottle, which is always fun, (as far as I know from that one episode of Full House.)

The best part about the beginning of this song is the way the instrumentation builds up. Carlton's voice bursts with emotion and volume one second and quietly rides the melody the next. After the first note is hit five times, vocals and piano carry the song for a few lines, before being joined by a steady high hat roll. Thus ends the first verse.

The second verse explodes as a full drum set and string section attack the melody, taking Vanessa along for the ride. The line "Jenny screams out, and its no pose," is so vocally dynamic it makes me fall in love a little. Carlton's vocals manage to reflect her lyrics wonderfully: She is loud when her characters are loud, but immediately reverts to something that sounds a lot like regret for the narrator, who is shy at the beginning of the song and ashamed near the end.

"White Houses" tackles a lot of shit, something that most contemporary pop songs don't. Yeah, every once in a while you stumble across an "Unpretty" or that fucking Ludacris and Mary J. Blige song. But, most of what pop artists consider "reflection" sounds like Brittney Spears' "Lucky," in which Brittney sings about how it's lame to be Brittney, even though everyone loves her and she's rich. And pretty.

"White Houses," on the other hand is about a shy and naive girl who somehow falls in with a group of people who are in to boozin' it up and steamy make-outs. She tries to take it all in at once, tries falling in love and partying and not getting hurt, but it all sorta backfires.

And like, goddamn she makes it work. It's not heavy-handed, it's not preachy. By focusing the perspective on the specific people in her memory, she avoids spouting some sort of "Wish I had stayed abstinent, kids!" diatribe while still expressing her regret for making herself so vulnerable so quickly.

In the end, the song just works on every level. Sonically, it forces the listener to go on the journey with Carlton, whose lyrics do the job of getting her point across while taking some HUGE emotional risks, especially for a pop singer.

We here at Swim Through Frequencies are honored to have Vanessa Carlton's vastly under appreciated "White Houses" be the first on our list of "The BEST Songs."

Download This Song #1

This song is like a sandwich. A delicious, triple-decker Dagwood sandwich, where Akon is the mustard and Danja is the toothpick. The meat in the middle, here represented by Rick Ross, Fat Joe, and Birdman, may not be entirely healthy for you, but you make sure to order it on whole-grain bread (T.I. and Lil’ Wayne) so you feel like you’re doing your body good. The waiter, whose nametag read “Khaled,” was very vocal about how delicious this sandwich was, and encouraged you to “Listennn” to his other recommendations, too.

You didn’t, but that’s okay.

The first thing you notice is how tasty the mustard is. In the past, mustard has disagreed with your stomach, made you a bit nauseous, and humped young girls onstage. In this sandwich, however, the mustard sings the hook nicely, without intruding. It’s tough to eat this sandwich without singing “Konvict music!” as you bite into it.

Here ends the metaphor, because I can’t talk about Rick Ross if I constantly have to refer to him as “meat.” Rick’s verse is easily the weakest in the song, but he doesn’t make a complete ass of himself. Plus, even if I harbored some secret loathing for him, he redeems himself by saying “Rappers get brain, stupid. I’m silly!” in one of his lines. Because, let’s face it, he IS silly.

I have pretended that Fat Joe is an unperson since I heard “Lean Back.” That song found him sounding out of breath at all times, as if instead of leaning back he was running forward to catch the microphone. In “We Takin’ Over,” his flow is at least competent and, like Ross, he doesn’t sound retarded. However, I found out by looking at some lyrics websites that he says “YSL” instead of “Wide as hell,” the latter of which would have caused immense amounts of props-giving from Swim Through Frequencies.

I don’t really know anything about Birdman except that Lil’ Wayne kissed him and he seems to have shitty taste in rapper aliases. Also, while we were watching this video, Jason said “Fuck Birdman.” I kinda like his verse in this song, though, possibly because it sets Wayne up to eat the other rappers alive. Also, the beat pretty much drops out while Birdman is going, so it gives his words a kind of holiness, which is emphasized by what appears to be a meditation on death, but could just be him bragging about killing somebody.

I’m gonna circle back to T.I. before I try to tackle all the things that are awesome about Lil’ Wayne’s verse. T.I. does something in this song that T.I. does very well, which is compile a list of places where people think T.I. is awesome. There’s nothing really special about this verse, except that T.I. executes it flawlessly as we have all come to expect (and respect). Then he leaves, which is cool. He probably has better things to do.

Speaking of expectations and respect, we arrive at Lil’ Wayne. At this point in the song the production, which has featured an epic, stair-climbing synth and a lot of pounding drums, moves out of the way and lets Wayne spit. Birdman finishes his verse by saying “Been a G in the game, now my son on the throne,” bowing down to Wayne and backing out of the way. Because, in all seriousness, what else is he going to do?

Lil’ Wayne begins his demolition of all that came before him by saying “I am the beast.” Notice he does not say “a” beast. To that end, here is a comprehensive list of beasts Wayne could be comparing himself to:

Beast from X-Men, a.k.a. Hank McCoy

Reasoning: The blue-haired mutant is a doctor, and enjoys using large, confusing words. On the other hand, he is also ferociously strong and will give enemies a beat-down.

“The Beast” roller coaster at Kings Island in Ohio

Reasoning: “The Beast has been constantly rated as one of the top roller coasters in the world since it first opened, having earned itself a cult-like following among some coaster enthusiasts. Even after nearly 30 years, it is still the main attraction at Kings Island, located at the rear of the park in Rivertown.” (Wikipedia.com). Replace the words “roller coasters” with “rappers” and understand that that last sentence is a metaphor for the rap game, and I think the parallels are clear.

The Beast from Beauty and the Beast

Reasoning: Chicks still love him, even though he’s a monster.

The Antichrist (as in: Mark of The Beast)

Reasoning: Shawn Carter calls himself Jay-HOVA, a sneaky reworking of Jehovah, a.k.a. Mr. Jesus Christ. If that is the case, then Wayne could easily be calling himself the Antichrist. He and Jay operate on two completely different levels. Jay is both a businessman and a business, man. He has more money than God, (but not more money than Diddy, apparently,) and his flow is deliberate and methodic, albeit brilliant. Wayne, on the other hand, has authored more mixtapes than albums, and spit half-insane stream-of-consciousness poetry where Jay would pen a sonnet. On top of that, Wayne has already destroyed HOVA over his own beat, (twice if you count Black Republicans,) effectively rendering one of the hip-hop greats irrelevant. A little far-fetched? Maybe.

“Feed me rappers or feed me beats,” is the next thing to come out of Weezy’s mouth. He has already eaten all the rappers on this song, swallowing them whole as he sets out to consume all of hip-hop. As for the beat, he devours it AGAIN on Da Drought 3, laughing, “It’s me! The rapper eater! Feed me, feed me!”

Later, when Wayne says, “I love brain, I need a leech,” I am both mildly grossed-out and utterly fascinated. I don’t know who the first rapper to call fellatio “brain” was, but it still doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s Wayne’s use of the word “leech” here that makes me love him, both demanding a girl to, for lack of a more politically correct way to put this, suck it, and simultaneously calling upon her to perform bloodletting on him, curing him of his diseases. I think that’s the first time in rap that a line has ever been at once ridiculously misogynistic and bizarrely heartfelt.

Other highlights include: “I’m on track like a box of Pumas,” which is both true and awesome, and when he calls himself “The little Big Kahuna.”

By this point, Danja’s production has once again swelled beneath Wayne, who makes it work with him like no one else can. When he’s done, there’s nothing left for anyone to say except for one last nail in the coffin from Akon: “We takin’ over one city at a time.”

Then: Silence.