Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Electronica: Out Hud, Hot Chip, And Why They Couldn't Be Any Other Way

Orr Shtuhl — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 16:48:19 EDT

For a while, I couldn't understand why I liked electronic music. For a while before that, I didn't.It hit me out of nowhere. Perhaps like you, kind reader, I was lounging with my wine and cheese and Decemberists, soaking in their Baroque strains and looking up words like "bagatelle" in the dictionary. Before I knew it I was blissfully lost in a blender of blips and bloops and lots and lots of fuzz.And like that, a bookish, lyric-minded civilian was made a loopy marionette. I began craving more and more intricately layered drums, bass, synth, fuzz, frazz, floop, and thump. My head nodding increased 600%, particularly while driving.Berkeley, California's Out Hud and London's Hot Chip approach this type of music differently, but their similarities bring out the best of the genre.The opening salvos of Let Us Never Speak of It Again and The Warning mirror each other; the bands flex their sonic muscles hard, spewing among the most saturated moments on their respective albums. "This Just In," the 28-second intro on the Out Hud record, is like an action movie trailer. Within ten seconds they hurl out a breadth of sounds, from fuzzed to choked to metallic to organic. Then the track combusts under its own weight in an ecstatic human scream.Hot Chip's "Careful" opens with a few seconds of Enya serenity, setting a launching pad for the blippy drum-and-bass beat backed by kick-drum explosions and human "Yeahs!" Although it's actually part of the first full song, Hot Chip uses the same intro method as Out Hud -- a flash-bomb opening assault that quickly settles into the record's most accessible vocal hooks.Those first 30 seconds are really what a first-time listener reacts to -- it's like the sparks that flew out when Pandora's Box was opened, and everyone just stared and said, "Oh shit."But most of us, hard-wired in pop music, still need a human voice to anchor songs. Even if it's crooning nonsense, just another instrument in the mix, I like to have something to mouth along to. And so do music video directors. Take Out Hud's "Old Nude." "They said you were very nice, but..." comes a repeating lyric. The melody line is low and accusatory, while focused drums help the music sound equally menacing. But during the snub, "But if you don't believe...," you can hear the mood lighten to carefree with sparse, plinky strings as the singer snickers at the subject of the song.In both cases the lyrics guide the listener, as if to explain the music. It's the reverse of a movie soundtrack: here, the music is the focus while the words are background color.But I never gave much thought to why I like this stuff until listening to Hot Chip's latest. As a drummer, I've always loved hearing new sonic textures and thick, layered beats -- but there's definitely more to it.I can't read while someone is talking to me. I can't write while listening to lyric-heavy music like, say, Bob Dylan. Similarly, it's hard to both listen to a ballad like the Mountain Goats' "Dance Music" without playing through the storyline in your mind. But instrumental-based dance songs like Hot Chip's "Over and Over" inject maybe 25 words for your consideration and then back off, letting you dig the music.From the chorus: Over and over ... like a monkey with a miniature cymbal The joy of repetition really is in you.The scattered dance music of Out Hud and Hot Chip is adventurous enough to be physically engaging. Restless, colorful textures keep your head awake and your limbs twitching. But because words take the back seat, it's also mentally relaxing -- the joy of repetition.

Orr Shtuhl has written about music for The Roanoke Times and The Daily Tar Heel. He responds to e-mails and is a good listener.

Blogcritics Author: Orr Shtuhl

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Electronica: Out Hud, Hot Chip, And Why They Couldn't Be Any Other Way