When a no-longer-topical band comes out with a good new song, it forces us to throw our cards on the table and cop to our core values. Some people call it the Tyranny of the New, others call it Relevance, and many more (me?) don’t call it anything but still behave according to its principles. A few years ago when I started DJing at friends’ parties and such, I had a rule that anything between 1 and, oh, 7-10 years old was off-limits. You either play brand new (“relevant”) songs or you play songs old enough to carry an acknowledgement of age (“nostalgia”). Anything from that self-imposed dead zone felt stale and chewed-up, old enough for everyone to be bored with it but not old enough to trigger strong memories. As a DJ (or, for the sake of the argument, any public consumer of music) it would make you seem dorky and out-of-touch, not cool enough to be familiar with culture’s cutting edge the way you’re supposed to be. I’m not as strict about adhering to my dumb rule anymore, but I think I still do it on a subconscious level because, quite frankly, it works. I also suspect I’m not alone.

The funny thing is, even when you’re not choosing or performing your taste publicly, this same idea can govern the way you think about new music. In 2004, a once-moderately-hyped indie pop quartet called The Shins had a Moment. It was such a Moment, in fact, that most writers (including me, it seems) can’t review their subsequent work without mentioning it. You know how Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman does more actual music criticism in American Pyscho talking about Phil Collins and Huey Lewis than John Cusack’s record store-owning Rob Gordon does in all of High Fidelity, but no one notices because of, y’know, the serial killer stuff? To me, the Natalie Portman Effect sorta works the same way. Her Garden State character’s dictim that The Shins will “change your life” is so absurdly nullifying, so hilariously sweeping that it cemented The Shins’ legacy before most people even heard them. It’s an anti-critical endorsement that continues to trump any critical endorsement one could give. (Thank goodness for Chutes Too Narrow, right?) Because the Moment was so big for an indie act—a Hollywood starlet in a successful motion picture endorsing the most prominently-featured band on its wildly popular soundtrack—the explosion of attention around The Shins had the adverse effect of freezing them in time in the public consciousness. No matter how much (or how little) music they’ve put out since, they are 2003-4 all the way down.

But James Mercer hasn’t done himself many favors in this realm, either. It’s been almost five years since the last Shins album—a fact that could probably banish them to has-been status by itself—and with news that he’d summarily fired the rest of the band and started over with a fresh crop of backing players, the idea of a new record has started to seem messy and a little desperate. (Not to mention…irrelevant?) “Despite the drastic changes to the musical landscape over the last half-decade, there’s still room for tracks like ‘Simple Song’,” concluded Larry Fitzmaurice in his BNMing track review. And though they were characteristically divided on its quality, the gang of critics at The Singles Jukebox also found themselves frequently hearkening back to the band’s past. This isn’t just a case of evaluating a song within the context of a band’s career, it’s an acknowledgment that The Shins’ shelf life has extended beyond their 15 minutes. The subtitle on the TSJ entry is “Remember 2003?,” as if that were the only year anyone ever listened to this band. You can hardly blame them, of course, but it does make this track seem ill-fated right out of the gate, no?

I like to think that some of “Simple Song“s anthemic qualities—the “Baba O’Riley” windmilling, the spine-chilling background melody that ascends the scale with tenuous urgency—are there as markers of hope, trying to convince your ears that The Shins, such as they are, still have enough spark and vitality to be a presence in the lives (if not the culture) of people in 2012. Whether or not you buy it depends on your relationship with their past, I suppose, but it’s worth noting that Mercer has remained fairly true to his musical self. His sense of melody, always scraping at the upper edges of his range, remains as simultaneously meticulous and delicate as ever, confirming that at least in the abstract sense he couldn’t write a not-catchy tune if he tried. “Simple Song” is recorded as a lithe pop ditty, too, the guitars never overwhelming the rhythm section’s sense of balance, even as they lead to and stomp all over those downbeats. It’s true that Mercer has neither the charisma nor the cojones to be a convincing rock frontman—he’s too boyish and wistful—but that’s why we’re fortunate his new attempt at power-pop still emphasizes pop over power. We don’t have to strain to accept a contrived performance.

Either The Shins are aware of this dubious sense of modesty or (far more likely) it’s intentionally built in. Mercer’s always tended toward knotty lyrics that hinge on, um, unusual images, but here he tones down some of the fancier flights and offers what may be his first straightforward love song. “Well this is just a simple song to say what you done,” he begins, in thrall to a woman who has apparently made him a much happier person, “I told you ‘bout all those fears, and away they did run—you sure must be strong!” I suppose there’s some eye-rolling linkage to be found here between Mercer’s saved-by-a-girl revels and the plot of the film that boosted his tax bracket, but let’s not kid ourselves into thinking this isn’t a near-universal trope in popular music. And anyway, the more compelling lines come when he turns from her to face us directly. “I know that things can really get rough when you go it alone,” goes the chorus, offering encouragement through its sympathy. “Don’t go thinking you gotta be tough.” This isn’t exactly groundbreaking advice to get from a vulnerable-sounding singer, but it’s sage wisdom nonetheless. By the end of “Simple Song,” it seems Mercer’s learned his lesson, too: “Love’s such a delicate thing that we do, with nothing to prove.” And as he shouts out his new-found sense of assurance—maybe in love or maybe just in his band’s place in the world—what can we do but cheer him on?

In Gothenburg we don’t have VIP lines
In Gothenburg we don’t make a fuss about who you are […]
The VIP lines are not to the clubs,
but to healthcare, apartments, and jobs.
Hey buddy can I borrow five grand?
‘Cause my dad’s in chemo and they wanna take him off his plan.

What are these lines doing here, smack in the middle of Jens Lekman telling a charming story about drunkenly tracking down Kirsten Dunst when she comes to his hometown to shoot a movie or something? There’s more than enough story here (Lekman’s narratives have been getting wordier lately) to carry a catchy, thoughtful song about celebrity sightings. Notice how his motivation for trying to find her is the fact that she dropped his name in an interview for the local paper. There’s an essay to be written about this: the glamorous American movie star being hip enough to know about the hometown indie songwriter, and he feeling a mixture of jittery fanboy-ism and a kind of professional obligation to somehow meet her and, I dunno, network in return? (Or maybe just try to make out with her?)

So what’s with the detour into Sweden’s semi-socialized healthcare system? The contrast between Dunst’s stardom, which demands special treatment wherever she goes, with the humbleness of the unassuming Scandinavian city seems ripe for a sort of update on country music themes, i.e. ‘we don’t have VIP lines around here because VIPs don’t deign to come here, we’re all just regular folks.’ But that’s not it. Lekman’s taking the opportunity to lightly chastise Dunst’s celebrity entitlement, using Gothenburg as a metaphor for equality (“You’re not worth less and you’re not worth any more”). The cruel irony is how inequalities still find their way into both the medical and cultural systems. The second verse contains the above aside about borrowing money to try to get around the healthcare bureaucracy, while the rest of the song finds Lekman and his friends talking excitedly about Kirsten, where she’s been, where she’s staying, etc., making the fuss about her that he just claimed they don’t. Even as Gothenburg the city doesn’t concede to special treatment, it seems the people of Gothenburg do.

This is presumably what’s gnawing at the back of Lekman’s mind as he drinks beer after beer in the streets. Dunst dropping his name confers a modicum of specialness upon him, a echo of her own stardom that he receives by proxy. Of course the hotel wouldn’t let just any drunk fan leave a note for her at the front desk (written in borrowed lipstick, no less), but he’s Jens-freaking-Lekman. Kirsten knows who he is, so he’s one of her special kind of people, right? Thus the receptionist turning him away—she doesn’t know or care who he is—is a hard but welcome slap back to reality. There’s no VIP line in Gothenburg for Jens Lekman either.

Ladies and gentlemen: two thirds of a generation gap, brought to you by the tall guy from Pavement. This short, sweet, and unfailingly breezy pop tune marks a rare (especially in 2001) moment of straightforward storytelling from Malkmus, but its supply of detail and frankness of emotion make it as much an interesting read as it is a catchy song.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that “Jenny and the Ess-Dog” takes place in ‘01, the year that Malkmus’ self-titled debut came out. The ‘Ess-Dog’ (“Shawn, if you wish”) is 31, which would put his date of birth right around 1970 and make him a textbook ‘Gen-Xer’ in both age and lifestyle. It’s funny and sorta misguided to apply generational stereotypes to invented characters (though slightly better than applying them to real people), but the song is tailored precisely to be a contrast of these ideas. The Ess-Dog plays guitar in a local cover band, drives a rickety old Volvo, keeps a frisbee close at hand, and scrapes out a living waiting tables. Whether it’s true / helpful or not, I think most everyone recognizes this vaguely-hippie, vaguely-slacker image as part of the cultural lexicon. It’s a theme in every 90s coming-of-age movie and Malkmus himself is seen as one of its figureheads. The Ess-Dog would probably say, if pressured, that he is disillusioned with social norms like professional ladder-climbing (or being called by your given name) or that growing up and starting a family, etc. simply holds no interest for him. In my mind, it’s no surprise that he’s sought out a younger companion, someone equally—albeit temporarily—nonplussed by the pressures of society.

Enter Jenny, the 18 year old recent high school grad, whose birthday some time in 1983 puts her across the traditional dividing line between Gen-X and the Millennials, to which I and, I would guess, most people reading this belong. The stereotypes about this age group are harder to articulate (for me, anyway), but I do get the sense that people see us as somewhat more ambitious and ‘traditional’ in the work-and-family sense than someone like the Ess-Dog. Luckily, the song absolves me of having to be either right or wrong about my own age group. In the first place, Malkmus’ position as a Gen-X hero undoubtedly makes it tough for him to assess this newer generation without his own cultural connotations slipping into the mix. But beyond that, I think the story places just as much emphasis on Jenny’s youth as a motivating factor. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know that the brief period between graduating high school and going off to college came with a strange sense of placelessness, something that Jenny also seems to experience. The “Let me out of here!” breakdown in the song’s middle sounds like it’s coming from her, a young woman ready-but-not-quite-able to leave her stale hometown behind and finally figure out what she wants for her life.

Jenny’s tryst with the Ess-Dog—call it a summer fling if that helps—comes off like a pre-escape. It’s a way for her to leave her childhood behind and to indulge the ‘fantasy’ lifestyle that the Ess-Dog is supposed to represent. His being so laid-back and ‘cool’ for an adult (he’s in a band, after all) is meant to sit in direct opposition to the sorority / pre-law track that Jenny eventually chooses when she starts school. When they’re together, she wears toe rings and plays with their dog (their ‘love child’) with the idea that this free-and-easy attitude makes a kind of statement about, I dunno, simplicity or something? Malkmus calls their relationship a joining of forces, as if somewhere underneath it all there was an understanding of some larger idealogical goal. Perhaps that explains the half-hearted attempt to stay together after she moves and her priorities shift.

There are other factors to consider here, though. If you were so inclined, you could take a much more cynical view of this ‘quirky rom-com’ scenario, casting Jenny as the over-entitled rich kid who rebels against her upbringing by going slumming with the pathetic ne’er-do-well Ess-Dog, who in turn gets to live out a male fantasy of being with a barely-legal girl. You could even say that the socio-economic differences between them torpedo the relationship more than the age gap. But the freewheeling ride cymbals and guitar-peggios don’t exactly suggest a fractured reading. If anything, the brisk songwriting and abundance of hooks enforces the functional cuteness at which Trey the dog rolls his eyes. It’s tempting (and usually a good idea) never to take Malkmus at his word, but “Jenny and the Ess-Dog” could very well prove the exception, with the artist indulging a vague and problematic fantasy every bit as much as his characters. It would strip away a lot of the potential meaning and leave us with little more than a story and a shrug, but whoever said a post-high school fling had to mean something?

TV on the Radio wasn’t always like this, y’know. Take a second to think back to 2003, when their first EP earned them all kinds of gritty-experimental-band hype and “Staring at the Sun” delivered on it: a sweaty, forceful, gripping anthem that never lost an ounce of power in spite of being little more than a fuzz bass and voices. Sure, their 4-track fiddlings could miss as often as they hit, but by the time Return to Cookie Mountain rolled around a couple years later, TVotR seemed to be a band firing on all cylinders, crafting epic rock music that exhibited neither shame nor histrionics. As a person who likes to talk about cool music, this was some really cool music to talk about—from a major label, no less!—a good story to tell that got a lot less fun with Dear Science, a great record that, mostly because of my laziness, didn’t strike me with the same potency.

This is the point in the story for me at which listening to TV on the Radio becomes much more of an exercise in patience. That sounds like an insult, doesn’t it? I mean, why sit around pressing ‘repeat’ over and over again as you wait to start liking something when there’s plenty of music out there willing to roll out the red carpet for your ears. Besides, the very idea of a ‘grower’ is kinda silly: the recording doesn’t change; you do. Shouldn’t a discerning listener be confident enough in his/her own tastes to not need a dozen plays through a song before it does anything for them?

“I think we are compatible / I see that you think I’m wrong,” sings Tunde Adebimpe on “Will Do,” the first single from TVotR’s post-hiatus return Nine Types of Light. Somewhat ironic, yes? The song strolls along in a middle tempo and doesn’t make much of an effort to gather steam. There’s little (if any) of the white-noise distortion we’re used to getting from them and Adebimpe’s delivery is calm and casual. He’s not staring into the sun so much as donning shades and shrugging, while Kyp Malone and his awesomely staid falsetto barely show up at all. “Any time will do, my love,” goes the refrain, a statement of devotion that can just as easily sit like resignation. At this point, I think I can be forgiven for not taking to this amiable version of TVotR right away, as underwhelming as all this can look on paper. But don’t let “Will Do” fool you. Adebimpe’s singsongy hooks play effortlessly against the sultry-lite counter melodies on the guitar and, as usual, David Sitek’s production is deceptive. He has a way of crowding instruments together so that everything hits your ears at once, a textural substitute for the hot fuzz of ‘old’ TVotR that, in combination with all the tinkling bell sounds here, reimagines the airy harshness for which they’ve been known. It’s a style that takes time to hear, no matter how confident and discerning you are; not a ‘grower,’ but a slow listen that needs longer than its own 4 minutes to worm its way into your brain. Take that as a negative if you want, but even if you don’t think you’re compatible with this song, give it a shot anyway. TV on the Radio may yet prove you wrong.

So. Due to some ill-advised Tumblr-ing and movie-watching last night and the kind of day at the office that will make me appreciate the next four days off that much more (pointless mini-vacation, y’all!!), today’s Writings At Popcorn Noises are later than the usual and more filled with conspiracy theories. Whoa whoa whoa, what am I talking about? Well you know that new Peter Bjorn And John album? The one that you’re not that excited about because the first song was just kinda ‘meh’ and besides they are so totally 2006 anyway? They’ve put out another song-with-video recently and, my friends, I am telling you: there are some mysterious doings afoot in the land of Peanut Butter And Jelly.

Notice how eerily similar the “Second Chance” and “Breaker Breaker” videos are: the black background, the live-performance setup, the 3-camera technique (there’s Peter Cam, Bjorn Cam, and Band Cam…poor John), and the odd movements that catch you off guard at first but then reveal themselves to be a clever video editing trick. Last time, it was the double-speed film that suggested PB&J had learned to play the tune at half speed, but this time it goes even further off the deep end: the “Second Chance” clip is backwards, yo! These guys recorded a song, learned to play it in reverse, filmed themselves doing so while having stuff dumped on them, and then flipped the footage so it kinda-sorta makes visual sense. Have you ever listened to a regular song backwards? It’s an unpalatable mess of gobbledegook (apologies to fans of Pullhair Rubeye, if they exist) and trying to mime playing an instrument along with it would be an even more difficult task than trying to equal the chic pop appeal of “Young Folks.” This is ether the world’s most gifted, most dastardly, or most terminally bored band.

Though we may never know which of those adjectives most aptly applies to Peter Bjorn And John’s video-making skills, I believe based on the content of “Second Chance” that we can imprint a firm check mark in the “Jaded” box when it comes to songwriting. Like “Breaker,” this is another slice of ostensibly stylish, slightly distorted pop-rock that is not offensive to the ears per se, but which doesn’t exactly worm its way past the hammer, anvil, and stirrup for long either. Not that big a deal, sure, but what about those lyrics? “You can’t, can’t count on a second chance / a second chance will never be found / you can’t, can’t count on a second try / the second try will never come ‘round,” goes the chorus, a near perfect self-pitying reflection of “Breaker”s punkified fist-shaking. Maybe that 5.5 review really was a painful career-deadener or lightning really doesn’t ever strike twice or—just maybe—fame really is the ficklest of lovers. Whatever the reason, these three Swedes have gotten it into their heads that their 15 minutes are up and they’re unhappy about it to say the least.

Normally, the appropriate thing for an artist to do in this situation is retreat. Maybe try out a solo project, do a covers record, or get all down on yourself but disguise it as a break-up album—anything except face the sad, ugly truth. Not only do PB&J seem to be ignoring these conventions, but in doing so I predict they are slowly creating The Most Modular Album The World Has Ever Seen! Every song is basically the same! Every video spins off the same premise! Shuffle, scatter, trim, and trade all you want! There is no beginning and there is no end! It’s an album about wishing you were bulletproof that might actually be indestructible! Oh, what’s that, Mr. Tastemaking Critic? “It’s homogenous and predictable?” Like, duh! We totally planned it that way! Haven’t you seen these ridiculous videos?! You’ve done your worst to us and now there’s nothing you can say that could possibly poke another hole in our life raft! We’re floating on mesh, ya dig?

Before I try to actually talk about this new Julian Lynch song, I feel I must briefly outline an idea I’ve been toying with since I read that Poptimist about James Blake and Brian Eno last month, namely that there are two essential questions that all music writing / criticism seeks to answer: How did this sound get here? And now that it’s here, what is it doing? That second one especially seems to have a lot of other common questions rolled up into it. The question of “why,” to me, mostly ends at “because the artist chose it (in however abstract or concrete a sense) and wants it to do something,” and the question of valuation—Is this good? Do we like it?—is a practical expression of what a sound is doing.

I say this because I often find myself at something of a loss for what to say about new little homespun songs like “Terra.” Laying out core values helps work against the impulse to pull some twisted, grandiose theory out of my butt in an attempt to make the song ‘matter’ more than it maybe does and justify my writing about it at all (before you say anything: I realize the irony in saying that while in the middle of ostensibly ‘deconstructing’ music criticism). Sometimes all a sound is doing is making you want to dance or reminding you of the TV shows you used to watch as a kid and that doesn’t mean it’s bad or not worth understanding.

Many of the sounds on the title track to Lynch’s forthcoming full-length—the acoustic guitars that twang like sitars, the hand drums, the tambourine—come from the mid 60s, when music from India became a fashionable influence on pop and contributed heavily to the idea of psychedelic rock. The more melodic voices (saxophone at the beginning, harmonica in the middle, and synthesizer at the end) come from the subsequent decades where there was both a nostalgia for the authenticity of rootsier music and an excited interest in futuristic possibilities. That’s about as much as I can say about the “how” question, the historical road by which these things have come to be paired together in recognizable ways. And in a sense, recalling older music is also part of what “Terra” is doing as a song, but I tend to think that, along with many of his Underwater Peoples compatriots, Lynch uses the recalling of old music to engender a feeling of comfort and wistfulness. Hand drums have a softer, earthier sound than a drum kit, as do acoustic guitars and Lynch’s perpetually mush-mouthed singing. When combined with “Terra”s 7th chords and reverberating, melancholic sax/harmonica/synth leads, they add up to a sound that retains much of the viscous, easy-flowing air of his previous work while employing rawer textures that, by virtue of not being subsumed in effects and distortion, feel more familiar and immediate (thus, again, comforting).

Judging by the increased attention to Lynch’s music in the last year or so, I’d say another thing this music does is show us quite plainly that comfort, nostalgia, and wistfulness are some important values we ascribe to music. On some level, lots of people want to feel these things without necessarily drawing them out of their own experiences (i.e. not just listening to the music you personally liked a long time ago). Building music like this is an act of recognizing not just the personal, but also the collective longing for that experience.

Let’s take another stab at this “critically indefensible” thing because, as Casey at Crumbler queried yesterday: what’s so bad about Beulah? And of course, the short answer is nothing at all. They were a perfectly competent pop band with periphery Elephant 6 associations, which is a very neat and convenient way to slot their head-boppy 60s vibe into the ripple effect of Music That Was Important a la Dusk at Cubist Castle. Like countless bands before and after them, they worked hard but eventually fizzled out amid a small following and meager cash flow. If you’ve ever been in a band, you know this is a better fate than 90% of all people who make music can aspire to.

Musically, however, I’m less inclined to be so forgiving and I think it’s because—for lack of a better term—the music itself is forgiving. I will try to explain what I mean by this without sounding like a stuck-up jerk (a dubious task, to be sure!). OK, so: can we all agree that, although there have been many different ‘shades’ or ‘incarnations’ of it, we seem to have this idea of pop music that comes from the 60s that never really goes away? It’s not just your Beatles and your Beach Boys, mind you, though those bands had a big hand in essentially making rock ‘n roll the new ‘pop’ early in that decade, which is a big part of where this comes from. But for whatever socio-historical reasons, I think we can say our culture continues to further the echoes of popular music(s) from that period. This is what Beulah did, in the most reductive sense, so there is also a sense that bands like Beulah—amiable guitar bands that go mostly nowhere—will never be in short supply (currently, it is the job of everyone who has ever been in Vivian Girls to perpetuate this, but they will be replaced soon). ‘The 60s,’ whatever the term actually means, never really go away or come back; they’re always just sort of around.

Now, no: I’m not saying that there is one sound that defines an era or that people interact with music based solely on its historical antecedents. That would be silly and boring. It pains me to put it in these terms—since, y’know, its art and you just gotta feel it, man—but in the economy of pop music, Beulah represent an excess supply to a mediocre demand. When The Coast is Never Clear came out in 2001, David Pecoraro wrote in Pitchfork, “I can’t help but think of a handful of bands that do this sort of thing just as well, if not better,” and the more I think about it, the more I think that statement doesn’t speak to Beulah’s stylistic particulars so much as their general existence as a strummy pop band. Again, there’s nothing ‘wrong’ (and several things great!) about what they did, but our perception of it as generic causes us to undervalue it when it comes to criticism. For better or worse, we lavish finer attention on things that feel rare and distinct.

My favorite parts of “Popular Mechanics for Lovers” are the subtle twists of humor. There’s the self-deprecating chorus / title, the filmic facade lines (“Did you forget to read the script?,” “I can edit those parts out”), and the Magnetic Fields nod that conflates songwriting and wooing in a more self-aware way than most. One occasionally gets the sense, though, that some of the verses and/or bridges were rushed to leave more room for the payoff hook. The song doesn’t really open up for the first minute and a half, after which you wonder why it was so important to cap it at three minutes in the first place. It’s a good song, but as I thought about it yesterday I couldn’t escape feeling that everything I’ve described in this paragraph wasn’t significant enough to warrant its own post. I needed a more ‘critical’ position to defend; and voila!: indefensibility was the answer.