Cyndi Lauper's Gentle Soul Rings True

I swear it's National Honesty Day!! That makes Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" an ideal song to reflect upon. It gave the sassy New Yorker her second Billboard #1 in 1986. The video is a dazzling display of what made her album title "She's So Unusual" so refreshingly accurate. The skirt made of newspapers alone should tell you this woman marches to the beat of her own drum. "Colors" opens with a percussion tap that would not be out of place at a campfire where loyal chums entertain each other with words and music. Such warmth springs from the guitar melodies. From the start Cyndi is a calming presence who makes it hard to be too defeated. Hers is the kind of voice you'd want waking you up first thing in the morning to usher in a day more promising than the conflict filled night that preceded it. The thought of listening to this while basking in a hot tub's bubbles doesn't sound half bad at all. The messages are easy to relate to. No matter who you are you can get identify with an overwhelming world. We're humans expected to confront seemingly impossible challenges. Comfort the four year-old girl with this song. Reassure your embattled hubby with it. The speed is nice and gentle. During the song Cyndi belts out her passion just enough to get our attention but doesn't fall victim to emoting way too much. With each choral refrain she grows more and more empowered. For its last go around she returns to that whisper soft tone meant to bring down our guard so the sunshine can race back in. There's a definite dignity to the song that makes you actually feel like being you isn't the worst assignment imaginable. "True Colors" supplies us with the entire rainbow of natural beauty. Sometimes admitting that what you see is what you get isn't a loathsome idea. Cyndi surely finds the right touch here.

The Flaming Lips Explode With The First Single From "Terror"

Non-stop energy greets anyone sampling the first single from venerable Oklahoma City band The Flaming Lips new project "The Terror". As this fivesome demonstrated on their alt-rock classic "She Don't Use Jelly" peddling oddball confections to the masses isn't exactly foreign turf to them. "Sun Blows Up Today" is an exercise in how much sweat the band can coax out of their pores before they collapse in a collective dead faint because, rather than respect their limits, they blasted right past  the clearly marked barricades. Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd, and Derek Brown represent the Hydra like monster cranking out the juicy riffs that keep this track pushing along at a cruising speed beyond reasonable limits. Wayne's vocals mirror the lightness of spirit found in lyrics such as: "Run to outer space. See your smiling face. Everywhere it's all together on this epic day." Especially now, during a period where smiling faces appear to be in short supply, Wayne's unmasked giddiness is a real asset, not to mention a break from the onslaught of bad news that much of the time appears unyielding. Steven doesn't bang out the mission statement of the song much as he guides his fellow minstrels along with the steadiness of a parent who knows of the imminent dangers lurking on the outside but doesn't want his charge to be unduly intimidated by it because there's good mixed in with all that evil. Michael Ivins cranks up his bass until it spins defiantly, daring you to tell it to keep that damned noise down. It's this noise which serves is the devil may care epicenter without which "Sun" wouldn't shine with quite the same can't take your ears off of it attitude. Although it isn't an official part of the album proper, this bonus cut struts its stuff as if it was. "The Terror" ought to be an unholy terror on the album charts with this song figuring into the package. It's about limitlessness. Limitlessness never wears out its welcome because the songsters who respect it and strive to fully realize its potential are worthy of all the respect we can give them.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs Succeed At Being Bitingly Clever With "Mosquito"

My hat's off to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs for taking their new record, "Mosquito", and injecting it with the kookiest elements of a Bjork opus and the dance friendly zing of No Doubt's "Rock Steady". Vocalist/pianist Karen O's frame of mind is slightly askew and that's all the better for this record because the more unhinged the surrounding ear tapestry the more compelling this rowboat ride through Strangetown is. Here's to genuine downtown street culture as pierced together with "Subway". You can see the graffiti paintings in all their slum crusted splendor. Karen's intensity level serves "Sacrilege" well. Brimstone manifests itself through Brian Chase banging away and Nick Zinner inspiring hosannas via his keyboard showmanship. "Slave" burrows under one's skin from the opening. Your most vulnerable cerebral nodes are no match for the organic rhythms. For the most part Nick succeeds in planting keyboard in such advantageous spots that they often become the infectious side attraction lending that fifth gear zoom factor to Karen's possessed by the alt-rock devil hyper focus. This is proof that a vocal chorus is not the only aspect of music that lends itself to being tagged "earwig". A keyboard has just as much ability to be irresistible if the set of notes aligns just right. New wave '80s band Berlin proves my point throughout "The Metro". From an instrument vantage point the song itself is about as weighty as an angel food cake but the keyboard drilled into my head with a Kung Fu grip and was impossible to shake. It very much lent the soap opera spirit of drama to the single. Nick accompanies Karen. He's by her side in the studio. He's not trying to steal her thunder. He just wants to drop in some curiosities to keep the shop operating with a little ready cash in the till. "Always" is the rare bead on this necklace where Karen's dialed up emotional response is unrequited craving rather than zealous tour guide who's taking us all through tripped out backstreets with the confidence of a seasoned vet who really has seen all this oddball turf before. In her own way she marvels at the disarray. How much fun is it to court the darker shadings of the mind. The title track finds Karen mouthing the word mosquito so dementedly you want to toss her a can of bug spray before any long term nerve damage takes root. Even more scintillating is The Yeah Yeah Yeahs made a nutty track high on foot shuffling possibilities. In order to sample this album I went to YouTube where both the full album and band members discussing their intentions in making this full album were found. Karen describes it as a Yeah Yeah Yeahs soul record. I can see that. I also think "Sacrilege" was the ideal pole position tune. You too may spontaneously erupt in hand raising testimony. Mosquito bites are not pleasant. The Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Mosquito" on the other hand is a captivating treat that merits taking out or plugging in for a vigorous spin. This alt rock soul trio finds the beat and adds fresh twists to it.

Duran Duran Fits In Just Fine on Planet Earth

MTV and Duran Duran were a match made in music video heaven. The five really knew how to dress to impress for success. I doubt Duran Duran would have been quite the juggernaut it became without their fashion savvy videos. You didn't just watch a bunch of drool worthy Brits strut their stuff, you got a backstage pass into their New Romantic way of life. Seeing their videos is like taking an exotic vacation without leaving your armchair. As my way of saluting Earth Day I'd like to express a few sentiments about the first song to make a splash in the band's home stomping grounds, "Planet Earth". At this point MTV was still well into its infancy. The canvas was blank. The world was indeed brave and new. Artists made vids on what would appear to be shoestring budgets and, while cheesier than a pack of Kraft American Singles, they got the artists' names vaulted to the forefront of public imagination. "Planet Earth", the video, keeps it fairly straightforward. Simon LeBon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor, Andy Taylor, and Roger Taylor are in the process of driving girls crazy from high atop a towering block of ice. They are the boys Mom wouldn't mind seeing her daughter bring home. Earth-appropriate snippets of info about life on Earth such as what's the ratio of men to women living on our planet materialize IBM style on the screen. The song itself is a pretty snazzy debut. John's bass playing stuns much like the Romeo himself. Nick Rhodes frosts up the atmosphere with whipped cream light keyboards. It's those keyboards that give the song an aura that allows it to levitate a little ways above the Earth conceptually. Roger's drumming is sharp, never lagging behind the swagger of his other bandmates. Where John's bass tingles with sexual heat, Andy's alto guitar cries out with some heart-rending pathos, a loosely defined hint of human touch being omitted from the mix by forces lacking a scapegoat identity. Let's face it, many women of the day would've sold their souls to get their mitts on any one of the Duran dudes. Methinks Simon was first choice. There's a lot of impact behind a song fixated on two souls trying to break through to each other. "Look now, look all around, there's no sign of life. Voices, another sound, can you hear me now? This is planet earth, you're looking at planet earth". Two people reaching for other, hoping that they can make a connection without that damned ozone getting in the way. If you sell people, places, and things in nifty packages, chances are the masses will at least stop to sniff the merchandise. "Planet Earth" was Duran Duran's first persuasive argument that they were sniff worthy. The song still holds up astoundingly well today. The danger, the unspoken romance, the dashing trousers. It was all there for viewers to unwrap and they did so with the razor sharp focus of a four year old tearing open his Xmas booty. Duran Duran knew about booty long before it became a regular focal point in hip hop parlance.  "Planet Earth" was phase one of what would ultimately be Duran Duran's '80s domination.

Stone Sour Delivers More Skull Splitting Metal Mayhem From Their Comfort of Their Add-On "House"

Beautiful minds excite me. I love articulate people. Gene Hackman, Tom Hanks, Rolling Stone magazine's Rob Sheffield, Robin Roberts. I get all tingly at the prospect that people like these open their mouths and potentially brilliant pearls of wisdom come sliding out. In the metal community craft tends to triumph over the sense that when you put on a metal CD you're dealing with a bunch of guys who could string several sentences together on topics great and small. For instance James Hetfield, Metallica's frontman, knows his way around the metal turf, but he has this rep, deserved or not, of not being the sharpest knife in the drawer. It's his easily detectable rage that draws crowds to Metallica shows. Corey Taylor, vocalist for both Slipknot and Stone Sour, impresses me more and more with what comes flying out of his lyrical toolbox. He sees possibilities the way a pair of first time homeowners sees possibilities in the bare bones property they just signed off on. I could fill this space waxing eloquent on just how deep Corey really is but not only would that make me sound like a young groupie whose having his baby, it wouldn't present the full scope of Stone Sour's brilliance. "House of Gold and Bones Part 2" is detonated heartstrings times 12. "Sadist" will leave icicles hanging off your lungs. If this is the aftermath of a nuclear war I'd advise the powers that be to think long and hard before becoming too contentious with each other. Roy Mayorga dials back his drumming as if astute enough to realize we've just entered a sickeningly lifeless new world and he doesn't need to hammer the concepts into our skulls. The fangs we've come to appreciate from these denizens of the metal universe are still there. Still, subtlety strikes a real chord in this case. With "Peckinpah" we get the first of Corey's enlightened proclamations, the sort of thing that the more intelligent amongst us take for granted. "There's a knowledge that comes with being arrogant." How boldly deep I say, and a point of contention not hammered home often enough. One of the common threads throughout "House" is how skillfully the band spins intricate webs which shift from empowered definition of self to the uneasy sense of knowing how much one is enduring the weight of being merely a number in a larger game. Moving right along to "Stalemate", it's Corey's inner torment which ignites this inferno. "My mind is a terrible gift. I'd rather be numb than feel this way." On this track Roy's drumming flips into speed demon mode at the midway point. Corey spells out his discomfort. Roy drops in the blow by blow. Guitarists James Root and Josh Rand leave first gear back at the studio. Not a moment of holding back on the drama. Never fails to amaze me watching the convoluted twists the tag team thrashers orchestrate. Test their pee, I say . Puny humans shouldn't be able to pull off these stunts. "82" continues Corey's theme of being chained to a circumstance he didn't desire but is now forced to make the best of anyway. "It'll be my time once I get away from here." It's worthy of mention that by and large Corey doesn't stoop to the dreaded dirty "Cookie Monster" vocals as a means of injecting fear into our spines. At times the insane guy is the most brilliant guy in the room. Corey stuns, impresses, and even coerces audiences into seeing his point of view simply by flashing the power of his cranium. His vocals are aggressive but never impaired by the tendency to oversell people on how macho he believes he is. Acoustic guitars are added to the menu for "'The Uncanny Valley" and, given what Corey's reflections are this time, it makes the arguments he's positing that much harder to throw stones at. "When does your karma disarm your explosive demeanor?" Good question and there's no pat answer, is there? "Cherry Pie" this isn't. Tits and ass commentary is gone. Bubbling discontentment has risen up to replace it. "Do Me a Favor" throws higher power morality into the mix. Fist hoisting metal thunder with contemplative morality musings added for an extra bite. Maybe it's the wordsmith in me but I can't help but cop and ear to ear grin at sentiments such as: "Your behavior is the reason there is no savior." No Cookie Monster. Only Corey the monstrous. I do admire a man who knows he's smart and sees sharing his innermost impressions as an honorable mission. This ecstasy inspiring musical mini franchise wraps up as any intellectual tour-de-force should...with a downward spiral of increasingly foreboding chord shifts. Roy goes to rabid dog growl mode behind the kit. Once again, the glue that holds this scrapbook of scintillating sound together is Corey who takes us on more journeys in under an hour than we're likely to participate in all year. "House of Gold and Bones Part 2", from top to bottom is a masterstroke of human innovation. Once you've spent time at  this house, you'll be hard pressed to want to say goodbye to the yarn spinners who've inspired your global perspective to do a complete 180.

Many Magic Mushrooms Lurk in Black Angel's Indigo Meadow

As an experiment I plan, not on beating you all over the heads with my makeshift attempts to provide insider knowledge on the way guitars jolt out their wild magic identities, the way drums unleash torrents of machismo bluster, the way the vocalist is summoning confusion from a horrific center of a menacing other dimension. Nope. I'm simply going to tell you how it can be said that Austin psychedelic rock band Black Angel's "Indigo Meadow" is uncomfortably similar to the stages of one distorted drug trip. The best way to convince you of this is to attach a song title to the sensations it most readily hints at. Ready? Let's go then my partners in local flavor. The title track is the first link in the suspension bridge. Vocalists Christian Bland and Alex Mass have had it with the Man. Time to get as whacked out as possible using whatever pocket change will net them cheap, low rent district drugs. Drummer Stephanie Bailey hammers out her flustered approval. "Evil Things" slide into view. Pretty nasty hits going around the room. You may or may not have heard of folks who are so caught up in a trip that they swear insects are crawling on them. In goes the needle. Tighter, higher shock to the system. Organ burnout can't be too far away, can it? "Don't Play With Guns", a title that requires no justification for the at least partially educated amongst us, symbolizes the drug indulgence at its peak, inches away from going over the falls. As for "Holland" the post-hangover color palate is softer, as is reinforced by Kyle Hunt and Alex Mass's keyboards. They know better than to startle you when that nasty headache is growing more and more impossible to shrug off. Gone are the clanging, nothing to grab onto waves of oblivion. In their place are soft keys and better odds of terra firma forming under your feet. "The Day" brings you the first signs of coherent grasping of big concepts. Christian reintroduces us to the maddening cycle of the day-by-day. Up it goes. Down it goes. Up comes the next day. Down goes the next day. Not necessarily ad infinitum, but it's the first opportunity you've been afforded to shake loose the bong binge that seemed like a good idea at the time. Before we proceed, kudos to this band for successfully graduating from the Doors/Jefferson Airplane school of hallucinogenic experimentation. One puff of this group of songs and the late '60s have returned to tighten the migraine pulling at either end of your skull. "Love Me Forever" likes the skin its in. Could it be you're a new man now? Bass, guitar, vocals, and drums are know on the same side instead of rubbing salt in those morning after chills. Could it be there's some firm legs to stand on anger brewing from both "War on Holiday" and "Broken Soldier"? In any case bonus points to the band (or record label) for knowing the right sequential order for these tracks. In the case of "Broken", upon closer reflection you can see the image of a soldier, khaki pants cinched up tight, helmet strapped, locked, and ideally loaded. Nice job, Stephanie. You've snapped the right photograph of a stalwart battlefield vet going off to the needful, although his needs as an individual homosapien may be quite different. "Twisted Light" wriggles up the arms, toiler bowl at the ready, chowder blow pushed to the immediate agenda. Even songs like "You're Mine" which hint at the promise of some untainted romantic interaction are "jazzed up" shall we say by the ongoing fuzz feedback terrain of people in the throes of hanging too loose for comfort. Coming to the far end of that shaky suspension bridge we are greeted by "Black Isn't Black". How ironic. Hear how the guitar seems to be fading in surreal fashion at the close? That's right, people. We really are vicariously experiencing a tripped out yokel's fade into blackness. With any luck this sad sack is headed straight for the Land of Nod where he will go to get some sense shaken back into him. That way when the next day's sun rousts him, he might of use to anyone in the outside world. Christian nailed the uneasy, yet relief-inducing fade. If you like going where The Doors and Jefferson Airplane have laid their heads then "Indigo Meadow" is just your brand of powder affected paradise. You may try to avert your eyes from the train wreck but voyeurism screams, "It's not our nightmare, lunkhead! Let's see how the less fortunate are faring!!" Sit back and inhale at your own risk.

High Pressure Situation Suits Billy Joel Just Fine

No need to come unglued. It's me here with my post honoring National Stress Awareness Day. I doubt you'll find more of an apt song to pair with this important day than "Pressure" a track which comes off of Billy Joel's uncompromising album "The Nylon Curtain". So many elements of modern life push us to the breaking point. "Pressure" is sinister enough to push every button. The initial drum beat kicks it off resoundingly. Billy, since he is "The Piano Man" after all fills the opening portion with some unflinching chord work that makes one think of a cat hissing, its hairs standing up, armed for battle. As if that wasn't unsettling enough. Then you get these synthesized passages that, at least my case, remind me of rush hour traffic at its most head-scratching. The other drivers are weaving in and out of lanes. You're already time starved as it is. For good measure let's throw in an annoying ambulance siren or three. Cut to Billy Joel's unsteady, non-reassuring delivery of blunt sentiments like: "You have to learn to pace yourself. You're just like everybody else." Each set of lyrical stanzas comes complete with a few repetitions of the title. On either side of that word, the guitar is not having any of your bullshit. The drums want to see you pulled away on a stretcher if they care to tolerate you at all. The pacing doesn't know what oxygen is all about, a masterstroke in composition. If you're a survivor or casualty of modern day crazy you have to know what having "loaded guns in your face" feels like. Maybe it's that board meeting you should have been ready for weeks ago. Maybe it's your three year old trying to climb onto the kitchen counter while forgetting balance isn't something he excels at yet. "All grown up and no place to go" certainly must strike a chord with the younger slabs of the population. Kind of proves my claim, and likely the claim of countless others, that adulthood is vastly overrated. Listening to the song by itself is all well and good but if you want to heighten the creepiness factor try watching the video too. For 1982, it was pretty sophisticated. Among other anxiety stoking delights you get to watch coffee bubble over its cup, a booze consumer struggle to keep his nerves steady enough to down his drink of choice, and a childhood version of Billy get sucked into a TV where his cries for help are heard by no one. I find it apt that, in one portion of the video, young Billy is navigating a maze, a maze I guess must represent the adult world. The entire video maps out a maze of cosmic pitfalls. A dog barks, warped alternate universe game show contestants are introduced and, back in Billy Junior's classroom, one of his classmates is having trouble with his desk because it's spitting out water. The vid can be goofy at times but keep in mind this was one year after MTV hatched. The special effects are pretty intimidating. Billy's style of delivery here ranges from unhinged to infuriated to imprisoned. That's a fine trio of adjectives that modern dwellers can't help but identify with. Did I forget Billy, at the front, and back ends of the video, is staring at a screen of rapid fire images that are broken up only by stress compounding concepts such as "MOTHER", "LOVE" and "MONEY". I've never heard of a pop song inducing a heart attack before. However, "Pressure" would be the song to punch your ticket to ICU. Billy was still in his thirties at this point, so I detect no shortage of residual angry young man lunacy. It's played up to brilliant effect. "Pressure" pulsates with very real dangers. Billy's way of mixing overt rage with contained asylum patient is stunning. You might even call a return visit to this song incredible scream therapy. It's believable therapy because the threats are disturbingly real. "Pressure" sets off each pressure valve with authority. Up to the very last note there's no where for your blood pressure to go but up.