40 Versions

Interscope (or 4AD if you buy the import. But why would you do that?)

Sept. 12, 2006

1. “I Was a Lover”

A massive distortion-ball of an opener, with blurting elephant horns and a chopped-up, Bomb Squad-harked minor chord sample. Then a reprieving piano section; bright, chunky keys. The kind of thing Tricky would be doing right now. Very ominous.

SCORE: 10/10

2. “Hours”

Still ominous, but with a much more mellow start via some “normal”-sounding drums. Piano tinkling for tension-building effect. The kind of thing Bowie would be doing right now.

SCORE: 8.5/10

3. “Province”

A great vocal melody to open. Back-and-forth guitaring and big-footstep percussion. Has more atmosphere than the last two tracks despite using less instrumentation. I think this actually features
Bowie, on backing vocals. If we’re keeping the relatable theme running, this is the kind of thing Interpol should be doing right now.

SCORE: 9/10

4. “Playhouses”

This would be a good time to note that this is merely a version of the album, so the sequencing could well be off, as I’ve heard has happened with other leaked copies. TV on the Radio compositions tend to be open-and-shut mini-epics within themselves, so how you hear one track to the next may not matter all that much. This one’s chaotic and scattershot, drums and feedback chasing each other until they both collapse. Um, the kind of thing Nine Inch Nails should’ve done on their last album.

SCORE: 8.5/10

5. “Wolf Like Me”

Funny how I just mentioned that sequencing on TVOTR records isn’t that big of a deal, and here “Playhouses” purposely, and quite effectively, bleeds into “Wolf Like Me.” This is psycho-disco-death-kill music. Like being chased around a roller-skating rink with a hockey stick-scythe. Only it’s a bad dream.

SCORE: 8/10

6. “A Method”

Whistle-while-you-work melody — beautiful — clapping and shuffle drums (later, some Waitsian clanging); that’s all. Tunde Adepimbe can be a great vocalist when he wants to. I’m not paying much attention to the lyrics. Maybe I should.

SCORE: 8.5/10

7. “Let the Devil In”

More clapping, almost feels like an extension of the last track. Then yelling and grating guitars; obnoxious. The first song thus far I could really do without. Although, it does gel together the further along it gets, once the rhythm picks up. Actually, I like it now.

SCORE: 8/10

8. “Dirtywhirl”

You can tell this is going to be incredible from the get-go, because it starts all gritty and tense, then just builds and builds with fat drums, razor guitars, bluesy piano, and Adepimbe’s now-oh-so-undeniable birdcall, which rises and falls for suspense. The whole thing even stops and strips itself before fading out; moments I admittedly live for. Four minutes meant to feel forever.

SCORE: 10/10

9. “Blues from Down Here”

Another would-be dud that, this time, kinda stays that way. Everything else flexes and struts; relatively simple songs made to seem towering and more intimidating than they might actually be. Still, some interesting things happen: horn farts as comic relief; a gospel-style breakdown; layers of murky, unidentifiable stuff.

SCORE: 6/10

10. “Tonight”

Exactly what tonight, every night, any night, should feel like: twinkling, echoed, sudden noises, hypnotic softness. If Tunde was good before, he’s in the stratosphere now, the point of no return. Of course, atop anything else, it would mean nothing. Also, there are flutes at the end of this. I didn’t see that coming.

SCORE: 10/10

11. “Wash the Day”

I haven’t the slightest as to what any of these songs are truly about, and I prefer it that way. Still, it nags me that there could be some bigger, overarching point(s) I’m missing. I can’t really speculate what the intentions of “Wash the Day” or anything else on Return to Cookie Mountain are; it might be about Katrina (waves of noise that end the album?) or Iraq or North Korea or post-9/11 New York or computers taking over our lives or the Mexican border, for all I know or care. Ultimately, it’s important because it sounds that way. But if someone really does know what it all means, I’d love to hear it.

SCORE: 10/10

FINAL: 96.5/110 = 88/100

Jive/Zomba

Sept. 12, 2006

1. “FutureSex/LoveSound”

A skittering, super-bass beat drops immediately. Justin whispers sexual innuendos and hits a shimmering chorus. The whole thing’s simple and repetitive, but I admire the “no talking intro” rule that was obviously applied. No explanation as to what “futuresex/lovesound” actually means.

SCORE: 7/10

2. “SexyBack”

Another artistic compound title. It’s like he’s trying to brand a product or something. The beat isn’t all that interesting, but I really like the vocal inflections throughout. This is the kind of song you think won’t work on radio, and when it does, it’s really exciting. Confession (no pun intended): I originally thought this song was about a woman (man?) having a sexy back. It wouldn’t surprise me if Justin was a fetishist like that.

SCORE: 8.5/10

3. “Sexy Ladies” / “Let Me Talk to You” (Prelude)

I’ve noticed already that my version will be a bit different, sequence-wise, from the one scheduled for iTunes. As for “Sexy Ladies,” it’s trite both lyrically and musically. Note that the first three songs on this album have the word “sex” (or a variation thereof) in their titles. You’d think he’d spread the sex around a bit more, so to speak. He’s clearly horny. The beat is early ’80s electro-rap; boring. The prelude that follows (which makes no sense when you say that out loud) is a tribal chimes-and-percussion thing that sounds like leftover noodlings from D’Angelo’s Voodoo album, which is definitely a point of reference here.

SCORE: 6/10

4. “My Love” featuring T.I.

Now this is amazing. Timbaland, who I’m guessing produced this, does the skidding synth-beat effect better than anyone, although, other than the Neptunes, I’m not sure who else really tries to do that sort of thing, anyway. Maybe because Timbo scares off the imitators! Just to prove a point, T.I. matches the jerky rhythm to his own darting flow, and it’s jaw-dropping every time. It’s interesting how much chemistry J.T. can have with a hardcore drug rapper like T.I., but not with a watered-down drug rapper like Snoop, who appears on a bonus track, “Pose,” which, much to the album’s benefit, will not be reviewed.

SCORE: 10/10

5. “LoveStoned” / “I Think She Knows” (Interlude)

A hyper number. Something you might try to dance to. If you were on speed. And drunk. And had been listening to Sigur Ros all day. Strings add a refined touch. Latin drums and beatboxing at the end (more great adds) beautifully give way to “I Think She Knows,” a gut-wrenching melodic turn that will undoubtedly make someone, somewhere, doing something, cry. It would warrant at least a 9 on its own, and it’s a slight shame it’s reduced to a half-song, rather than the fully-realized monster it could’ve been. It’s brilliant.

SCORE: 8.5/10

6. “What Goes Around … Comes Around” (Interlude)

The longest track on the album; baffling that it’s considered an “interlude,” which typically last for one, two minutes, tops. It’s an operatic production: dark guitar plucks, heavenly strings, soul-baring, standing-in-the-front-lawn-while-it’s-pouring-rain pleas, all against an unyielding slab of a beat; the perfect juxtaposition. Segues into an “I’m better without you” epilogue that mentions a cruddy new boyfriend and cheating (I guess that’s what the “interlude” refers to?). I’m almost positive it’s about Britney Spears. The whole effort is pretty remarkable, actually.

SCORE: 10/10

7. “Chop Me Up” featuring Three 6 Mafia & Timbaland

Let’s start by saying this could’ve been a lot (read: AN F’ING LOT) worse. Timbaland, who’s not a bad or a good rapper, raps on this one, as opposed to just producing. (I think Three 6 Mafia produced this track, though.) This sounds like anything that was on Most Known Unknown, a great piece of work once you delete all the lyrics from it. There’s a nifty beat switch-up breakdown, which always catch my ear. You can tell it’s killing Three 6 not to throw in a line about domestic violence, although they do sneak in something about having a “smackfest.” I took that as another sexual innuendo, however.

SCORE: 8/10

8. “Summer Love” / “Set the Mood” (Interlude)

What you might expect to hear from Justin Timberlake on this album: earth-piercing sparseness that sends out waves of more earth-piercing sparseness and screeching oddities. Both annoying and inescapable. “Set the Mood” sounds exactly like something from Confessions, which you’ll recall heavily aped Jodeci. And still it’s great.

SCORE: 8.5/10

9. “Until the End of Time” featuring The Benjamin Orchestra Wright

For all its homoerotic weirdness, I’m digging this album pretty hard. No homoerotica. But the biting has got to stop! I take it that Timberlake set out to make an album about the relationship between sex and love (who doesn’t?), and defined it according to his most comfortable, primitive inspiration: music. That’s why we’ve got Voodoo and Jodeci and, on this track, Prince. What’s amazing, however, isn’t how transparent his motives are. It’s how well they actually, truly work.

SCORE: 8.5/10

10. “Losing My Way”

I think this song features The Benjamin Orchestra Wright (shouldn’t those last two words be transposed?), not “Until the End of Time.” But my sources (Allmusic, Wikipedia) have verified the latter, so there you have it. The beginning sounds like “Because I Got High,” and the track quickly unfolds into a social commentary message (not unlike “Because I Got High,” when you think about it). It’s really embarrassing. To wit: “Hi, my name is Bob / I work at my job / I make 40-some dollars a day.” Ugh. But a stirring chorus: “Can anybody out there hear me? / ’Cuz I can’t seem to hear myself / Can anybody out there see me? / ’Cuz I can’t seem to see myself…Can you help me find my way?”

SCORE: 7/10

11. “Damn Girl” featuring will.i.am

A ’60s throwback, complete with organ struts and James Brown affecting. A strong recovery from the slow gospel and funk sounds of the previous tracks. Straightforward but rewarding. Love the drums. Will.i.am should stop rapping.

SCORE: 8/10

12. “(Another Song) All Over Again”

A lighter-waving barn-burner that fittingly closes the album. I miss these kind of moments. Sounds like something I can’t quite put my finger on, but then again, what doesn’t on this album? (He he.) This might be Al Green, come to think of it. Damn fine. This Mickey Mouse Club fucker writes incredible songs and collaborates like a champ, hereby referred to as “playing well with others.” And the Michael Jackson-posturing is all but gone, thankfully. Insert “king of pop” declaration here. Unless someone has done it first.

SCORE: 9/10

FINAL: 99/120 = 83/100

Motown/Universal

Sept. 12, 2006

1. “Don Gon Do It”

Starts with a chorus of sky-breaking harmonies, a marked difference from Echoes (their last album, 2003), whose “Olio” began with dark piano chords and electronic squirts. Then it goes disco-upbeat, with squealing guitars over swinging, processed percussion. Only discernible lyrics: “You were so fucked up / I wish you’d die.” The title is a variation of the phrase “don’t gonna do it,” if that helps any. A pretty great opener.

SCORE: 8/10

2. “Pieces of the People We Love”

More processed, bass-heavy percussion. Processed “Nah, nah, nah” chorus; sounds an awful lot like Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll.” And it works well. I liked this: “Everybody’s gotta little piece of someone they hide.” They’re not as nakedly awkward as Interpol’s lyrics, but I admire their balls. So to speak. This could’ve been a Strokes song.

SCORE: 8/10

3. “Get Myself into It”

The great first single. I don’t know why they distance themselves from DFA so much, since they’re still obviously on that pulsing, bells-and-whistles acid house kick, and the separation they enforce only serves to illustrate the point they’re trying not to make. I’ve always hoped they’d end up as the DFA flagship band, but that’s not going to happen anymore. The song ends in a saxophone squirm while the beat gets a screwed-down effect. Awesome. They should release this whole album in chopped-and-screwed form.

SCORE: 8.5/10

4. “First Gear”

Annoying all the way through; very synthed up (out?). Tries to be chic-retro but misses and winds up sounding outdated. Meaningless lyrics — what’s a “mustang whore”? Goes on forever, and aimlessly at that. The b-side to a b-side, if you will.

SCORE: 3/10

5. “The Devil”

Another dud. I swear Luke Jenner just did the same vocal effect Michael Jackson pulled off brilliantly in “Dirty Diana.” Jenner can’t sing, though. Another notable: the guitars aren’t scaled back on this album so much as they’re used weakly. Here they feel canned and chintzy. It’s really irritating.

SCORE: 3/10

6. “Whoo! Alright-Yeah … Huh”

The leaked track everyone said sounded like Talking Heads’ “The Great Curve.” And it really does! Right down to the R2-D2 blip-noises at the end. It’s like when the Killers said they were incorporating a Springsteen influence into their new record, and then came “When You Were Young,” and everyone said it sounded like Springsteen. Because it really, actually did. There’s just no other way to state the obvious sometimes. Lots of restraint on this one; focused and lean. A welcome change over the last two tracks. I just caught a line about drinking piss, though. They’re struggling for lyrics, more so than usual.

SCORE: 7.5/10

7. “Calling Me”

Slow, grinding guitars, a bit more beefed up than on “The Devil”; a good thing. Really hollow, far-away vocals (“I hear her calling me”). Very different from anything else they’ve done. This would be the equivalent of the epic dragon-slaying cut on an Iron Maiden or Yes record. Not that there’s a prog-rock thing going on or anything, it’s just an appropriate analogy. Actually, I have noticed some prog elements here and there, so maybe it’s more than an analogy.

SCORE: 7.5/10

8. “Down for So Long”

This has another unfamiliar — I’m talking about in the Rapture discography, mind you, not the history of pop music — feel to it. I want to say this is their Duran Duran moment. But it’s not — it’s totally something else, and I’ll definitely regret making that comment. I need a minute and Allmusic.com to figure this one out. Very cool, though, a kind of safari music, very cultured.

SCORE: 8/10

9. “The Sound”

They rock hard on this one, with the guitars finally amped up, but it sounds like something from Nine Inch Nails’ The Fragile. Notice that Nine Inch Nails now sounds like something from DFA, by the way. Pretty tuneless and out of hand. Not particularly feeling this, although the lunar synths during the chorus are interesting, as are the chaotic drums.

SCORE: 6/10

10. “Live in Sunshine”

A trippy Chemical Brothers closer, which I’ve always been a big fan of. Rolling percussion in the vein of the ending of “Love Is All.” Good vocals; not sure Jenner is singing this one. A very hopeful closer, albeit somewhat lackluster. It should be said that Pieces of the People We Love is a decidedly bright, danceable record, much like the Chem Bros’ Surrender. No “Killing” or “Infatuation” here. Then again, nothing that quite approaches the madness that was “House of Jealous Lovers,” either. They make a valiant go of trying to reclaim the past while reaching for some new, different things, and it often works.

SCORE: 7.5/10

FINAL: 67/100

Did you hear the one about Papoose? A great New York mixtape rapper (or New New York rapper, of whatever it’s called, if you read Sickamore’s bullshit posts) co-signed by Kay Slay, who gets a $1.5 million deal, courtesy of foremost hip-hop experts and new millennium plantation-owners Jive “Turkey” Records. No Rupert Murdoch.

This is absurd. One-point-five MILLION dollars for Papoose? It’s like paying $1.5 million for J.R. Writer. I mean, on the one hand, it’s a great thing to see. Papoose fucking owned the remix of “Address Me as Mister,” and that was next to Busta and Raekwon, a sort of New York passing-the-torch moment, unless I read too much into it. But on the other hand, COME ON! This is one-and-a-half times the amount of money Dre and Em shelled out for 50 Cent (one of the greatest returns on investment ever made). Quality aside on this one. Does Jive honestly expect Papoose to sell more than 300,000 copies of his upcoming album, The Nacirema Dream? Do you?

You would think people in these kind of higher, well-connected, seemingly hard-earned positions would know better. But it’s true — people do stupid things with lots of money all the time. Remember the XFL? Or Waterworld?

Papoose’s deal was announced in the midst of fellow Jivesters Outkast releasing the maddeningly disappointing Idlewild album and movie. Anything to be said of this artistic shitbomb has already been spoken, and better, so I’ll leave it alone.

But you might recall another Jive acquisition, Clipse, who got jerked around by the label so badly that they started making songs about it, and here’s where things become clear: Jive Records is the dumbest music company alive.

That they thought it a good idea to give Papoose $1.5 million based on a bunch of above-average mixtapes and green-light a transparently bad Outkast project, yet continually shelve one of the most anticipated rap albums ever, is proof insane that Jive is run by people who, while maybe well-intentioned, maybe hard-working, are completely out of touch with the motives of people who actually buy music.

It would appear that the Papoose signing is a way for Jive to boost its street cred and compensate its hardcore rap fans for rear-ending Clipse over the last two years. Who the hell knows what they were thinking with Idlewild, other than falling back on the not-so-forgotten formula that oddball Outkast records, surprisingly, and to the joy of industry-types, move units.

I was always under the impression that record companies operated under the “Sonic Youth Rule.” That is, for every, say, three massive, Linkin Park-style sellers, the label will grab up a critically-adored but commercial failure with a sizable, loyal fan base. It’s a glorified PR move: give a smaller band/artist a relaxed push, let them sell a couple hundred thousand records (usually less), break even, and move on. Sometimes the motives are genuine; Nothing Records was known to balance Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson with niche stuff like Meat Beat Manifesto, Autechre, Plaid, Prick et al. You’d think Papoose would fall into the latter. Not be poised for the former.

Jive, after all, is still spending Backstreet money. They could scoop up a dozen of these mixtape-buzz rappers and write the whole thing off, assuming they can put out one big seller every year.

Speaking of which, the new Justin Timberlake album might be the best record of 2006. Pitchfork loved the single with T.I. I’m guessing it’ll have the highest first-week sales all year, as well as the best sales overall. Which poses a new question. Jive Records: smartest label alive?