Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Chuck Klosterman on LuLu

Because Drischord seems to be interested in all things LuLu, I wanted to make sure you saw this Chuck Klosterman musing on the album. It contains the usual Klostermanian excesses that can sometimes grate, including the fact that it inexplicably concludes with a set of typically broad pronouncements about the NFL quarterback, Tim Tebow (viz. "[N]o one who follows football thinks Tebow is anything other than who he is."). But I like how he ties the whole thing in to the collapse of the music industry, and his general takedown of the quality of the album is pretty great:

If these cagey tunesmiths had consciously tried to make a record this simultaneously dull and comedic, they'd never have succeeded; the closest artistic equivalent would be what might have happened if Vincent Gallo had been a script consultant for The Room. . . . Lulu is as appalling as logic demands. If the Red Hot Chili Peppers acoustically covered the 12 worst Primus songs for Starbucks, it would still be (slightly) better than this. "Loutallica" makes SuperHeavy seem like Big Star.


I had to google "SuperHeavy," and I was appalled by what I found out: "a supergroup consisting of Mick Jagger, Joss Stone, Dave Stewart, Damian Marley, and A. R. Rahman." Supergroups in general tend to be a bad idea, but supergroups with anonymous rhythm sections are completely unforgivable.[1] Say what you will about Chickenfoot-- at least it had Michael Anthony and Chad Smith. But either way, even putting aside that sin, this group is a pretty horrifying combination.

[1] Traveling Wilburys are the exception that proves the rule.

4 comments:

drischord said...

Two other arguments for supergroups with anonymous rhythm sections:

Blind Faith: The presence of anonymous bassist Ric Grech kept this band from literally being Cream fronted by Steve Winwood. This album, by the way, is my vote for best recorded output by a supergroup.

Golden Smog: Their first, and definitely best album, Down By the Old Mainstream, has an anonymous drummer while the follow-up has Jody Stephens from Big Star, but is clearly inferior.

And then there's God's gift to rock, Spinal Tap, which wasn't a supergroup but cycled through many anonymous drummers, including one with the single best name in British hard rock history: Viv Savage.

drischord said...

Also the Klosterman piece is great! Thanks for sharing. Tebow is on there because it's on a sports website-- Grantland, which I'm now reminded to read more often. If anyone in the Kittybrains Collective really followed sports, he'd like Bill Simmons, the site's founder.

Also pretty crazy that Klosterman listed "The View," the track I posted a few weeks ago, as one of two highlights!

Eric said...

That's funny-- I knew that Grantland was Bill Simmons' site, but I've only ever read non-sports stories there so I didn't even realize it was really a sports site at all. I like Simmons' pop culture stuff, but am obviously indifferent to the sports stuff.

drischord said...

Yeah, it's actually owned by ESPN.