Sure, I’m an indie-rock snob. I’ll readily admit that. But have you listened to any commercial radio rock or so-called alternative/modern rock stations lately? They’re horrible. It doesn’t matter where you live since the Clear Channel near monopoly has spread their insipid, homogenized playlists across the airwaves nationwide. Maybe I’m just getting to be an old fogey but I swear the songs are interchangeable. Most sound like Nirvana or Metallica. Or they actually are songs by Nirvana and Metallica! They all seem to have the same super compressed production values too, compounded by the FM broadcast. I tell ya, when I was a kid, radio was… probably just as sucky. I simply didn’t know any better. Now I do and can rant about it.
Anyway, I usually listen to NPR, the excellent Georgia State college station WRAS, or my mp3 player in the car. One day this past week I didn’t have my mp3 player and nothing was grabbing me on my two choice stations. So I flipped around on the right of the dial and caught a familiar sounding song. It took me a verse to confirm that it was a lame cover of an even lamer song but I couldn’t place the original artist. It was driving me crazy! I did know it was a song I’d never owned. The opposite has happened to me a lot. It’s a pretty funny feeling to hear something and think, “I have this! Wonder who it is?” Music overload.
Turns out it was a band called Disturbed who covered “Land of Confusion” by Genesis on their ‘05 album, Ten Thousand Fists. As in Phil Collins. Of all the zillions of songs to choose from these guys actually picked a song by ol’ Phil. On purpose. Without irony. I don’t care how nasty their downtuned guitar crunch sounds or if the singer growls through the verses, it still sucks!
Are these guys big? I’ve never heard of them but that doesn’t mean a whole lot. I lead a purposely sheltered life. And I’m sure if a typical Disturbed fan went through my music collection there wouldn’t be a whole that registered. Still, I consider myself lucky to have gone this long without hearing it.
But I suppose the lyrics are just as relevant today, if not more so, than when Phil originally wrote them. I mean, think of global warming, the War on Terror, and Britteny dumping K-Fed as you mull this truism: “There’s too many men / Too many people / Making too many problems / And not much love to go round.” And how can you not be moved by his rallying cry? “This is the world we live in / And these are the hands we’re given / Use them and let’s start trying / To make it a place worth living in.” Ow! My eyes are starting to hurt from rolling them so hard.
It’s truly a crappy song and whoever these Disturbed fellows are deserve to be laughed at for their poor choice in covers. They even kept the “Whoa-oh-oh” part in! Somehow I doubt that anyone who has “Land of Confusion” on their ipod or whatever has it tagged as Comedy, but let me go ahead and make that suggestion. Imagine the headbanging moshers at a Disturbed show during this song and I don’t think you’ll argue.
A prayer before I put in my earbuds: “Our Lady Of the Highway, may you be with me on this journey, which does not leave the confines of this room for fear of taking off my headphones as others my hear the desolation that tears apart my wretched heart. Amen.” Back when I was kid when musicians got all sad and mopey they wore black and started a band, covering nothing but Joy Division and wore makeup like Robert Smith, and we used to walk to school – up hill both ways. Today depression comes in all shapes and genres, and San Francisco’s Our Lady of the Highway heaves it out layered in alt country, mainstream pop, a little faux punk and some emo, all mixed together with oppressive lyrics. The lead singer, Dominic East writes all the songs in his bedroom and that fact is clearly apparent in this 2005 release.
The National stumbled into my field of hearing when I heard their track “Abel” on the excellent and free 
I was pretty excited to see this added to the eMusic catalog the other day. It was actually on my short list of albums to seek out and purchase on the cheap. I really liked their second one, 
DaFluke’s 
In my mind I strongly associated Aloha with one instrument, the vibes, and they could make Lionel Hampton’s instrument of choice really rock. Here Comes Everyone shattered that image with its weighty soundscape and swaggering rhythms but Some Echoes sees the band slipping back into a softer more reflective style of songwriting. The arrangements are more subdued but still teem with complex polyrhythms along with Jazz and Post-Rock structures but with a decidedly progressive slant. However for the most part the sound is restrained and feels as if it is missing that uninhibitedness that marked their early work.