QUICK SPINS: Best Coast, David Bowie
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 21, 2010 5:20PM
In which we take a quick look at a few recent or upcoming musical releases.
On one hand Best Coast’s debut album comes off as so many lovelorn journal entries from that really hot girl in high school who never realized she was hot because she was too full of self-doubt. In other words it would be easy to write the band off as the musical equivalent of a teen movie. It would also be easy to write off the trio’s music as a simple cross between Phil Spector girl groups and The Jesus and Mary Chain primarily because that’s a spot-on and wholly accurate description. But such oversimplification fails to capture just how mesmerizing Best Coast’s music is.
Is it Bethany Cosentino’s vocals, deceptively floating up and down, lowering your guard until they penetrate through your heart and into your spine? Her vocals have been described as dreamy but there’s a real power and strength in her delivery; her impact is real and strong. Guitar / bass / whatever’s at hand player Bobb Bruno helps to create the melodies and drummer Ali Koehler holds the whole thing down with no-frills drumming, and the mixture of the three proves truly magical. In an era when too many bands stand, rightfully, accused of merely mining the past for sentimental knee-jerk reactions Best Coast manages to mine their internal worlds to deliver something both familiar and new.
David Bowie
Station To Station [2010 Reissue]
David Bowie’s Station To Station has always seemed like one of his most deeply weird albums to us. It acts as a musical bridge between his blue-eyed soul of Young Americans and his Teutonic poses and chilly sound experiments of his Berlin Trilogy (Low, “Heroes,” and Lodger). Hell, this couldn’t be more obvious. Just listen to Station To Station’s title track and you hear the opening bizarre sing-song chanting of later albums grafted onto a subsequent lose your shirt disco stomp. And the album continues to struggle to find a coherent voice. “Golden Years” and “TVC 15” are forward looking pop masterpieces while “Word On A Wing” and “Wild Is The Wind” are full-throated excuses for Bowie croon over gentle backing tracks.
It’s this schism that has always put Station To Station near the bottom of our rankings when we compare Bowie albums to each other, and so we haven’t really listened to its six songs altogether as a proper LP in many, many years. This reissue gave us the chance to revisit these tunes though and the experience has been revelatory. We still think the album as a whole suffers from Bowie’s inability to focus - famously brought on by his legendary drug use at the time - but after a few years away from our turntable we find ourselves strangely drawn in by just that reason. Bowie is struggling to map out a new path and it’s one of the few times this musical mastermind actually comes across with even the whiff of vulnerability. It’s his battle and when he triumphs, as on the title track, the results are staggering. This new discovery is an exciting one for us.
This reissue is a great way to acquaint yourself with the album if you haven’t already. And if you’re looking to reacquaint yourself the use of the original analogue master for this reissue creates a greater depth of sound than the 1985 or Ryko CD editions, so you may find a familiar album offering up some unexpected sonic delights.