Charlatans UK - Wonderland
(RCA)
The thing that has always bugged me about big-budget, chart-topping pop
songs is how damned good they always sound. That is, the song, and the
performer, may very well suck, but the engineers and producers are top
notch and have dressed up the product in such pretty packaging that one
must admire it. Bottomless bass, funky-ass beats, massive chords, smooth
harmonies--the surface is perfect. But there is no substance. Its tragic
to waste such ability on the undeserving. The Charlatans UK's
Wonderland has the exact opposite problem. Here is a band more
than willing to play the fake Rolling Stones to Oasis' fake Beatles, but
in updating the sound, they've thrown out all the loose and dirty swagger
in favor of studio-perfect polish.
"You're So Pretty--We're So Pretty," for instance, musically has all the
elements for first rate Brit rock: low and slinky bass, atmospheric
synths, house-infected beats, and an old skool Keith Richard's quasi-blues
lick (not to mention the "oohs" that are straight out of the Stone's
"Shattered"). Plus, as you may have surmised from the song's titled, a
ridiculous arrogance that is only saved by its simultaneous appeal to the
listener's ego. Or "Love is the Key," which has a bizarre falsetto lead
vocal and bouncing electric pianos that dart in and out of super-fuzzed
guitar and could have been a great, grimy number, but the end product,
with the whitebread back-up vocals, and smooth sheen, is far too clean to
really be having any fun. The songs have been produced to death, meaning,
that the over-production has drained the life out of the song. Its like
the mosquito entombed in amber--what may have started out as a buzzing
bloodsucker has been reduced to a plastic-wrapped artifact.
Occasionally, the song is strong enough that it shines through, such as "A
Man Needs to be Told." The languid, soulful melody is driven entirely by
the vocals, so the instrumentation is pushed to the background. Though
that background is over-filled with squirty synths, reverbed pianos, and
other strange accents, when the singer sings (or during the beautiful
steel guitar solo), you can tune that other crap out and get lost in the
simplicity of a great song delivered well.
This is really too bad, because, whereas American rockers have always
suffered from overdeveloped sense of their own machismo, the pasty lads
from across the pond have never shied away from the lurid homoeroticism
inherent in skinny, sweaty, shirtless men prancing about in leather
pants. The U.K. has always been better at producing bands that can rock
and dance without irony because they know that is what all the
ladies really like and is who all the boys really want to be. Seriously,
who would you rather be, Mick Jagger or Scott Weiland? Pete Townsend or
Jon Spencer? Hell, I'd even rather be that sissy from Blur than the
tattooed ass that sings for Sugar Ray.
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