Monday, November 18, 2002 :::
I heard a couple songs last night I'd not heard before; one was Sk8er Boi, and the other was something new by Boston. It seems likely to me that I would find parts of Sk8er Boi reminiscent of "Rio" by Duran Duran knew I the latter better than I do, though it certainly comes with the solo-girl-with-spare-acoustics school of rock that's found a niche in the last several years; if I were picking a song with which to torture my enemies, I would not choose this song.
I wouldn't choose the Boston song either, which I find reminiscent of Boston. One can follow the progression from the seventies albums to Third Stage to this; there was a certain crispness in the early work that has yielded to the straight wall-of-sound motif toward which they were headed. In two or three moments it does demonstrate a certain "edginess", that term of course being the popular current euphemism for weirdness that gets in the way of what you're doing instead of advancing any useful cause -- a practice of which I hope I've as much room to criticize as I intend to use. It's rather like the new Hotel California -- the parts that sound like what we already know are still quite good, in spite of the innovations that get in their way.
::: posted by dWj at 10:29 AM