Amy Anderson

Amy Anderson is a Magazine Journalism major at University of Georgia. She enjoys reviewing music and film of all kinds, and hopes to add more to the experience of listening or watching by adding critical perspective and showing various sides to works that audiences love (or hate, or feel indifferent towards). As well, when writing features, she strives to offer a glimpse into the artist’s creative process or ideology through engaging stories or thoughts. Her goal is to offer audiences unseen insight on creative works while opening eyes to worthwhile music and art. Amy's current five favorite musicians— though it’s always in rotation— are Andrew Bird, Beirut, Björk, John Maus, and Milosh. Her "guilty" pleasure is Robyn— if you don’t like her, you’re probably just pretending.

REVIEW: Love This Giant

Posted on by Amy Anderson

Crushed By the Giant

It’s not too farfetched to imagine that when David Byrne found himself in a studio recording Love This Giant (released September 11th) with the angelic, guitar shredding Annie Clark, he may have asked himself “Well, how did I get here?”

The two come from two different genres, two different generations, and two different devout followings.   At surface level, the dots connecting the music of Clark’s moniker, St. Vincent, and Talking Heads’ former frontman David Byrne seem scarce.

However, the duo’s foundation for Love This Giant didn’t completely start from scratch.  In 2010, Byrne and Clark actually collaborated on a less-than-impressive track for Byrne and Fatboy Slim’s score, Here Lies Love — now forgotten in the depths of mega-fans’ comprehensive music collections (with good reason).

Regardless, with their praised solo albums and collaborations ranging from Byrne’s works with Brian Eno to Clark’s notable heart-racing and body-warming INXS covers with Beck, both Byrne and Clark are deserved icons prolific in emphasizing their styles and talents with other musicians.

The thought of St. Vincent & David Byrne collaborating on an entire album seemed surprisingly sensible, and after the release of their single, “Who,” many fans assumed it likely that Love This Giant would be a hit.

“Who be my valentine?” Byrne asks between trumpet blows and drum beats on the catchy single and album open.  With the Siren-like Clark seducing Byrne’s classically strained yet strong vocals strung across a melting pot of jazz melody and sleek guitar-playing, “Who” is by far the boldest, catchiest, and most well-received track on Love This Giant.  The track introduces the album with the initial reaction that it will be the ideal collaboration — something incorporating the original qualities of both musicians, while allowing them to evolve in new ways.

But that is not the dynamic of Love This Giant.  Despite the natural assumption after hearing “Who,” the album isn’t the result of the two musicians intertwining distinctive characteristics while breaking out of their comfort zone.  Rather, it’s the result of two well-known and adored musicians abandoning their golden backgrounds for something chaotic and built of brass.

“Who’s this, inside of me?”  Byrne shrieks midway through “Who,” kicking the track with a jolt of sudden passion and a foreshadowing the remainder of Love This Giant’s nature — Byrne and Clark’s unrecognizable soul possessed by a jazz spirit haunting their music with what sounds like a circus of brass directing a structure-less album.

Drastically different — as each song on the album is — “Who” transitions into the funky “Weekend In The Dust,” utilizing a sassy side of Clark’s vocals amongst what sounds regrettably similar to a high school marching band during practice.  It’s an immediate step down from “Who,” even though it’s one of the more accessible and interesting tracks on Love This Giant.   

Throughout the album, Clark’s vocals differentiate expansively.  Ranging from the spunky, funk style in “Weekend In The Dust” to a pitch and tone only suitable for a Disney princess on the tracks “Optimist” and “The Forest Awakes,” Clark comes off as both flat and schizophrenic.

Clark’s vocals aren’t the only schizophrenic aspect of Love This Giant — the whole album is overwhelmingly hectic with sudden transitions and high highs barely balancing low lows.  More is less for Love This Giant; perhaps with use of steadier transition, loyalty to style, and a more polished cornucopia of brass, it could have been a culturally important album.

It seems unlikely that many musicians would refuse working with the talents of Byrne and Clark.  The amateurish brass on Love This Giant would have been completely avoidable with the help of more skilled trumpet, trombone, saxophone, and horn players.  If the duo had approached a musician like Beirut’s Zach Condon, who has a pristine talent in the realm of brass, the genre shift could have been an evolutionary milestone for the artists.  But as symbolized by the track “I Am An Ape,” Byrne and Clark didn’t quite evolve with the shift of genre — they regressed.

It’s really hard to love a giant too big to notice that it let two idols fall flat.  Combining a new and an older icon, Love This Giant had high potential to be a timeless album weaving together the sounds of two generations.  Instead, Byrne and Clark created something so busy and identity-confused that its emotion and meaning are lost.


Shut Up and Replay the Hits

Posted on by Amy Anderson

How do you determine the size of a bang?

Do you judge it by its initial strike?  By its immediate attention?

The size of a bang isn’t decided by the bang itself.  It is decided by its echo.

LCD Soundsystem has created one of the biggest echoes in worthwhile, cult-followed contemporary music.  As if mirroring the sequence of their individual songs, with each album, LCD Soundsystem’s impact built up and triggered a complete need in their fans.  There’s the start; anticipation emphasized by foot tapping and bouncing; the hit of climax.. and POW POW instantaneous loss of control.  As happens with every LCD song, listeners went full on I-don’t-care-what-you-think crazy by the explosion: this was happening.

But LCD Soundsystem did not lose control.  They respectably chose to give it away while they were ahead— to the kids with impeccable taste trading in guitars for turntables.  LCD Soundsystem’s climax was their end, marked by “the best funeral ever.”

Madison Square Garden.

Lasting three and a half hours, the show I wish I had the pleasure of attending most is being released with LCD Soundsystem’s biggest echo— their obituary documentary, “Shut Up and Play the Hits.”

It’s a chance for us all to relive their death and, respectively, their big bang.  The documentary itself will cause you to fall in love with James Murphy and the small moments that represent the love buried in LCD Soundsystem.  The film primarily focuses on James, but watching his connections with the band, I could see exactly why each member was so important.  It isn’t all about James (even though directly, it is).

The sound in the movie is crisp and clean; it consumes you, thanks to James who mixed and edited it for the film.  It was confusing- sitting quiet in a theater surrounded by a crowd, the sound, and the visuals of LCD Soundsystem.  I almost felt rude- and definitely inhibited- by not singing and dancing.  James almost made me believe I was there.  Almost.  I was there…but really, I wasn’t.

It’s a great gravestone.  But their overall obituary is still being written, and the crying boy is probably still crying (on the inside, at least).  The fans haven’t shut up, and the hits are still being played through nostalgic speakers.

It’s all flickers after fire.  After their final concert came the one-night-only showing of “Shut Up and Play the Hits,” came the countless articles, came the gifs and fan-made posters, came the iTunes release earlier this week (thank God), will come the DVD release and bonus material October 9th.  Like a musician storming off and throwing down the mic, the echo is far from silent— even though it’s been two years since the final show.

The scenes in “Shut Up and Play the Hits” weave in and out of their absolute party at Madison Square Garden, James Murphy’s interview with the equally pretentious yet brilliant Chuck Klosterman (hey, it makes for great footage), and moments of James’ new life— taking out his French bulldog whilst in a dress shirt and pajama pants… making coffee…shaving his face…looking bewildered by the sudden insanity of being normal.

But James Murphy will never truly be normal.

What makes an artist great isn’t simply their product.  And once a product is completed, their work is not finished.  Instead it lingers on with its effects, and that is the only true way to analyze its importance.

And even though LCD Soundsystem’s musical career has ceased, the embers still flicker.

The effects of LCD Soundsystem go past their music, or their documentary, or their story— though these things are all imperative to their worth.  Their relevance will never die because their sound was modernly reminiscent, their lyrics were timelessly significant with wit and wisdom, and their works never trailed off into destruction.  They were good throughout their existence, and then they stopped.  So they will always be good.  The world of pop culture and music is always being trumped by newer ideas from younger generations.  James recognized this, but refused to let his ideas or work become dated.

Instead, he chose to sit back with his French bulldog and live on in glorified remembrance.

LCD Soundsystem fans are saved for the moment— “Shut Up And Play The Hits” is still sounding its echo, and we’re still lingering in awe of the bang’s aftermath.  But someone great is gone, and the world somehow keeps spinning with lovely weather, coffee that isn’t bitter, and new ideas.

It’s a strange ending, but the echo keeps on.

…And it keeps coming till the day it stops.