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Soul Coughing El Oso Slash/Warner Rock and roll's musical theme for 1998 seems to be middle age. All the bands who had some sort of "fresh new sound" a few years ago have aged quite a bit, and now realize that once the newness has worn off, there damn well better be some substance underneath. More often than not, there isn't, and most of the once-promising artists of the post-Nirvana age have fallen into the sell-back bin of mediocrity. A few examples from some of the bands I ve been watching for the past few years: Ani DiFranco's intimate, personal performances have given way to a lackluster extravaganza with a backup band and thousands of screaming high school girls modeling fake-lesbian chic. Billy Corgan may have found a machine to replace his drummer, but he can't find one that can write songs with any meaning. After three albums of deserved critical acclaim, Grant Lee Buffalo seems to be using their heartland image to hawk shiny pop songs instead of well-crafted epics. With a Ticketmaster-sponsored tour and videos on MTV, Pearl Jam gave up any attempt at righteousness. There's a lot of money in being the World's Youngest Classic Rock Act. Despite still having cult status among teens who aspire to suicide and try really hard to be different via predictable conformity, five years without putting an album out is a sure sign that Trent Reznor has nothing left to say. After turning herself into Miss America, Courtney Love has backtracked Hole to the substanceless 80s hard rock we all hoped her late husband had destroyed. Had enough? Thank God for Beck. Despite being the darling of Spin and MTV, he still has enough integrity to act snotty at awards shows, and enough ambition have three upcoming releases in the works (on three different labels, no less). Plus, you ve gotta love a guy with song titles like "I Wanna Get With You (Or Your Sister If She s Available)." He made it big in the first place because he was new and different, but because he had the chops to back it up, he followed through on his initial success, and will continue to do so. Which brings us to Soul Coughing, a band that was certainly new and different right out of the gate. Ruby Vroom was a bolt from the blue in late '93 when it came out. No rock band had ever managed to use samples so well, and M. Doughty's neo-beatnik babble was a great antidote to the tiresome laments of grunge. In '96, Irresistible Bliss was a respectable follow-up, not quite as brilliant, but also less dependent on the gimmicks that marked Vroom's best moments. With the sophomore effort out of the way, any band has to start thinking about its future direction, and if it doesn't find one, mediocrity sets in faster than Rigor Mortis. While Soul Coughing once seemed like a genre unto themselves, 1993 was a cultural eon ago, and they now find themselves walking an inter-genre tightrope; trip-hop on one side, cheesy pop on the other, the faceless abyss of electronica looms below, and the harsh light of stardom beckons from above. What to do? It s a hard question when a band that didn't used to sound like anybody now sounds like everybody. Quite a few songs have sped-up drum beats that suggest bringing drum and bass to the masses. (On a side note, it s a shame to have a drummer as talented as Yuval Gabay imitating a computer) The couple songs with acoustic guitar and a beat can't help but suggest Sublime. One song, "Pensacola," is even NIN-derivative, replacing the usual upright bass with a low, wet synth all too reminiscent of The Downward Spiral. Which isn't to say that Soul Coughing is copping the likes of Sublime, a worthless stoner who I'd be happy to kill if he wasn t already dead. Original's just a harder thing for them to be nowadays. Realizing this, they make the smart move on El Oso of using less technical gimmickry. The rhythm section mostly plays it straight, relying on the fact that each of them is formidably talented, and together they're airtight. Doughty was smart in picking the Knitting Factory as his recruiting center - these guys can play. Despite that avant-jazz background and the talent it implies, this is not music you would ever hear at the Factory. These are pop songs. While Vroom was just out-there enough to be considered minimally avant, the mainstream catches up fast these days. Like Beck, Soul Coughing has to resort to being subversive in small ways, like the little bursts of distortion and weirdness that punctuate Odelay! and the random nonsense lyrics that keep the catchiest Soul Coughing songs from slipping into the realm of bubblegum. And that is a danger. While Bliss' "Soft Serve" was catchy in the best possible drifts-from-the-radio-as-you-cruse-around-on-a-summer-day way, (for the sake of the metaphor, assume there is still such a thing as good radio), Oso's first single, "Circles," is more insidiously catchy, in the way that makes a record company exec s eyes light up. They make may K-Rock's playlist this time around (instead of just their promotional concerts which inexplicably feature bands the station would never put in rotation), but using phrases like "indelible reminder of the steel I lack" is hardly a move intended to sucker in mindless consumers with pop fluff. No, as poppy as this record can be at times, there's still plenty of depth. Songs like "Incumbent," and "St. Louise is Listening" are good reminders of what they ve still got in them, and what they ve always had on everyone else. Strip away the samples, the catchphrases, the pop culture references, and underneath it all, you still get a good band. -Mike V. |
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