Project X Goes Indie (Sort Of)

Michaelangelo Matos | March 12, 2008 10:00 am
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As part of Idolator’s continuing effort to geekily analyze every music chart known to man, we present a new edition of Project X, in which Idolator Critics’ Poll editor Michaelangelo Matos breaks down rankings from every genre imaginable. After the click-through, he looks at the Britain’s ever-shifting definition of “indie,” with a BBC chart that includes everything from soul to Radiohead effluvia to synth-pop that first hit three decades ago to, yes, even some indie rock:

Am I turning into an anglophile? Apparently so, because this is the third column in a row that concentrates on an English Top 10. You can blame this on any number of factors: the dullness of the American charts, an attraction to novelty not entirely unlike that of the U.K. charts. But I’ll blame it on Andy Kellman. Kellman, an All Music Guide editor and one of the overseers of AMG’s recently instituted blog, began keeping track of the new R&B singles as they appear weekly on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Top 100. Since I write regularly about singles elsewhere, not to mention keeping an eye on Top 10s here, I’ve begun keeping track of new additions to several U.S. and U.K. charts as well. And if the American Top 10 is stagnation incarnate, the British charts are ever changing, especially the indie charts, which turn over like nobody’s business. Here’s the BBC Radio 1 Top 10 Independent Label Singles of March 2, 2008.

1. BWO, “Sunshine in the Rain” (Shell) 2. Adele, “Chasing Pavements” (XL) 3. Gary Numan/Tubeway Army, “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?”/”Down in the Park” (Beggars Banquet) 4. Benga & Coki, “Night” (Tempa) 5. Katie Melua, “If the Lights Go Out” (Dramatico) 6. Stone Gods, “Burn the Witch” (Stone Gods) 7. Thom Yorke, The Eraser Remixes (XL) 8. Band of Horses, “No One’s Going to Love You” (Sub Pop) 9. Radiohead, “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” (XL) 10. Lines, “Domino Effect” (Weekender)

You’ll notice the three positions in boldface. Those are the songs that were on the list the previous week. Not in the Top 10–in the Top 30. The entire rest of the Top 10–seven records–debuted on March 2, in those positions. (Six of the Top 10 for March 9, the list released on Monday, are also debuts.) Yet most of you have probably noticed that No. 3 is a reissue of a two-sided hit from 29 years back and No. 7 conglomerates remixes from a year-and-a-half-old album buy a guy with other priorities now, such as one of the week’s hangers-on, at No. 9. Also, you’ll probably notice that this list is about as “indie” in the collegiate-guitar-rock sense as the current Billboard Top 10: everything from sap to noise makes it onto this list. You could call it the straighter version of the national Top 10 if it weren’t for the fact that it’s just as batshit as the main list.

Typically when I cover a Top 10 here I don’t bother beyond the A-side unless it’s noted on the list itself. But beyond Numan and Yorke, it seemed only fair to do that with this one, because B-sides are sometimes part of what drives a sale. I’m glad, too: the Lines B-side, “Tie Me Up in Knots,” beats the A; it’s U2-style grand-sweep that sounds to me done the right way, getting over its own lyrical gaucheness with a good riff (and good guitarist) and palpable conviction. (The actual “hit,” “Domino Effect,” is more mid-tempo and blandly anthemic, though it gains some momentum toward the end.) For another, the Stone Gods’ song heralds a four-track EP, my favorite song being the riff-simple “You Brought a Knife to a Gunfight.” No wonder: days after noting them as “a metal band, in the ’70s sense–brawny riffs, masculine rhythms, leather-and-studs attitude, barking voice–I finally had the bright idea of looking them up. Duh, the best description possible, “the Darkness with a different singer,” turned out to be the correct one. What else should I have figured when “Heartburn” sounds basically like Foreigner? My thinking during all this: “Chuck Eddy would like these guys.”

Brits, some of them, really go for Americana, don’t they? Maybe Nick Hornby bought 50 copies of Band of Horses’ “No One’s Gonna Love You” for his friends and single-handedly drove it to No. 8. And maybe not. Either way, the single is sweet, and tedious, like a Mother’s Day card that goes on and on. Still, not unpleasant, which is gratifying given how irritated I became with repeated exposure to Band of Horses’ 2006 semi-hit, “The Funeral.” For annoyance, both Adele (who was also on the BBC Radio 1 Top 10 that I wrote about a couple columns back) and BWO (smooth, Euro, bombastic) come a lot closer than “No One’s Gonna Love You.”

I’ll go out on a limb and guess that the Thom Yorke remixes occupying the No. 7 position combines the sales totals for each of the three 12-inch remix EPs The Eraser has belatedly spun off in the retail realm. (The tracks were initially digital-only.) That makes nine remixes total, plus one Radiohead song, giving Yorke ten items in the Top 10. Nice. The actual music is, as you’d guess, a mixed bag. The two Christian Vogel remixes of “Black Swan” do their work cleanly and well, if not brilliantly; Surgeon’s “The Clock” and Modeselektor’s “Skip Divided” achieve nada. Each EP has one very appealing track: Four Tet’s remix of “Atoms for Peace,” which combines the best elements of Four Tet’s own work (cannily reprogrammed live playing) with the album’s loveliest vocal; the Bug’s** craggy reworking of “Harrowdown Hill”; and Various Productions’ laptop-skank version of “Analyse.”

I’m also partial to the Field’s*** eight-minute treatment of “Cymbal Rush” and, lesserly, Burial’s remix of “And It Rained All Night.” I definitely prefer Yorke’s singing to whoever did the honors on Burial’s own “Archangel.” Still, if you want something even better, go to the chart’s No. 4, a late-’07 club hit whose hoot-owl synth line is the most deliciously menacing sound effect I’ve encountered on any record in a while. That’s what we’re supposed to like about dubstep, right?

*Other Indie Top 30 debuts from March 2, in order: Raveonettes, “You Want the Candy” (Fierce Panda), No. 15; Capone, “Going In”/”Your Mind” (Test), No. 19; Blackout, “It’s High Tide Baby” (Fierce Panda), No. 21; Arno Cost & Arnold Doray, “Apocalypse” (CR2), No. 28; and Mighty Dub Katz, “Just Another Groove” (Southern Fried), a reissue of a decade-old dance track by Norman Cook, a.k.a. Fatboy Slim, No. 29.

**The Bug, Kevin Martin’s dub alias, has been on a tear recently: see also the “Skeng” 12-inch and the recent Poison Dart EP.

***This is possibly the only place I can put this, especially since it concerns a debate I’m not all that ready to join. Two of my favorite writers, Philip Sherburne and Andy Kellman, have expressed real, well-put reservations about the Field (though I’ll note that Kellman is the one who turned me onto his first single three years ago), as have others; often, the complaints center on Axel Willner’s production techniques, which in techno is all. I read these arguments and they make sense in my mind’s ear, but when I turn to the Field’s records themselves, I never hear the seams others complain about. I’m guessing Sherburne and Kellman have better stereo equipment than I do–it wouldn’t take much–and I’m not sure I could argue for the music’s merits better than my peers argue against it. But I wanted to mention it somewhere.