Human Again - Ingrid Michaelson

Cuts Only

Yo. Let me just say two quick things before I launch into this:

a). The Roots album Undun. I said for two months I would review it, but it's been two months. Ergo, I'm going to pull a Robert Christgau d-bag move in the interest in saving time. I would say it's "noteworthy" based on my rating system. Check it out. Essentially, I feel like the lack of a strong vocal presence detracted from the album, which sounds like a rather ignorant thing to say given the band has no distinct lead singer, but that's how I feel about the band in general. Black Thought can't do it by himself the way the group composes. They have every other type of musician known to man, so why not at least outsource a singer? Still, rather good record.

b.) I'm thinking of making two posts a week. I was aiming for Thursday for reviews, but that wasn't enough time in this case. I would expect a review every Friday or Saturday and a commentary on something in the news in the middle of the week to be determined. Any feedback is appreciated, you lucky so-and-sos.

Back to the matter at hand. Ingrid Michaelson is an indie-pop lady from the Isle of Staten. You may know her stuff from TV shows that favor this genre for their soundtracks — Bones, Scrubs, One Tree Hill, and of course Grey's Anatomy (omgz, Grey's!). She is also cut from a rather familiar singer-songwriter mold. You know the one: the cute-girl-with-glasses-that-plays-weird-instruments-like-the-ukulele-and-also-enjoys-other-hobbies-like-impressionist-paintings-and-caring-for-black-cats mold. Michaelson outwardly looks like a cliche from every teen movie ever made. I'd say she's a sure thing in this year's Lisa Loeb scholarship to Unnamed Small Liberal Arts College.

However, Michaelson is a talented songwriter who has a penchant to write about heartbreak, which is pervasive throughout this album. Human Again being heralded as the songwriter's breakout record, and, with the No. 1 LP on iTunes and a gig at the last year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, it's a safe bet if you don't know her now, you soon will.

The problem is not ability with Michaelson's latest. The problem with Human Again is its hellacious overproduction. Sometimes, you can barely hear Michaelson's voice, wispy and nuanced, over violin accompaniments, vocal effects and reverb. That is not to say this doesn't work on every song. The arrangements for the listlessly haunting "Ghost" and the piquantly bold "Fire" strengthen their respective songs.

Unfortunately, you listen to tracks like "In the Sea," "Keep Warm" and "This Is War," the discerning ear struggles to hear Michaelson over jarring additions engineered in mixing and post-production. The worst of these offenders, "Black and Blue," harkens back to the days when Ace of Base polluted the airwaves — the thought of which makes me want to forge my doctor's signature for Zoloft.

The times when Michaelson truly transcends are when she takes a minimalist approach. Excluding excessive violins in the introduction and bridge, the ballad "I'm Through" fits this description. Although the lyrics about dating after a breakup flutter a tad mawkishly, Michaelson is more powerful singing behind her piano than with all the bells and whistles.

Despite the album's failures, the blame does not rest on Michaelson's shoulders. Unfortunately, the artificial becomes too closely mingled with the artist in this instance. Human Again flaunts too much for Michaelson's demure appeal to shine.

For Your Consideration: "Fire," "I'm Through," "Ghost"

For Next Time: OH YEAH! Born to Die - Lana Del Rey. This is gonna be awesome.

This Week in Music: Lana Del Rey

Hey. My bad for not having a post in a few days. I've been busy with my professional ish-ues. I said I would do Undun by The Roots for the next post, but that was then. It's been almost two months since it was released. I've listened to it at least ten times through, but I just haven't had the time to do a review. If worse comes to worse, I'll definitely post something about that.

However, let's talk about something a bit more current. Did any of you hear the performance by Lana Del Rey on Saturday Night Live this week? If you are feeling like you want to punish yourself, please listen to this at a low volume, preferably in a bomb shelter or a theater showing Joyful Noise.



For SNL, it's been a pretty stellar year for musical guests. In many ways, they have overshadowed the actual skits. Big names like the Foo Fighters, Florence + the Machine and The Black Keys each played twice in 2011. It has also been a place of late to redirect and revamp careers. British siren Ellie Goulding culminated a larger American following a great rendition of her song "Lights," which gave a whole new dimension to the recorded version. Add to that, Robyn, who disappeared from view since the late '90s, returned with "Call Your Girlfriend." Her stage-presence made it, imo, not just the best performance I can remember on SNL, but one of the best performances I can remember period.

I contrast this with Lana Del Rey, whose braying of her songs "Video Games" (above) and "Blue Jeans" had me questioning my overall mental health. I asked myself why this girl is lip-synching to Maya Rudolph's Donatella Versace impression ("GET OUUUUUUUT!") while making these other-worldly interpretive movements a la Martian spygirl in Mars Attacks. And yes, I believe someone's been raiding Tim Burton's costume warehouse.

I was one of the unlucky ones who saw the whole catastrophe live. But, please, don't cry for me. Cry for Lana. It makes me sad because Lana's definitely a babe. Sure maybe she might have injected a few too many C.C.s of collagen into her lips, but other than that, she's a dime piece. So, being the typical d-bag, I thought her hotness would translate into some small semblance of talent. When she bombed in the first song (and, oh, did she ever), I was praying for her to nail the next one. Needless to say, I wasn't pleased. Let's just say "Blue Jeans" was like an extremely inebriated Kate Bush doing karaoke mixed with baby talk and and a guttural pronunciation of any word containing the letter "d."

If you've been following this story, you would have known the twitter community imploded to near fail-whale proportions. Several prominent actresses (Juliette Lewis, Eliza Dushku ... you know, the spiteful ones ...) tweeted their personal dissatisfaction. Although Lana was already a polarizing figure to all 53 people who knew her music, the fans and blogs came to her defense (after all, only hipsters can call SNL — a show as synonymous with New York City as Williamsburg, film festivals and vegan restaurants — a dull piece of insipid Midwest trash).

Here's all you need to know:

I took the liberty to check out a few videos — both recordings and live performances, of Ms. Del Rey's songs. I'm not going to get into her phony back-story about living in a trailer park that has been corrected by the ever-trustful Wikipedia (lolz. Good luck on the 24-hour blackout, guys). All I have to say is she's not awful. Is she at the level of a true professional? No f**cking way. She is young, however: only 25. Even so, I think her talents are far above that SNL performance lead us to believe. Was it nerves? Did she have too much to drink? Only Lana knows. My only hope is she finds her voice as well as some song-writing chops. Have you listened to "Video Games"? Probably not all the way through. a). God, will you stop being so sappy? If you're influences are Britney Spears and Nancy Sinatra, play a song with a pulse above an octogenarian's resting heartbeat. Drop the indie-diva ethereal thing. Shakira makes a deep voice work, and it's not because she's trying to be too deep. b). You seriously have to lose that nerd if he's not DTF. I've heard of that situation happening, but anyone who would rather play video games than fool around with you is out of his mind. Let him play with his own joystick.

Either way, I wish her the best. Regardless of what happens, I predict Lana Del Rey will have a big premiere for her new album, Born to Die (in hindsight, an extremely accurate title), just on buzz and tolling sales alone. I also predict you can see a review as soon as I listen to a copy.

And for all you masochists out there, 2:57 is the best part.