Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

I have figured out why there is such a high percentage of indie/emo/scene kids with bipolar disorder. If you take a listen to their music, you find the theme of the songs tend to group at the negative and positive ends of the emotional spectrum: “I want to kill myself by cutting my head off with the jagged edges of my broken heart” and “I’m so fucking ecstatic Mac came out with another product ’cause that can only mean they are going to make another commercial containing a song that will make me dance till my heart explodes”.

With popular tunes like “Needle in The Hay” (Elliot Smith, the writer, stabbed himself to death) and “Screaming Infidelities” that teaches listeners to listen “to the saddest songs and sit alone” when suffering a tough break up, I’m pumped and ready for the mass suicide. On the other hand we have Black Kids’ “I’m Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You” in which a lesbian does just as the title suggests. It’s so goddamn dance-y. In fact it is so goddamn dance-y that it almost distracts you from the dude’s voice representing said lesbian, at which point you question just exactly how hot the final girl on girl action really is. But you know what? Indie-dance or emo-slasher music is damn good at what it does. It grips you and shoves you into a mood, whether you like it or not.

Well, Phoenix is no exception, and is in fact particularly forceful in getting your dancing pants out on a few tracks on their latest release, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Formed initially as the backup band on the remix of Air’s “Kelly Watch the Stars”, the band officially chose the name Phoenix in 1996 and has had 4 releases prior to Wolfgang. Listening to the new album, it is easy to see Air’s relaxed techno-pop infiltrate the songs like bubbles floating through an air duct into a techno lounge. “Fences” bobs happily through your ears until you’re bobbing right along too. Even in less overtly energized songs like the almost solemn “Love Like a Sunset” the staccato guitar and electronic bleeps and bloops are rooted in French synth-pop. But this ain’t 1999 baby and Phoenix knows it. Skinny pale kids and artsy fartsy kids alike are trying to get their dance ON! “Lisztomania” gets the feet tapping and the shoulders swaying rather effectively and “1901” is nearly unstoppable but I will get into “1901” later.
My overall impression of Wolfgang is it’s a decent album. The songs are for the most part more groovable than your average Rooney. Indeed “1901” needs to be put on the list of highly infectious diseases (but more later). Yet despite this talent in beat making and meandering hooks, for the most part this album is brought down by its lyrical quality. Not that the lyrics here are especially bad (although on “Love Like A Sunset” the lyrics are “Here comes, a visible horizon / Right where it starts and ends / Oh, and then we start the end / Here comes, a visible illusion / Oh, where it starts and ends / You’re like a sunset”. That’s the whole song. Alrighty then.). They just sure as heck don’t do anything new or creative. There are decent stabs such as “1901” and maybe “Rome” but in the end the lyrics almost seem generic and bland. Imagine a less poetic Kooks mixed with a Franz Ferdinand that’s had a couple drinks. Bottom line is the album has too many songs that give you the “didn’t I already hear this song on Pandora today like twice?” feeling. There is also one song that absolutely blows. “Lasso” sounds like it should come from the album Wolfgag Amaduesch Phuckit. Ok maybe it’s not that bad but I guarantee it will not be in your top 9 (“But Jack! There’s only 9 songs on the album!”).

I know that evaluation seems a bit rough, but I’m only doing it out of respect. I like this album so damn much. It’s easy listening at its finest and thoroughly enjoyable. I want to listen to this album on a country drive to a picnic in a meadow that slowly evolves into a bonfire keg party with everyone I know. But all this potential falls short, which is easily recognizable when compared to Phoenix’s contemporaries. When next to bands like “Vampire Weekend” and “Santogold” you come to realize Wolfgang just isn’t all that standout from a field with plenty to choose from. Sure it’s good but in this electronic age where everybody and their mother can put together something decent using a Mac and the satanic GarageBand (it’s like Extenze for wannabe musicians: sounds good, boost of confidence, but no real results) the stakes have been raised: there needs to be innovation in composition, cleverness in lyrical quality, a subtle swagger that you can point to and say “That makes that band”. The L.A. times puts it the best: “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, a truly marvelous album title if ever there was one, is danceable but only a little disco, synth-driven but clubland averse, an easy record to like but a more difficult one to love”.

Best Song: “1901”

Most Underappreciated: “Fences”