Chance the Rapper, Acid Rap

The second mixtape by this young Chicago native seems custom-built to conquer summer. Chance’s liquid flow, the sunshine-psych samples (lifted from classic hip-hop tracks by the likes of Tribe Called Quest and Slum Village, as well as a nod to an early Kanye mixtape cut on “Good Ass Intro”), the playful lyricism all come together to create a slow, humid, easy June late afternoon feel. Even on the album’s darker, more serious tracks like “Acid Rain” and “Pusha Man,” you never stop feeling that Chance is having a ridiculous amount of fun. Think of Acid Rap as good kid, m.A.A.d city’s lighthearted younger brother.

Savages, Silence Yourself

Jehnny Beth & Co. continue to ape Joy Division and Siouxsie & the Banshees with pitch-perfect accuracy, but as I mentioned in my coverage of their CMJ show at Mercury Lounge, this is in no way a bad thing. What Savages lack in originality they more than make up for in propulsive intensity. The songs collected here are highly addictive, especially album opener (and sort-of title track, if you think abou it) “Shut Up,” lead single “Husbands,” and my personal favorite, the exhausted urbanite polemic “City’s Full.”

Various, Garage Swim

Every so often, stoner cartoon mavens Adult Swim take it upon themselves to reassert their coolness with these free compilations. Garage Swim is among the best of these. Jumping from JEFF the Brotherhood’s stoner metal to Mikal Cronin’s anthemic power pop to the Gories back-to-basics blues rock to King Tuff’s synth-assisted goofiness, this mix shows the breadth of modern garage in a similar fashion to Lenny Kaye’s seminal ’72 compilation, Nuggets.

Primal Scream, More Light

About once a decade, Primal Scream takes a break from being depressingly mediocre to make a great album. There was 1991’s Screamadelica, then 2000’s XTRMNTR, and now here’s 2013’s More Light. Leading off with the a-bit-on-the-nose single “2013,” the band proceeds to cannibalize the best parts of their past to make something new and forward thinking. While it isn’t  a concept album, the record has a specific sense of flow and narrative arc, almost as if it was a soundtrack. Unsurprisingly, More Light was helmed by producer David Holmes, who is perhaps most famous for his brilliant, old school soundtracks for Steven Soderbergh.

Daft Punk, Random Access Memories

Oh, who am I kidding. The Album of the Summer’s gonna be Random Access Memories. Have I listened to it yet? Naw, it’s not out for like another two weeks. But shit, yo; have you heard “Get Lucky?” If you haven’t, where the hell you been?  Nile Rodgers comes on like it’s 1977, Pharrell makes himself relevant for the first time since Clones dropped, an the Daft Punky bunch proved that they could still bring it after eight years of radio silence. The rest of the album could be the sound of insects eating and it’d still be one of the greatest records released all year. Heck, I’d be perfectly fine with the whole album just being this:

And that’s this week’s NTTOD, you lovely lovelies. Follow Simon Lazarus Vasta on Twitter @Hunter_S_Narc, if you’re so inclined.

First of all, credit where credit ‘s due: the Dark Side of Lite FM is the brainbaby of my friend Edward Julian O’Hara Bonilla. Dude is a pop music genius the likes of which has only graced this beautiful world a handful of times. He’s the true arbiter of what is and what isn’t DSLFM, and he’s an ornery bastard, so he’s probably going to find this playlist and the accompanying analysis idiotic and way off base, but still: this one’s for you, Eeje.

The concept of cool that was manufactured by the Punk “movement” did some weirdass things to music criticism and to pop music in general. Punk threw a clusterbomb of contradictions into the heart of cultural discourse by claiming that it was divorced from the influence of that which came before while being heavily derived from the roots of rock ‘n’ roll and by saying that it was anti-consumerist and anti-pop. In reality, there’s virtually nothing poppier than punk: two minute infectious verse-chorus-verse missives that fill teenagers with the desire to throw themselves at each other? Yeah.

Accompanying this was the idea of “effortless cool;” the jaded irreverence and slick cynicism that can only be perfected by those who haven’t really experienced all that much. Anybody caught trying to do anything besides trying to look like they’re not trying was excommunicated from the church of cool. Roxy Music, Fleetwood Mac and ELO were demonized for their ambition and sincerity.

These days, those bands are regarded as the awesome they were, and in these post-ironic times, sincerity has crawled its way back into the indie mainstream. But there were a lot of groups and artists in the ’70s and ’80s just weren’t interested in screwing around with the punk conception of cool, folks that weren’t ashamed of excess or mushiness. You still find these songs on easy listening radio in dentists offices and cluttering up the jukeboxes of “Old Man Bars” (as people who don’t actually know what dive bars are have taken to calling dives); these slickly produced, sometimes saccharine tunes that seem to lack any sense of self-awareness or meaning. Until, you know, you listen to them. Whether it’s Gilbert O’ Sullivan’s flirtations with suicide, 10cc satirizing the concept of love, Peter Gabriel condemning the murder of Steven Biko by the South African government, or Don Henley painting a horrifying portrait of news media, we find a grimness and feeling that outpunks the headiest Minor Threat 7″. This is music that’s not afraid of being uncool, and as a result, it goes deep into understanding the gamut of human emotions. This, ladies and gents, is the Dark Side of Lite FM.

1. Sister Golden Hair – America

2. Hello It’s Me – Todd Rundgren

3. Don’t Answer Me – The Alan Parsons Project

4. I’m Not In Love – 10cc

5. Eminence Front – The Who

6. Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song) – Billy Joel

7. Logical Song – Supertramp

8. Dirty Laundry – Don Henley

9. Life’s What You Make It – Talk Talk

10. Broken Wings – Mr. Mister

11. Don’t Dream It’s Over – Crowded House

12. Alone Again (Naturally) – Gilbert O’Sullivan

13. Mind Games – John Lennon

14. Baker Street – Gerry Rafferty

15. Biko – Peter Gabriel

16. Don’t Forget Me – Harry Nilsson

That’s it for this week, but be sure to leave any stray thoughts in the comments. What are your favorite DSLFM songs that we missed? Why does this playlist not have a single female voice on it? Isn’t that kinda weird? We certainly think so! Comment or hit up Simon Lazarus Vasta on Twitter @Hunter_S_Narc.

“I like everything except Rap and Country.”

God, is there a more phrase as simultaneously innocuous and incendiary as that one? It’s the pop music equivalent of “I’m not racist, but…;” a phrase oft repeated by the woefully underinformed and culturally stagnant when they want to appear more evolved than they actually are. By saying that phrase, you are marking yourself as a milquetoast middle of the road dingus bereft of imagination and taste. You have time for everything, except for Nas and Patsy Cline? Fuck you. You’re going to miss everything cool and die angry.

I’m letting myself get worked up about this, which is silly, because A. It’s only pop music (but I like it) and B. You don’t really hear the phrase bandied about as much anymore. Hip-Hop has dominated the mainstream for decades at this point, and all but the most adamant of holdouts has entered the fold. But Country, well, that’s a different story.

The thing that made the utterer’s of the dread sentence uncomfortable about Hip-Hop is the same thing that still makes them uncomfortable about country: it’s music with a strong, complex cultural identity. Rap and Country exist outside a number of folks’ frames of reference, especially if they’re young white middle class Yankees. People hate leaving their comfort zones, and so they glom onto the worst aspects of the Other as a reason to reject them (see: any time someone uses the “Bitches & Hoes” or “Jingoistic, Xenophobic Bullshit” arguments).

There still is, by and large, a cultural embargo on Country above the Mason Dixon. When it manages to be successful up here, it’s usually been smuggled in as “Indie Folk” or “Americana” by groups like Deer Tick and songwriters like Alela Diane, or disguised as “Utter Trash” by the likes of Mumford & Sons. People feel the need to avoid the label to seem palatable to the northern market.

Nashville’s Caitlin Rose, on the other hand, could not give a half-pint of piss about what you think; the 25-year-old singer has no qualms about being Country. Since her 2008 debut EP, Dead Flowers, she’s been singing chain smoking, hard drinking sagas of heartbreak, songs that could, and do, rub shoulders with the likes of Waylon Jennings and Patsy Cline. Her second album, The Stand-In, dropped earlier this month, and its clean, almost glossy production has the balls to flirt with the Music Row mainstream. A friend of mine from Nashville called the record an “Indie Linda Rondstat Revival,” and she’s not wrong.

Rose’s music is simultaneously sweet and shitkicking; bright and gloomy. In short, it’s damn good Country. For a little taste, check out her cover of Alex Turner/Artic Monkeys’ “Piledriver Waltz:”

Neat, right? If that tickled your fancy, you’re in luck: Caitlin Rose is gonna be in town for a few days, playing Park Slope’s Union Hall on Saturday and Mercury Lounge in the LES on Monday. By all accounts she’s a great live show. Check it out.

And that’s this week’s dose of Now Take Them Out Devils. If you’re interested in hearing more from Simon Lazarus Vasta, you can follow him on Twitter @Hunter_S_Narc, or nip down to the Mercury Lounge show on Monday and buy him a drink or twelve. Join us next week for a meditation on the dark side of Lite FM….

Missed part one? Read it here.

When The Next Day was announced on Bowie’s 66th birthday, I had long since given up any hope of hearing new material. It was as if a limb I had amputated years ago had suddenly reappeared one morning; the phantom pains I had gone through such lengths to banish merely a prelude to a second act. I was surprised and excited, but also skeptical. The song that accompanied the announcement, “Where Are We Now,” was good, but Bowie sounded old, tired, morose (which was odd, because a number of the lyrics sounded like they had been written by an undergrad who’d just returned from a semester abroad in Berlin). I was terrified that The Next Day would be crap, or even worse, that it would be just okay, a pleasant-smelling brainfart released after a decade-long hiatus.

But it wasn’t either of those things. The Next Day is great. In the context of the album, “Where Are We Now” reveals itself to be a song that sounds worn out and exhausted by design; a worn out, scratched up memory of Bowie’s time in Berlin. And it’s not typical; in places, Bowie sounds as virile as ever, such as when he’s barking at the celestial celebrities of “The Stars (Are Out Tonight).”*

Bowie is usually at his most interesting when he’s a thief, swiping the aesthetics and structure from everything from Krautrock to Philly soul, from Industrial music to Marc Bolan stomp; yet his main point of reference on The Next Day, however, seems to be himself. The album is, in a way, a complex, interwoven history of the Bowie cannon, Ziggy Stardust tempered by the Berlin Triptych, the Tin Machine years rubbing shoulders with the futurefolk of Space Oddity, Earthling‘s breakbeats sharing a roof with the no-nonsense pop of the eighties. Bowie even sees fit to have the ghosts of “Five Years’” remorseful drums haunt the end of “You Feel So Lonely You Could Die.” The exception to this rule seems to be album closer “Heat,” which cribs from everything Scott Walker’s been doing the past two decades; that being said, Bowie’s been ripping off Walker since the late sixties, so maybe cribbing from Walker is part of what makes Bowie Bowie.

Lyrically, it’s Bowie’s greatest release since 1.Outside. His songwriting is generally at its strongest when it’s at its most macabre and gothy, and boy, is this a gloomy record. There are tales of school shootings, lynch mobs, young men sent off to fight pointless wars, disaffected models dying on the vine, and the hollow deification of Hollywood heroes. The writing is nuanced and smart, and one gets the impression that the songs were made because Bowie legitimately felt he had something to say. The only track that really falls flat is “(You Will) Set the World On Fire,” which, though a beautifully written meditation on the Greenwich Village folk scene of the sixties, sounds like a boring, schlocky late period single forced into the world by someone who peaked decades ago.

That’s not who Bowie is. That’s not what this album is. The Next Day is the signpost for Bowie’s next, and perhaps last, permutation: the mortal. He is no longer an alien, a nightmare only seen in the peripheral, an undying song and dance man with perfect hair and the Devil’s smile; he is human, and just like the rest of us, he is dying. David Bowie and I both made the assumption that a Bowie that was not pure myth, not pure music and pop and spectacle, would be in some way wanting, in some way less effective. I’m happy to report that we were wrong.

*goddammit, that video is an article unto itself. Suffice it to say that it would be perfect if it weren’t for the shitclumsy use of Adobe After Effects at the beginning and end.

And that just about wraps it up for this week. If it tickles your fancy, follow Simon Lazarus Vasta on Twitter @Hunter_S_Narc

On the first of March it was announced that The Next Day, the first new David Bowie album in ten years, could be streamed in full on iTunes, a week and a half before the record’s actual U.S. release. When I read this, my skin crawled and my stomach curdled. It was too soon. I wasn’t ready.

I had become a Bowie devotee at age fourteen, back when it wasn’t uncommon for the man to release something every couple of years. I have this distinct memory of sitting on a park bench in Stuy Town one chilly afternoon, popping a used copy of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars into my CD player for the first time, and having my little mind blown wide open (I also remember I was reading Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens at the time, which also blew my mind, but in a completely different way and to a slightly lesser extent… but that’s another story for another time). I spent the rest of my high school years assembling the Bowie discography, jumping from glam rock to plastic soul to drum ‘n’ bass to avant-garde Burroughsian experimentation. Bowie could be everywhere, try his hand at anything; and what’s more, he was always making more. My third Bowie album was 2002′s fantastic Heathen, a return to form after his less-than-successful ’90s work (some of which is actually fantastic, but damn, another story, another time) and a critical smash. It was followed up a little over a year later with the less-good Reality, but still. David Bowie made music, and I was never gonna run out. Ever. Bowie was an ageless immortal gifted to the people of earth to create and inspire.

Except for the part where he, y’know, wasn’t. Within a few years of Reality‘s release, the Thin White Duke had all but stopped performing, and the vague promises of new material became vaguer and vaguer before completely petering out. Bowie attempted to stay relevant for a bit by playing with Arcade Fire during the 2005 Fashion Rocks event and providing backup vocals for TV On the Radio’s “Province,” but soon after he just quietly stepped out of the spotlight he’d been sitting under for his entire adult life. Some pointed to a heart attack and the consequential surgery and recovery as the culprit behind Bowie’s departure; I blame a lollipop.

I felt abandoned. I was resentful. How dare this man, this artist who was admittedly getting up there in years make a rational and well intentioned decision to safeguard his physical and mental well-being? How dare he stop making me beautiful things? I found I was drifting away, listening to Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) only once a month instead of the standard twice a week. David Bowie had been my first big musical love, but the honeymoon was over. Sure, every once in a while I’d find myself getting excited about Bowie again, maybe after listening to an album for the first time in a few years, or discovering an alternate version of “Moonage Daydream” I’d never heard before, or discussing the creation of a Bowie tarot deck with a friend, but it was never the same. An unproductive and reclusive Bowie was a mortal Bowie, and a mortal Bowie just wasn’t as important to me as the myth he had built himself into. Or so I thought, because I was stupid.

Join us again tomorrow for part 2 of NTTOD’s The Next Day Review. Follow Simon Lazarus Vasta on Twitter @Hunter_S_Narc

Recently, when I’m not performing diligent research, sifting through a hard drive’s worth of mp3s, resting my chin in my hands contemplatively and having deep deep thoughts about pop songs for you lovely people, I’ve been playing a video game called  Bastion. It’s a really fun game, but more importantly, it’s a genuinely moving experience. If it was just the Isometric Action RPG it is in its core mechanics, that would be fine, but it’s Bastion’s presentation that makes it so unique and fantastic. That’s not to say that it’s style over substance; rather, it’s substance communicated perfectly by style. The most basic element of this is that Bastion is remarkably pretty, a techni-watercolor post-apocalypse that is simultaneously cartoony and grim. Added to this is the unreliable narration of Rucks (voiced beautifully by Logan Cunningham) who wryly comments on our actions as we hack and slash and shoot and explode our way through this ruined world, foreshadowing betrayals of trust and revealing dark secrets.

And all that would be enough to set Bastion apart from the pack: Wild-West tinged apocalyptic fantasy game, a Cormac McCarthy fairytale, wonderfully written and presented, full of depth and charm. But what elevates Bastion from a great game to an excellent one is its music, and the way it’s interwoven with the narrative.

Bastion‘s soundtrack was composed by Darren Korb, a New York-based musician with a background in scoring movies and television. Korb’s seamless blend of steel-bodied cowboy country, big beat electronica, western classical, and American and Middle-Eastern folk musics breathes uncanny life into the gameworld. The violent struggle for survival, the uneasy peace between rival countries Caelondia and Ura, the despair brought about by living off the scraps of your own dead civilization, and the hope of a brighter future (or a return to the comforting arms of the past); these things are present not only in the game’s visuals and narration but in the martial chaos of the industrial drum, oud and mouth harp-led “Terminal March” and the frontiers-y, old west-meets-breakbeats jam “In Case of Trouble.”

But while Korb’s compositions certainly flesh out Bastion, it’s the folk songs he wrote for the game that most inform the narrative. “Build That Wall” and “Mother, I’m Here” are sung by two of the game’s secondary characters (one of whom’s singing voice is Korb himself). They songs are relics of the world destroyed by the Calamity, the remnants of an all but extinct culture. They are eulogies and warnings, an attempt to hold on to the ephemeral and an acknowledgement of the inevitable. One of the most remarkable things about these songs isn’t fully evident until the end of the game, where they are combined into the soaring, sadly beautiful and beautifully sad “Setting Sail, Coming Home.” The songs are reflections of each other, parts of a larger whole. And, moreover, depending on the choices you make in the endgame, one’s interpretation of the lyrics is shifted. I don’t want to spoil too much, so I’ll just say that “Setting Sail, Coming Home” is as split between wanting to return to a bygone world and trying to build something out of its ashes as the rest of game is. I may or may not have teared up at the end of my first playthrough.

Bastion can be played on pretty much anything from an iPad to an XBox 360, and I strongly advise you to do so. Even if you are video game averse (and seeing as the medium is currently dominated by dumb, jingoistic bullshit like the Call of Duty games, I really can’t blame you) you should at least watch a few gameplay trailers, and listen to Darren Korb’s fantastic soundtrack. Hopefully it’ll change yer mind.

That’s this week in NTTOD. Follow Simon Lazarus Vasta on Twitter @hunter_s_narc.

Since the release of 2008′s astoundingly mediocre Modern Guilt, Beck has all but stepped away from conventional rockstardom. He’s spent the past few years on idiosyncratic projects like the Record Club,  a collaboration with such luminaries as Annie Clark, Angus Andrews, Devendra Banhart, Thurston Moore, Jeff Tweedy, and, uh, Giovanni Ribisi. Beck assembled these Superfriends of Indie at his Los Angeles studios to cover classic albums like The Velvet Underground & Nico, Songs of Leonard Cohen, and Yanni Live at the Acropolis, because why not. The results were ramshackle and frequently annoying, but you get the impression that the Record Club re-imaginings were always meant to be things that were more fun to make than to listen to. Beck was also remixing everyone from Lykke Li to Philip Glass, as well as writing songs for Charlotte Gainsbourg, comic book movies, various vampire-based media, and video games, amongst other things. Last year, he released an album, but only  in one nigh-obsolescent format: sheet music.

So it seemed that while Beck was interested in staying busy and producing music, he was done with the spotlight. No more crazy touring and break-dancing and puppet shows; it was now time to jam with your friends, contribute to soundtracks, and let the new kids get a chance to shine. But last week, Beck stepped back out of the shadows. Well, sort of.

To launch Lincoln’s “Hello-Again” campaign (a vain attempt to get twentysomethings interested in buying Towncars, now that their customer base has all but died off), they commissioned a cover of David Bowie’s classic “Sound & Vision” from the ’90s Indie darling. But, as the above video proves, this was no mere cover. Beck enlisted the help of 160+ musicians, including a gospel choir, a drum line, a gamelan orchestra, horn and string section, neo-soul group the Dap Kings, a harpist, guitarists playing everything from fancy electro-acoustics to flying vs, a bunch of mandolinists, a dude playing a singing saw, another dude playing a theremin (aka the sci-fi singing saw), and a frigging yodeler, all conducted by noted composer, Scientologist, and Ron Paul supporter David Campbell, who, by the by, is also Becks father. All of this is staged 360º around a slowly rotating audience (watch the video; it’ll make sense) with Mr. Beck Hansen strumming and singing his heart out in the dead center.

The whole thing is an experiment in maximalism that goes beyond the absurdly large backing band; Beck & Co. stretch Bowie’s pared-down proto-new wave song (which, by my count, lyrically consists of less of fifty words) into a nine minute plus, multi-movement opus. Yet it’s not decadent or tacky (okay, maybe a little, but in a good way); the elaborate, intertwining arrangements and Beck’s radical reinterpretation of the original turn it into something bold, new, and truly moving. It never feels excessive, and each instrument and voice is in service of the song. While it wouldn’t work without those 160+ musicians, it’s all really about our man Beck at center stage, not just singing but performing, basking in the spotlight for the first time in a good long while.

That’s Now Take Them Out, Devils for ya. If you want to see what Simon Lazarus Vasta finds funny at three in the morning, you can follow him on Twitter @Hunter_S_Narc

Last Saturday, while the Internet was busy minding its own business, the My Bloody Valentine Facebook page issued this short missive:

“We are preparing to go live with the new album/website this evening. We will make an announcement as soon as its up.”

Then, at 23:58 Greenwich Mean Time, www.mybloodyvalentine.org burst into existence, accompanied by m b v, the band’s third full length and their first album in 22 long, long years.

The site crashed within minutes.

If you’ve seen anyone wandering the street aimlessly, cloudy eyed and with a dirge leaking out of their headphones, that’s yet another popkid who’s still recovering from the shock of finding themselves living in a world where there’s a third My Bloody Valentine record. If you can imagine what a Pentecost experiencing the Rapture* would feel like, you’ll have a good idea of what these boys and girls are going through. The thing they’ve waited for, for what seems like their entire lives, is finally here, but they’re still not really prepared for it. All they can do is put it on ‘replay all’ and let it wash over them.

The first thing that popkid is gonna think once she recovers from that initial shock is, “Wow, nobody makes a My Bloody Valentine album like Kevin Shields.” And you know what? She’s right. Bands from the Scene That Celebrates Itself such as  Slowdive and Ride (not to mention more recent Shoegaze revivalists like Asobi Seksu, Serena-Maneeesh, and Blonde Redhead, just to name a few**) all attempted their take on the My Bloody Valentine sound, to varying degrees of success, but none of them could ever properly replicate the wall of sound that Kevin Shields and company had devised for their seminal second record, 1991′s Loveless. What made that record so unique is how it managed to be delicate and nuanced, while, at the same time, it felt monolithic and impregnable. It was as if it was both liquid and solid at once; from that angle, it’s a duck, but from this one, it’s a rabbit.

While m b v definitely shares it’s sonic DNA with Loveless, to call it a follow-up or a sequel of some sort would be missing the point. Shields himself has said that the album has more in common with MBV’s first LP, Isn’t Anything, and I can see what he’s saying. Loveless is from the other side of the looking glass, while this album is more firmly planted in the real world, even if it is making frequent glances at the mirror. There’s even a little bit of the You Made Me Realize EP’s more standard approach floating around in here, too. But m v b is more than a bunch of throwbacks to the band’s late eighties/early nineties heyday; there’s something new going on, something less polished, something more playful.

Unlike most Shoegaze, this album isn’t afraid to sound like it’s having a bit of fun. This may come as a bit of a surprise to those who have heard the stories of Kevin Shields’ hermetically obsessive studio tweaking, the sleepless night and marathon recording sessions, but m b v sounds like it was fun to make. This is especially clear on my favorite track, “New You,” a lighthearted tune that one might even feel tempted to categorize as ‘funky’. Not that it’s all sunshine and roses: “Only Tomorrow” brings the classic MBV drone to it’s logical conclusion, while instrumental “Nothing Is” is one brutal chord over and over again. I hated it at first. Now I kinda dig it.

It’s not a perfect record, certainly. m b v is very poorly sequenced, and the second half of the album lacks any cohesive flow***. The whole thing just kinda sputters to a halt after the cool but also kinda uninteresting ‘Wonder 2,’ a drum-n-bass inspired attempt to out-dance-music Loveless closer “Soon.” But overall, m b v is a triumphant return from a too-long hiatus.

And that’s NTTOD for this week. You can follow Simon Lazarus Vasta on Twitter @Hunter_S_Narc, or if yer interested in seeing him post photoclusters as re re-watches Twin Peaks, check out his Tumblr.

*Not the band, silly.

**And then even more recently a newer, arguably more interesting batch of Shoegaze revivalists such as The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, DIIV, and The Horrors… holy crap, does three revivals a proper genre make?

*** In fact, I’m beginning to feel like ‘collection’ is a better word for what’s going on here than ‘album.’

The history of the American comic book is bittersweet, if not outright tragic, and no tale cuts to the bone quite like the ballad of Stan and Jack. In the early ’60s, facing the demise of their industry, comics vets Stan Lee and Jack Kirby devised the Marvel Universe. Together, these men created a shared world where superheroes were more than square jaws and cocksure smiles; they were (relatively) real people, with insecurities and egos, flaws and attitudes. Stan and Jack re-invigorated and expanded the market, but as the decade wore on and Lee set himself up as Marvel spokesman, Kirby felt more and more marginalized by his lack of royalties and creative recognition, finally leaving for DC comics in 1970. Although he did return to Marvel for a short stint, his relationship with Lee and the world they had built together was irreparably damaged. Jack “The King” Kirby died in 1994, and his family is still fighting a losing battle for the rights to the characters he created. Stan Lee, on the other hand, currently receives a high six-figure annual salary merely for existing. Meanwhile, The Avengers film made a over a billion dollars last year. Excelsior, true believers!

You can’t discuss Marvel Comics as a business without delving into the ugliness of Stan and Jack, and unfortunately, the history of the publisher mirrors that tragic partnership. The company’s record of keeping its creators as work-for-hire freelancers, as well as its string of bottom-line obsessed, artistically disinclined corporate owners throughout Marvel’s fifty-plus years echoes the injustice that befell Kirby. This is something that Sean Howe is well aware of, and he uses that struggle between these old friends and archenemies as the backbone of his unofficial exposé, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.

Howe’s narrative is an engaging look into what happens when a company’s product suddenly becomes a legitimate artform, and how decades of writers, artists, editors, publishers and CEO’s dealt with commodifying the results. Even to the uninitiated, the confidence and accessibility of the writing makes these stories of art versus commerce relatable and heartbreaking; from the editorial bowdlerization of Steve Engelheart’s cosmic (read: LSD-influenced) comics and Steve Gerber’s Disney-riffing satire Howard the Duck in the ’70s, to the collectibles boom and bust of the early ’90s  and the style-over-substance hacks personalities like Todd MacFarlane and Rob Liefeld that nearly destroyed the industry, to the absurdist penny-pinching of CEO Isaac Perlmutter, who rationed out paperclips and once refused Marvel a presence at the San Diego Comic Con, citing that the booth would be too expensive (which is the equivalent of Ford skipping the Detroit Auto Show), and the near constant parade of inept executives, some intrigued by Marvel’s products, but most simply embarrassed and outright hostile.

The Untold Story falters a bit at the end, and you can feel Howe’s boredom as he recites the sales figures of crap ’90s comics and explains the convoluted, cynical business practices that accompanied them. But honestly, who can blame them? Marvel spent a large part of that decade overprinting “collectible” comics with foil covers and generally shitting the bed. It’s not exactly narrative gold. But aside for the last fifty-odd pages, Howe’s account is a compelling insight into the people that made Marvel; the businessmen and dreamers that, intentionally or not, created an American mythology.

It’s the inevitable consequence of living in the Greatest City in the World™: as the skies turn an adjectiveless gray, the trees stripped to their slender bones, and night falls faster than Gerald Ford down the steps of Air Force One,* most of us get a little visit from our old college buddy seasonal affective disorder. SAD invites himself over for a bottle of Chateau Diana and ends up camping out on your couch for three months because, you know, it’s rough out there, and he needs some time to get his shit together. SAD gets potato chip grease all over your sofa, spills beer on your cat, and never stops talking about his ex. SAD watches every episode of Law & Order, SVU on Netflix Instant and starts a Tumblr devoted to Mariska Hargitay. SAD is miserable, and his goal is to make you as miserable as he is. The asshole.

Some attempt to fight him with sun lamps and regular exercise and vitamin D supplements, but most, if not all, fail. The only way to truly defeat the bastard is to just wait him out. Or you could move to LA, but we all know who the real loser is in that scenario.

Me, I don’t make much of an attempt to fell the great winter beast. I end up couchlifing it with some ordered-in hot wings and a six-pack of something pissy, weak and delicious while watching Olivia Benson chase down sex offenders. But there’s still one thing that helps me with SAD’s doldrums, reminds me that there’s shit to do besides mope, how beautiful New York can be, and how much I adore the people in my life. It’s the thing that gets me out the door every day. Well, most days.

This is the point in the music article where I talk about music.

The thing about pop songs is that they are, by and large, bite sized. Yes, you can stack them together to create a larger narrative or context, which, when done right, produces heartbreaking albums of staggering genius, but they should have the ability to stand alone, tell a complete story, create a comprehensive ambience, in approximately three minutes. This is ultimately why music is so important in establishing mood, and why it’s so handy in rescuing oneself from the brink of despair.

Now, what music is best for dealing with seasonal malaise, you ask? Do you try to scour and sandblast the bummers out of your system with Katrina and the Waves and Harry Belafonte? Or do you take the opposite approach and try do befriend SAD by getting heavy into Joy Division and the Smiths, his favorite bands of all time?**

These may work for some, but I’m more of a melancholy guy ’round this time of year. A lot of minor chords strummed by girls very far away, plaintive textures on the brink of collapse, and promises too burdensome to keep. It’s music that acknowledges how shitty it all can get, but retains that one element that distinguishes melancholy from despair: hope. It’s the taste of last kisses, the smell of old books rotting away. It’s missing the last train out of a strange new town, and it’s the January day that you realize you haven’t seen more than thirty minutes of sunlight all week. Melancholy is the cure for what ails ya; allowing you to wallow, but also rise above. Each of these songs is a mini catharsis, a baptism, a chance to find the beauty and the promise even in the coldest, darkest parts of the year.

Feel better.

Listen to the Playlist on Grooveshark Here

1. Take Us Back – Alela Diane

2. I See a Darkness – Bonnie “Prince” Billy

3. Katy Song – Red House Painters

4. Guiding Light – Television

5. Lizzy – Ben Kweller

6. Six String Serenade – Mazzy Star

7. Paradise Circus – Massive Attack feat. Hope Sandoval

8. Girl Singing in the Wreckage – Black Box Recorder

9. Goodbye England (Covered in Snow) – Laura Marling

10. Lunar Sea – Camera Obscura

11. Hong Kong – Gorillaz

12. Blues Run the Game – Nick Drake

13. By This River – Brian Eno

14. In the Drugs – Low

15. Don’t Do It – Sharon Van Etten

16. Cotton – The Mountain Goats

17. Two Step – Throwing Muses

18. True Love Waits – Radiohead

*This timely reference was brought to you by the SNL writer’s room circa 1976.

** Seriously though, get him drunk enough and SAD will show you his old Ian Curtis webshrine he built in Angelfire. It’s still up!

That’s it for now. Go listen to this playlist and take a long walk. We know it’s cold out, just do it. Follow Simon Lazarus Vasta on Twitter @Hunter_S_Narc