Compilation News
Since we probably couldn’t decide among Silver Jews, Warren G., Chuck Dukowski’s United Gangmembers, Mutter, Pavement, and Gastr Del Sol for best record of the year, the best record for us isn’t the single best achievement but the record that best represents the best: the new hipness of abstract ’n’ roll in general; the Drag City label’s continuation of the SST tradition of label politics as the driving force of musical development in general; the triumphant return of Mayo Thompson’s Red Krayola as a supergroup featuring both artists (Albert Oehlen, Stephen Prina) and musicians (Gastr Del Sol’s D. Grubbs, Overpass’ Tom Watson); a new discovery in avant-garde rock, Gastr Del Sol; the most surprising songwriter group, Silver Jews; the new sensitive/autistic darlings of college radio, Smog; the bizarre Mantis; and more, very promising newcomers. All these achievements, surprises, and developments are represented on Hey Drag City (Drag City Records) by small selections for the most part otherwise unavailable. The label’s past has already become history, and continues into its present. After recording a terrific version of “Delta 88” Royal Trux may have left the label for which they long were figureheads and gone to the majors, but in the meantime Will Oldham of the Palace Brothers has so much aura that even Nick Cave has been seen watching him from the front row.
Maybe Not
Oasis’s Definitely Maybe (Sony) is not the worst (because there’s a world of bad records out there that we have nothing to do with) but the most flawed record, the one we would have wished had been sensational. For a decade now, the U.S. has ruled through hip-hop and avant-rock, and techno is a worldwide international phenomenon. Meanwhile British pop produces only a hype a year – it’s a genre as exhausted as the madrigal. Oasis has been praised as the best of this broken British pop, a blend of the Beatles and the Sex Pistols. But they actually sound more like a mix of early rave and James with a much-too-solid rock production. Next to this, some of their feeble predecessors in the hype mode seem like deserving cult bands. Pity: we would have been happy with a band able to move ambivalence into quivering, powerful ecstasy, as the record’s title implies. Unfortunately Oasis is neither ambivalent nor powerful. In New York, they’re playing not arenas but midsized clubs, while the people their record was made for are probably buying Who anniversary CD compilations.