headlessparrot's Full Review: Under the Blacklight by Rilo Kiley
Pop is a dirty word no longer. Between the ever-increasing number of alternative rags and holier-than-thou indie critics tripping over themselves to fawn over the oeuvre of Brian Wilson and their constant mining the charts for golden nuggets (see Rihanna’s Umbrella) – not to mention the number of alternative bands unashamedly embracing pop aesthetics in their body of work (see The Pipettes, whose quasi-feminist appropriation of the Phil Spector Wall of Sound is as brilliant aesthetically as it is intellectually) – it would seem as though the Golden Age of pop (as an artistic choice certainly, if not as a substantive genre) has been born.
But apparently, someone forget to tell that to sassy alt-country-cum-indie rock quartet Rilo Kiley. For there is indeed a lot to be said for Kiley’s much-anticipated 2007 album, Under the Blacklight. Unfortunately, though, not much of it is particularly good. Eschewing their darling status to release an album of unashamedly middle-of-the-road, pop-friendly material as they did was either a daringly bold move – “Advanced,” to borrow from Chuck Klosterman an appropriately absurd critical construction – or a brazenly foolish one. And, truth be told, all of the signs pointed to a brilliant decision; after all, this was a band whose aching melodies, brilliant hooks, and satiny vocals practically made them a pop act to begin with. But in spite of all this, the end result of Under the Blacklight is a disaster: a disorganized, slap-dash, 37-minute flirtation with every painfully obvious convention of modern pop composition; an album whose greatest strength – or at least, its most fascinating element (beyond two wonderful singles) – is born from its most glaring defect. Under the Blacklight is so mediocre – and yet so fascinating as an intellectual document, at the same time – precisely because it reveals (or would certainly seem to) the band’s rather superficial understanding of pop music today: as tepid, brainless, formless, vain, and every other faint adjective a jaded critic can conjure. Buoyed, of course – and only marginally redeemed – by slick production and gorgeous hooks.
In many respects, this shallow reading of the pop movement is understandable; so much of the pop canon is, after all, a gorgeously constructed – built, not simply recorded, crafted, or even produced – mess of brainlessness, formlessness, and superficiality. But to approach the pop genre as if these elements were at the irreducible core of its meaning is not only wrong – it’s insulting. And it’s particularly insulting to – reflecting quite poorly upon – a group of very talented musicians who not only incorrectly identified these elements as the core parameters of pop, but who conceivably saw something admirable in these very elements to mimic. All of this, of course, assumes that the band is even earnest in its appropriation of pop music. But simply crying foul, or shouting sell-out – especially for a band so very poppy to begin with, where such cries just seem kind of silly – is not an effective means of understanding exactly why Under the Blacklight is such a disaster, or its broader implications. The real issue here is the band’s failure to recognize that they needn’t forge a pop record, because they had for several years (the entirety of their career, even) already been benefiting from the wonderful aesthetic elements that make pop worthwhile (and which, in deconstructing the genre, they curiously excised): wonderful melodies, compelling hooks, sultry vocals, and whip-smart lyrics. Completely abandoning substance for a pretty exterior was not the move that Rilo Kiley had to make; it’s a move that assumes (incorrectly) that those are the only two options available to any band.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Rilo Kiley is a band, not a man, a four-piece rock group fronted by a woman, and fleetingly famous for being home to multiple child actors (Jenny Lewis, of course, being best known for her role in the Nintendo advertisement-slash-film The Wizard, while guitarist Blake Sennett similarly made the rounds, including guest spots on Melrose Place and Boy Meets World). One wonders why such irrelevant, meaningless information inevitably crops up in every Rilo Kiley review – in much the same way that The Shins can no longer be mentioned without Zach Braff and Garden State in the same breath – but suspects that it’s preferable to the descriptor that may ultimately be on their horizon; that being the one of the brilliant pop band that couldn’t make a pop record to save its life. Even, it seems, when that was their stated goal.
Regardless of what the future holds for them, however, the past had been usually bright for Rilo Kiley, and continued to grow in intensity over the course of four albums, which earned Lewis and company perpetual status as critical darlings; starting out at home in a folksy, alt-country niche before developing – quite gradually, taking careful steps, and never losing that tender, twangy, but most-of-all poppy edge – on 2004’s More Adventurous (an aptly titled recording) into a guitar-driven rock band with a storyteller’s touch. Which is where – and die-hards will inevitably disagree – I’ve always felt they did their best work, effectively melding tender tragedy, Lewis’ smoky, country howl voice, and a fighting rock-and-roll spirit. That spirit was evidenced no better than on Portions for Foxes, More Adventurous’ triumphant first single, a wonderfully wry and defiantly rock-and-roll composition that – as I’ve written extensively before – should have instantly launched them into enduring stardom (if not, at least, one-hit wonderdom). Biting guitars, a subtle synth frame, a brilliant melody, and Lewis’ infinitely suggestive frontwoman performance – its climax, her throaty shout, “C’mere!” exuding a sex appeal that no visual image can recreate – Portions for Foxes seemed scientifically engineered to be a crossover hit. But it apparently wasn’t, and it never became one, and the band was content, we have to assume, with its cozy critical niche.
The band subsequently went the solo route – Lewis releasing 2006’s Rabbit Fur Coat, and Sennett Sun, Sun, Sun with side-project The Elected – and when reunited, a conscious decision was made that the next Rilo Kiley album would be a pop record, ostensibly a joyous testament to how much love and admiration the band had for the genre and those who operated successfully within it.
Which returns us to the crux of the matter; that while the word “disaster” is perhaps just a bit too harsh, Under the Blacklight is a failure on almost every level. Not only is it a mediocre album to begin with (even ignoring its stylistic debts), featuring a middling collection of songs, but no amount of context can give it value as anything beyond an intellectual exercise that examines what happens when a band’s tribute becomes – unbeknownst to them – a shallow parody, a facile forgery that only goes skin (or speaker) deep. There are, I suppose, grounds for saying that Under the Blacklight is successful – even brilliant – in its devotion to pop imitation. Unfortunately, in this case, Under the Blacklight’s success is found in its brazen mimicry of a bad pop record. And this, I suspect, is just a little too “advanced” (see Bob Dylan’s “Christian” albums) for a quartet – as good as they are – whose biggest thematic leap to date was a not-so-radical transformation from alt-country to alt-rock that took three albums to really take any kind of discernible substance.
If there’s a silver lining to be found in Under the Blacklight, it’s in the album’s singles, which are also, incidentally its first two tracks (and that one of these compositions is actually titled Silver Lining is an irony that shouldn’t be lost on any serious reviewer). And even these two songs – the aforementioned Silver Lining, and the pre-release single The Monkeymaker – are divisive enough that few reviewers have reached a consensus on them: the former, a shimmery 50’s style pop song, gorgeously sung by Lewis and ostentatiously framed by her seductive coos, hand-claps, triangles, and a reverb-drenched, softly twanging guitar; and the latter, a bass-heavy, gravely-voiced, and driving percussive echo of The Cars’ Moving in Stereo, drenched in a kind of sweaty, primal lust that brilliantly perverts the saccharine sweet melody (and confirms the ironic sentiment) of the album opener. Beyond these moments, however – though these two are, make no mistake, two of the best singles of 2007 – even the roughest gems are difficult to find.
Particularly troublesome is Breakin’ Up – whose disco beat, bright synths, and heavy-handed chorus accompany an awkward ‘relationship as a cell phone’ metaphor that would be better suited to the triumphant performance in a Bratz film, or an early Britney Spears album cut (E-Mail My Heart). This kind of strained, intellectually hollow lyricism is painfully uncomfortable coming from a band that generally explores such mature themes – love, yes, but also sex, drugs, money, and the dangerous intersections of all four. More vexing here is Dejalo, which is even more bizarre than it sounds: a shapeless attempt at injecting Latin flair, complete with its garishly mispronounced Spanish chorus. Its highly suggestive and punchy couplets ("I got a tail if you wanna chase it / I got a tongue if you wanna taste it") aren’t enough to save it from sounding like either parody or a disorienting indie-come-lately to a Latin fad that reached its peak fever some ten years ago. And all of Lewis’ tantalizing sexual detail merely comes off as tawdry in light of the band’s gaudy musical direction. Even 15, a wonderful vignette of jailbait perversion ("She was bruised like a cherry, ripe as a peach / How could he have known that she was only fifteen?") – deftly narrated and defiantly rejecting its seemingly obvious implications as a cautionary tale – is muted and made rather absurd by its ostentatious, bouncing horn adornment.
Only isolated lines seem to retain their edge; on Close Call – a near-highlight, whose rhythm and guitar vividly imagine The Meat Puppets’ Lake of Fire – Lewis tells a more affecting narrative, singing in her strained falsetto, “The funny thing about money for sex / You might get rich but you’ll die by it.” The sterile, hip-hop beats and pulsating synths of Give A Little Love are curiously infectious, combining with Lewis' breathy vocals to almost redeem the startling conventionality of the song's lyrical sentiment. The vaguely country-jangle of The Angels Hung Around is, considering its surroundings, a delightful throwback to the Rilo Kiley of old, an acoustic-rock lament that depends heavily on Lewis' twangy near-drawl. But even it seems somehow ineffective lyrically, favouring superficial polish over earnestness. But of Under the Blacklight's meat and potatoes, only Dreamworld really stands out as anything remarkable, a virtual Fleetwood Mac tribute that unabashedly wears its influence on its sleeve and is all the better for it. Sennett's vocals, a gravelly whisper, with Lewis taking background vocals, are wonderfully juxtaposed by the shimmering texture of the jangly guitar fills; the wonderfully vacant mood that results is a high point for the album.
For all of Under the Blacklight’s fascinating dimensions – and I seriously mean it when I suggest that it’s the most interesting (though certainly not the best) record of 2007 – it’s ultimately still a hollow, mediocre album. The songs here will appeal to someone, surely; they seem consciously manufactured to. But the appeal is only fleeting, and there’s an emptiness that makes Under the Blacklight tragic, completely independent from the host of shady characters who inhabit its narratives. There are some wonderful moments, too, but in the end they simply remind us of the album’s slavish devotion to shallow pop formulas.
There is, I suppose, a very cautious recommendation for Rilo Kiley’s Under the Blacklight to be found in this review, somewhere – but it comes with more than adequate warning that interesting and good are not synonymous. Aside from its few joyous moments of genuine inspiration, the only real pleasure offered by Under the Blacklight (if, in fact, you consider it a pleasure) is that of the listener’s critical deconstruction of it.
On Under The Blacklight, Jenny Lewis is fiery and unrestrained, no more so than on The Moneymaker . With the blood of Fleetwood Mac, early Heart, and ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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