Will “Clap Your Hands Say Yeah” make the “Same Mistake” again?

                Clap Your Hands Say Yeah came out with a new called “Same Mistake”. Many years ago, in 2005, CYHSY blew up in a great way. Here was a band, a good one, who received a great deal of attention on their debut. No one in the band was prepared for the onslaught of joy and love their debut received. Everyone in the band couldn’t handle it. Pitchfork adored it. Audiences loved it. Most bands would kill for the outpouring of love they received. Then their second album came.  

                Their second album couldn’t live up to the hype. Entitled “Some Loud Thunder” it might as well have been titled “Some Loud Blunder”. Critics tore it apart. People were angry at it. Every review I read talked about how over-hyped they were. Yet those who complained about the hype were the same ones who hyped the first one so hard. This was the first time I witnessed music reviewers creating their own drama. And a poor old indie rock band was caught in the middle unable to satisfy anybody. Discouraged they went on a hiatus. 

                Four years later the hiatus is over. Their previous friends/enemies have paid attention. I’ve seen the song featured on a few sites. No doubt I’ll see them on even more as days pass by. Listening to the new song it maintains my interest a bit more than “Some Loud Thunder”. Honestly I tried to get through their whole sophomore album but never could do it. As I got through this one new song of theirs, I have a hope that perhaps they’ll keep my interest for roughly 45 to 50 minutes. Since I’ve been pretty good at avoiding the pun until now, let me just say I hope they don’t make the “Same Mistake” again. Oh wait, that’s the title, oh well. 

                Behind these guys is a famous roller coaster: the Cyclone in Coney Island. The Cyclone is America’s most famous roller coaster. For them the roller coaster must represent the extreme highs and lows they’ve experienced as a band. CYHSY named their newest, yet unreleased album “Hysterical”. Perhaps it will be dedicated to the attention they first received for their debut. Reviewers loved them back then. CYHSY became popular and successful through reviewers and hype rather than a traditional record label. Back in 2005 that was weird, unheard of, and a ‘game changer’. So that made their fall from grace hurt much more. 

                I have nothing but happy memories of their first self-titled album. The music might have been a bit overrated but it did have heart. CYHSY led me out of my self-imposed experimental music world. Years had gone by with me insolating myself in endlessly difficult music, without beats, structure, or melody. When I first heard Alec Ounsworth’s voice I thought to myself: that’s the most annoying voice I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Listening to it way too loud in my friend’s hand-me-down car I grew to enjoy it. One day her car was packed with people and we heard the song “Is this Love”. We began to sing along. That song is only 3 minutes long but it felt longer. We got lost in the pure joy and happiness CYHSY appeared to seep out of their pours. For me the summer of 2005 was made up of these songs, of going to the beach and opening myself up to others. 

                Without Clap Your Hands Say Yeah I might not be the same sloth I am now. They helped me learn to enjoy the art of pop music. I became happier, fitter, and more productive. Everything fit into place. I’d hang out at the beach with this blasting on the cheapest stereo which offered CD-playing opportunities. My friends and I would swim together, tell each other jokes using a bone-dry wit, and go to Subway to get our friend to make us free sandwiches. Sure the sandwiches tasted like ass but it was a happy ass taste. 

                Here’s the part where I try to predict how their new album is going to do. I offer up pros and cons to a single song. No song should have to do so much, at least not this one, not this time. CYHSY is too personal to me to try and predict their fortunes in the tumultuous forces of online taste-making. I hope they make it. They deserve it.

The Death of my first Musical Genre (IDM)

Yes, that means there were at least 16 volumes before this.

Everyone remembers growing up with a certain musical genre, one they truly could call their own. For me, that meant the Intelligent Dance Music, or IDM moniker. Used generally for electronic music that remained classified only by its unusual structures and lack of actual dancing, it served as the perfect gateway music for budding music snobs. The price of admission into this genre remained very low, basically anyone with a sense of melody and an interest in non-rhythmic music could join, so long as they had some ultra-cheap music software. 

Intelligent Dance music had to be the first musical genre created by and for the internet. Created in the US of A for the IDM list it was probably one of the first obsessive email lists dedicated exclusively for a specific type of music. Due to its origins in the US, a great deal of artists often described as “IDM” declared the term to be an American construct, particularly Richard D. James (Aphex Twin). Rather than just come to peace with the fairly stupid term, he decided to coin an even stupider term “braindance” and used that heavily for his own Rephlex record label. For whatever reason, the term “braindance” never caught on, probably because it looked so dang awful.

The weird thing remained how I never saw or heard the term “IDM” anywhere besides the internet. Even in what is commonly referred to as “reality” rarely did people bring up any artist who might have been considered “IDM”? What was going on? I later learned that this was an ultra-nerdy sub-sect of music which involved large doses of gear worship and familiarity with various avant-garde composers.

Just as I got it all together, that vast web of interconnected artists, it ended. That knowledge became useless, how this artist related to that one, when this one last put out a record, what record label released their first album. Genres never end swiftly, there’s always a few stragglers, a few artists who continue to follow their path. Listeners are even worse, I can’t tell you how many fans of Aphex Twin I’ve met, of undetermined ages, longing to stay young by listening to the music of their youth, when they were last relevant. 

Putting a year on it, I’d say 2004 marked the end. By then, only a few artists continually brought out a solid product, like Autechre, O9, and Venetian Snares. Most of the others had begun moving in other, more boring, directions. Squarepusher had passed his prime, Aphex Twin remained quiet. Pan Sonic came out with that absolutely monstrous Kesto 4 disc set, but those Finns could easily move themselves into the Glitch/Noise category if push came to shove.  

Snobby music changed in 2004. The indie renaissance began. Whoever were the arbiters of true taste decided that elitist music didn’t need to sound as masochistic as IDM. Instead, dance became simply dance music. DFA records confirmed that it was alright for us to re-explore the past, of what had gone on in that period between 1978-1989 in New York City. Dance music flourished, indie rock flourished. Even those who went the more masochistic route, by taking on noise, found that noise remained a less heavily curated genre than IDM ever was. Lacking the pretention of IDM while maintaining the weirdness, it fit those looking for something less accessible like a glove.

I remember releasing this genre had ended around 2004. As I looked around at the beach I was wandering around my friends put on Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and I simply danced. No longer did I have to use obscure terminology for what I listened to. Instead, simple words like ‘dance’ and ‘rock’ became usable words again. I felt human, like part of a real community, a community that didn’t exist exclusively online. 

Part of me still misses the deeply weird musings of IDM. For that I have a few artists left who occasionally let out a great hurrah every now and then. But for the most part the scene left without announcement into cataloged internet posts, various dusty corners of the web, still keeping them warm with the music of the past.  

What was the hardest genre death for you to handle? Will Chillwave live? Is Witch house a real genre? What will 2011 bring, new genre-wise?

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah 7.6

I know where I was when I first heard this. I sat in my friend’s anorexic-looking white Volvo sedan from the early 90s. As the music played, we all felt happy and content listening to the hip stuff while non-descript shopping malls passed us by. We were going to the beach to walk around aimlessly for a few hours.

The album begins with “The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth”. What comes before isn’t necessarily bad, but things really take off with this song. Part of me wonders why a band would get energized right in the middle of things, but that’s beside the point. Hearing the vocalist for the first time, he sounds like an incoherent drunk. Upon further listens (which you’ll do, since it is a habit-forming song) you’ll realize he’s singing in English.

After that song, everything in the album makes sense. “Heavy Metal” which is more energetic power-pop than anything else, and the bittersweet song “Home on Ice” are probably my other favorites on here. These three songs have the expansive feel that they had been trying for with most of the album.

Unfortunately, the album they had following this lacked the same charisma. Perhaps this band was meant to exist in 2005 and after that it just missed the mark. Indie rock moved away from this kind of emotional display after this, which is a bit sad. Listening to it a half-decade later, I remember why I liked it and that reason hasn’t changed.