The Right Track(s): Vybz Kartel’s “Gaza Commandments” and Kurt Vile’s “Overnite Religion”

Vybz Kartel – Gaza Commandments

 I don’t understand any of the charges leveled at the Major Lazer album. Complaining it’s ironic makes no sense, since that would imply the whole album is just a joke at the expense of reggae and dancehall music. It’s clear from even the most superficial listen that Diplo and Switch are huge fans of both genres, not to mention it’s not as if the album is full of hipster white dude vocalists (with the exception of that awful, awful “Mary Jane” song). You’ve got Vybz Kartel,  Turbulence, Mr. Vegas, TOK, Ms. Thing,  Jahdan Blakkamore from the Dutty Artz crew, even friggin’ Prince Zimboo shows up…This is an all star line-up!

 

Another charge I’ve heard against the album is that it’s not forward thinking enough. Countless critics cite The Bug and DJ/Rupture and Kode9 as examples of how to make exciting variations on Jamaican musical forms, completely oblivious to the fact that those three artists are working in a totally different genre, dubstep. There is also something elitist about championing an artist like The Bug, whose music is melodramatic and full of apocalyptic end times imagery, over Major Lazer’s often goofy and sexy dancehall club music, as if the only way white artists can use Jamaican music is if they’re super serious and solemn about it. At least half of the songs dancehall artists make are sex songs, though admittedly few are as brashly pornographic as Major Lazer’s “What U Like.” If dancehall is forward thinking, it’s in the way current R & B is, with most of experimentation taking place in the production, while the subject matter stays pretty much the same.

 

The only real problem I have with the Major Lazer album is that it threatens to overshadow current dancehall artists. One would hope the album could work as a gateway to the genre, but I’m not holding my breath. Vybz Kartel’s new song “Gaza Commandments” is amazing and further evidence in my argument that Jamaicans use auto-tune far better than Americans. Maybe it’s something about the accent or Vybz’s sing-song rapping, but his use of auto-tune feels so natural, making him sound less like a robot and more like he’s just so fired up that his vocals are spilling over. Fader’s Julianne Shepherd seems to think the song is about commandments against sex in Vybz’s Gaza neighborhood, but then why would he brag that “Gaza girl pussy fluffy like a carpet”? It seems more likely the song is about how great his neighborhood is, how they kill informers (hatred of snitches is clearly not limited to just gangster rap), and how the censorship of dancehall artists is more about censoring poor people.

 

Kurt Vile – Overnite Religion

 

A little less than a year ago, a song like this would have bored me to tears. But now I recognize that part of my dislike of indie rock over the last year and a half had more to do with its audience than the music itself. Just because a song can be used to sell hipsters cars or soundtrack a medical drama doesn’t mean it’s a bad song. And considering nobody buys albums anymore, you can’t hate on an artist for trying to get some of that licensing money. Vile and his other band, The War on Drugs, play classic rock music the only way it deserves to be played now, i.e. packed full of weirdness, whether drones, loops, or shoegaze guitars. 

 

Hearing “Arms Like Boulders,” the first song on Wagonwheel Blues, The War on Drugs’ album from last year, I was shocked by how moved I was but what sounded, to slip into annoying critic speak, like Blonde on Blonde Dylan played by Wolf Parade. But every band doesn’t have to be next level and I really shouldn’t be so shocked that old musical forms still have life left in them. Maybe it’s just a matter of timing. As I argued in my Debate Team post about Fleet Foxes with Douglas Martin, that album wouldn’t have gotten nearly the critical reception it did had it been released in a year with My Morning Jacket or M. Ward records. I think the same can be said for audiences; maybe I was looking to get into a relatively straightforward indie rock album because I’ve temporarily grown sick of drone music (similarly I’ve lately gotten into old school NY rap records like 3 Feet High and Rising and Paid In Full because I’ve grown temporarily tired of most new Southern rap stuff).