Music Review: Jet - Get Born

The chief virtue of most Australian bands that make it stateside is their simplicity, their focus on their sound instead of their look. The Saints, Australia's premier late-70's punk band, never dressed punk (here's the cover of their 1977 album, (I'm) Stranded). AC/DC had Angus Young's schoolboy look, but that was only for Angus, and it was intended humorously. Unlike the The Strokes' rich-boy bum ensembles, the Hives' neo-mod uniforms and the White Stripes' peppermint chic, The Vines were the only band of the origonal "new rock" quadrifecta that didn't have a ready-made look (which may be why they've slipped off the radar screens). Australian boys play rock n' roll, unapologetically, and they know it ain't their job to look pretty. That's for the wankers from Pommey-land and pretentious Yanks.

I can't say that in perfect honesty that Jet is an image-free band. I see Beatle boots and flares on their cover, and artwork that seems to want to evoke Revolver besides. That's fine, though. Retro only partially ever becomes cool again, but in our retro-everything culture it never becomes completely out of style again, either. And it doesn't matter, because Jet's got the goods when you pop their CD (which has more Hard Day's Night-ish pychedelia fun painted on it) into your player.
Like myself, most fans will buy this on the strength of "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" which seems to have the balls-out, garage-rock riffage that's so blessed hip these days. They won't be dissapointed, because half the album's in a similar vein: quick and gloriously sludgy rock songs that sound either like the Who or Sonics depending on your desire to claim them for your respective tribe. The other half is suprising, however: smooth, piano-led blues ballads that sound like they could have been scraped off the floor of the Abbey Road or Let it Be studios. One or two such songs are obligatory; to confidently toss on five or six takes guts and a sure sense of one's songwriting skills. That indicates promise in my book.

Comparisons to the Vines are inevitable, because the two bands are so aesthetically similar. It is generally the reviewer's task to run his musical-knowledge decoder ring accross the respective albums ASIN number and tell you which one is "better." I can't do that, not at this stage. The only objective difference between "good" music and "bad" music is the effort of the musicians to craft a sound unique to them. Jet has done so, and it sounds good. So have the Vines. Enjoy whichever you bought first, and call the others wannabes if it pleases you. Or buy 'em both and put them in two seperate stereos on either side of your room and let 'em fight it out. I give this piece of product the thumbs up. The rest is up to you.

Unlimited Supply! EMI!

EMI is going to sell their entire catalog online. Popular demand does have an effect. This could change things.

The Real Music Problem?

Last week in the Post's Outlook section Jeff How of Wired magazine describes a different threat to online music: The Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which according to Howe undoes the concept of "fair use." It's a compelling article, and makes a smaller argument couched in economic reality:

The major labels own scores of smaller ones, such as Elektra, Epic and Interscope, where much of the music is made, marketed and distributed. The people who work at the smaller labels, people I got to know while covering the music industry, are the ones now losing their jobs in droves, at least in part because of file sharing. They are not fat cats. They don't chomp cigars and relish caviar. They have much more in common with obsessed file sharers and the music lovers than they do with the lawyers and CEOs of the conglomerates they work for.

The terrifying (but unsurprising) thought this yields is that the music fan's online revolt might make it harder for scrappy indie acts to get signed and distributed. That means more Britneys, more 50-Cents. More mindless pop schlock.

All of which doesn't mean I'm ready to break boycott yet. I'm still angry at the labels for stupidly antagonizing music fans instead of investing in a new technology that could have revolutionized their businesses. But it does mean that perhaps we should start talking about the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and why it exists, and how we can secure the rights of the creator without destroying the rights of the user.

MTV Offering Online Music?

Could be huge.