Dave Matthews Band
Everyday
»
Dave Matthews Band
Everyday
RCA, 2001
RiYL: Paul Simon, Sting/The Police, Vertical Horizon, Peter Gabriel |
No, it doesn't suck in relation to most of the recordings currently on The Billboard 200. It doesn't honestly even really suck. But, in relation to what the Dave Matthews Band is capable of -- or even what they've recorded previously -- it's dreadful.
And no, this isn't going to be a rehashed argument of acoustic versus electric, and the merits and shortcomings of each. We all went through that with Dylan and Highway 61, and we don't need to have that Revisited (I am so clever). Actually, the electric guitar doesn't really diminish the songs at all, and in some cases it can be argued that it augments the sound. The problem isn't the sound. It's the songs.
I'm sitting here writing this in a Greensboro, N.C., hotel room, between training sessions for my new position in Alexandria, leafing through my tardily purchased copy of the Rolling Stone and listening to a fairly substantial report on the new album on -- of all things -- CNN Headline News. Given what I've read and heard, I guess the news and music media will proclaim anything new as fantastic and historic.
Chalk it up to new releases such as Everyday selling more than past classics like Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. Hell, Rolling Stone even compared Everyday to Springsteen's Born In The U.S.A.! Ugh. David Bowie's Let's Dance on a good day maybe, and Bowie's Never Let You Down on a bad day.
As I said, the problem isn't the sound. Glen Ballard, for all his faults, does a nice job in production. Not as good as Steve Lillywhite -- Lillywhite actually recorded all of the band instead of Dave and some session work -- but it's definitely a crisp sounding recording. Don't blame Glen for this one. The problem with this album lies in the deterioration of Dave Matthews' writing -- specifically lyrically. In Rolling Stone, Dave proclaims that the lyrics are the best he's ever written.
Huh?
"Make a bomb of love and blow it up?"
I humbly submit that any of my Top 10 Things Dave Matthews Could Have Done would be more interesting than the above.
Lyrically, "I Did It" honestly has to be one of the worst written singles I've ever heard -- we're talking "MacArthur Park" and "Take The Money And Run"-type stuff here, folks. Lyrically, almost the whole album is a turkey. Why else would the band specifically leave the lyrics off the liner notes? Poor bands don't put lyrics on their liner notes because it costs more and they're poor. Rich bands like DMB do it because they can.
The only conceivable reason to not put lyrics on your liner notes and then bury them deep within your band's web page (and with an incorrect link, to boot, at the time of this writing!) when you're as huge as DMB is because they suck so much eggs that you're hoping people are smoking too much pot to notice. Unfortunately, Rolling Stone's apparently smoking a joint of Cheech & Chong proportions, rolled by Dave himself.
Several of the songs are totally unlistenable due to their lyrical inadequacies. These include "I Did It," "Angel," "Fool To Think," and "Dreams Of Our Fathers."
Why do I beg like a child for your candy?
Almost drunkenly I did imbibe of this fantasy of you only?
My dreams are a wonder about this?
A magic mushroom cloud of care?
Wish I could be her creator?
"Dreams Of Our Fathers" is, of the above, the most truly disappointing -- both for the fact that the music has something to it and lyrically, there's so much that could have been done with Dave's ideas. The problem with the song, and the album as a whole, is that Dave is so horribly vague with his lyrics that he winds up not saying anything at all. He tells us how horrible it is to live and die for the dreams of our fathers -- but what are the dreams of our fathers? This should be the subject matter. If it's not developed, how is it possible to make a blanket statement like Matthews does? It's lyrical laziness defined.
It's not all bad. "So Right" is going to be a concert staple for the next decade, and rightfully so (either that or horn player Leroi Moore stands off to the side and silently looks cool even more frequently than he does now). "The Space Between" is a classic get-out-the-lighter-and-revisit-Journey type of song, and that's not a terrible thing every now and then. "Everyday" (the song) is fantastic even if it would have greatly benefited from a producer less sparse than Ballard. Aretha Franklin should cover this one, or someone with a full choir in the background instead of just a couple lovely ladies.
"When The World Ends," with its ending so abrupt that people have written us thinking they'd received a defective CD, would be even more enjoyable if I didn't constantly draw comparisons to Code Magenta's "The Dance" (I have to admit, the thought of Dave Matthews singing that "when the world ends he'll be in a red dress" is quite a mental image).
The only song that's a true keeper, and ironically the best summation of this clunker of an album, is "If I Had It All." This is what happens to you when you try your damndest to write about anything but your own life -- you wind up writing about it anyway. After all, Dave said in the Rolling Stone interview that the predominant reason they switched producers and recording studios was the dark nature of his own state of mind and, therefore, the songs he was writing.
Admittedly, instead of sticking it out and taking the chance of writing a gut-wrenching but truly magical album such as -- oh, I dunno, Blood On The Tracks -- Dave pussies out because the songs aren't happy and bouncy. I know it's not the most journalistic way to put things, but it's the most honest. Luckily, the brilliant summation of the experience, "If I Had It All," remains.
Let's consider the title. Dave Matthews heads the single-most popular band in the United States, frequently selling out stadiums normally reserved for Pink Floyd and Billy Graham. Mr. Matthews also recently got married to his longtime sweetheart, and by all accounts is enjoying a loving marriage. He's rich beyond even his own comprehension, and this money enables him not only to not have to worry about such concerns, but also to help out many organizations he feels are important. Internal strife between band members is low, especially on a historical level of other bands of DMB's current popularity. In short, Dave Matthews does have it all.
Then again if I were a king / if I had everything / if I had you and I could give you your dreams / if I were giant size / on top of it all / tell me what in the world would I sing for / if I had it all.
I think Dave just summed up this stinker. And yes, like he said himself, he fucked it up. Luckily for Dave, few will notice, and he'll have the next album to redeem himself. And he will. The entire band is likely to be so unimpressed with this effort that they won't let it happen again.
At least, that's what I'm hoping.
This review originally appeared on Nancies.org.
BRIAN PACE |