The Hold Steady - "Your Little Hoodrat Friend," Separation Sunday; "Stuck Between Stations," Boys and Girls in America; "Sequestered In Memphis," Stay Positive
"You either love them or hate them." How many times have fans or lazy critics uttered this phrase when recommending a band? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? The problem is, ten times out of nine, the band is not very good at all. The people who love them are their friends and family. The people who hate them are everybody else. Don't tell me your brother-in-law's noisecore project with three turntablists and a Theremin player is a "love it or hate it" proposition. Unless I am related to the people on stage, that is a "hate it or drink arsenic" proposition.
So, obviously this is the point where I say, "Love it or hate it is a myth, EXCEPT FOR THESE GUYS..." Well, I'm not gonna do that.
In the first place 8000 other Monday Morning Christgaus have already said it. And the second-to-last thing I want to be is trite. (The absolutely last thing I want to be is from New Jersey.)
My thesis is, therefore, rather muddled:
I hereby proclaim that you will NOT find yourself tied to a binary choice between adulation and antipathy when you listen to The Hold Steady.
You might think they sound kind of weird and interesting, but aren't your cup of tea. Perhaps you'll find their anthemic rock and roll reminiscent of early era Bruce/E-Street records, mixed with a more punk rock aesthetic, as so many others have described their sound. Maybe lead singer Craig Finn's tales of burnouts and barflies will take hold of you like Dickens' serials took hold of the readers in the nineteenth century. Maybe his voice will make you want to crawl up the walls and stuff cactus in your ears just to make it stop.
And so you have options. You don't have fall in love with this band that simultaneously venerates and tears down the Twin Cities like Dr. Johnson did with London. You don't have to want set the disc on fire and douse it with urine, either.
So why are they underrated? After all, websites like Pitchfork and numerous other critics love these guys. The fact that Finn keeps a cast of characters weaving in and out of all four Hold Steady records fascinates some, mainly because virtually no other modern songwriters use this device. He also creates a lexicon that initially seems limited and repetitive, overusing words like positive, party and killer. He juxtaposes elementary words-- cold, hot; soft, hard--sounding like a poet who lost his thesaurus on first listen. But if one follows the entire through-line of the narrative from Almost Killed Me to Stay Positive all of the words and figurative language that appeared simplistic at first, take on immense poetic significance. He unpacks every double meaning and injects a sense of risk into the simplest turn of phrase. And Finn makes no bones about shooting to be a 21st century Kerouac. The album "Boys and Girls in America" grew out of Finn's belief that he could write a whole record about just one of Sal Paradise's lines in On the Road.
But, again, none of this points to being underrated. And maybe they aren't. But that whole bullshit about love/hate that gets lumped on these guys, and has been since they broke up Lifter Puller and formed The Hold Steady, hasn't allowed for any sort of accurate gauge of how many people might actually enjoy this band. Hipsters and music geeks superpraise THS, wanting to be counted in the Love Them crowd, so their fervor (count me in) can't be trusted. And the material might be too dense and Finn's vocals too idiosyncratic for casual listeners to sift through when they've already been prejudiced with the love/hate preface by whoever gave them the record.
Personally, I think that twenty-years from now, I will be glad that I knew who these guys were. For everyone who doesn't know who they are, give them a try. You might kinda, sorta, halfway enjoy them a bit. Or you might not.
3 comments:
I have to say that my first exposure to HS was a complete miss. I couldn't get past the sound of Finn's voice, which is weird because I love Tom Waits, Dylan, Phish, as examples of people that really can't sing. But there was just something about it that hinted towards insincerity for some reason. I gave HS another shot and something just clicked. I realized the voice accentuated the lyrics, not obscured them as I first thought. So, I agree that the love them/hate them dichotomy isn't helpful. I think, like a lot of good bands, The Hold Steady requires work. They aren't going to spell it out for you or make it easy on you, because, well that is the point they are trying to get across. Things are ugly, especially the reality we find ourselves in sometimes, but that doesn't mean we cease to examine the messiness, instead we should take the leap. It is definitely worth the trip.
Well said. However you get the pointed finger of chastisement for not trusting my mothertrucking taste right off the bat. I am exceptionally good at this stuff.
I know, I know, I know. Although, you still need to convince me of Old 97's. I bought their greatest hits album, so I'm trying. And you were dead wrong about Miley Cyrus, she's not that good.
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