Heard Here

Various Artists

The Million Dollar Hotel

The Million Dollar Hotel is arguably the biggest art-house movie you've never heard of. Its director, Wim Wenders, has amassed an impressive resume over the years, winning international critical acclaim for past efforts like Wings of Desire, The End of Violence and Paris, Texas; meanwhile, the film boasts an impressive cast headed by Mel Gibson, Milla Jovovich, Jeremy Davies and Jimmy Smits, among others. But unless you made a trip to the Berlin Film Festival in February (where the movie premiered and won the Silver Bear Award) or to similar festivals in France and Switzerland, you haven't seen the film. And because it has no scheduled American release date, you might not get to see it for a while.

Similarly, the Million Dollar Hotel soundtrack is probably the biggest soundtrack to a big art-house film you've never heard - which is too bad. On it, U2, Bono and a host of other talented musicians team up to deliver a moody, almost trance-like collection of music that offers a consistently dark and off-kilter sound. It probably suits the movie very well, but that's just a guess.

But the ambitious, star-studded soundtrack is typical fare for Wenders. After all, music has always figured prominently in Wenders' other offerings - certainly in Buena Vista Social Club - and Million Dollar Hotel and its soundtrack are the quintessential products of his artistic relationship with Bono and U2. U2 has done tracks for Wenders' films before (1993's Faraway, So Close! featured "Stay" from Zooropa, while the title track for 1991's Until the End of the World was lifted directly from Achtung Baby), and Bono and Wenders have been longtime friends. Thus, it should come as no surprise that Bono sings on three of the tracks on Million Dollar Hotel, in addition to the three U2 tracks included on the album. To top it all off, Bono not only served as executive producer for the film, but also wrote its script.

About half of the soundtrack is what one expects from a soundtrack, and the soundtrack to a Wenders film in particular - mood-setting music, slow with a somber saxophone. But these tracks are not to be confused with the generic brand of mind-numbing, sleep-inducing filler that gets slapped onto most Hollywood soundtracks; rather, they help to set and uphold the tone of the album as a whole.

But the real gems are the tracks with vocals. U2 contributes "The First Time" from Zooropa, and also offers a taste of their new album (due out in the fall) with "Stateless" and "The Ground Beneath Her Feet." The former, while not a bad song, is not one of U2's more inspired works. "The Ground Beneath Her Feet," however, inspires hope in the heart of any U2 fan. Featuring longtime U2 contributer and producer Daniel Lanois on the pedal steel guitar, the song evokes the same feeling of the best of Achtung Baby without sounding tired or played-out. Bono's pleading vocals do justice to the Salman Rushdie-authored lyrics on the track and plumb the same emotional depths that they always do. Bono also lends his precious voice to "Never Let Me Go" and the superb "Falling At Your Feet."

Jovovich herself takes to the mike for the Lou Reed classic "Satellite of Love." She does admirably, though perhaps not quite as well as U2, who covered the song at many of their ZooTV concerts. One of the nice surprises on the album is the Danny Saber remix of Jovovich's "Satellite of Love." Saber - who, surprisingly enough, has worked with U2 before - is inventive in creating a composition that tows the line somewhere between blues and electronica, and whatever Jovovich lacks in vocal talent is masked by Saber's understated production talents.

The album ends in rather strange, though not entirely unsatisfactory, fashion. Tito Larriva teams up with the Million Dollar Hotel Band for "Anarchy in the USA," a cover of the Sex Pistols' classic "Anarchy in the UK" - but in Spanish. The result is strange, slightly unnerving, but ultimately enjoyable, which is not a bad little synopsis of the album as whole.

- Jacob Kramer-Duffield

eels

Daisies of the Galaxy

What do you think when someone mentions "alternative" music? If you answered "Jeez, that's so 1993," then you're probably in the majority, and you're also probably right. That was about when alternative became big, went mainstream and became the alternative to, well, not much. Or at least so you'd think by looking at the prominent alt-rock bands, and the current playlists of alternative rock radio stations. However, have no fear - alternative music is alive and well. It isn't a genre that's selling too many albums or getting much radio play, but it actually sounds different, and it is challenging the limits of traditional pop music and its tired, rigid definitions. And if you can't think of a single alternative band that currently typifies that beautiful trend, run out to your local record store today. Ask for the eels.

For some, this is common knowledge, though I've yet to find either of you on this campus. E, the guiding creative force behind the now two-man band eels, has been putting out interesting, entertaining experimental pop music since his 1992 solo debut, A Man Called E. Clocking in at just over 30 minutes, the album abandoned the acidic worldview that was so popular just then in favor of Beach Boys-inspired melodies. E followed up the next year with the longer and more artistically polished Broken Toy Shop and has continued his upward ascent ever since.

In 1996, he joined up with drummer Butch Norton and bassist Tommy Walter to form eels. They enjoyed a brief moment in the sun of commercial success with their single "Novocaine for the Soul," off their first release, Beautiful Freak. But the album quickly slipped off the Billboard radar, despite a fabulous and critically-acclaimed album and a 16-show stint on 1997's Lollapalooza.

The departure of Walter left E and Butch to put together 1998's much-improved follow-up, electro-shock blues. The album, which dealt with the deaths of E's mother and sister, was a tour de force, a true album, and again received rave reviews. It did not feature a hit single, however, so it did not get a lot of airplay. And though they had not yet established a big-time commercial presence, eels had over this time eked out a nook in the avant-garde and have contributed songs to the soundtracks of American Beauty and The End of Violence, among others.

Which brings us to today and the release of their latest album, Daisies of the Galaxy. E has, in past albums, displayed an affinity for making many divergent styles and sounds make sense together on not only the same record but within the same song, and he does so again with Daisies. Highlighting a marked diversity of sound, the album features Grant Lee Buffalo's Grant Lee Phillips on bass and R.E.M.'s Peter Buck on piano, guitar and bass.

The album opens with the brassy pomp of "Grace Kelly Blues," which soon gives way to a sweetly-crafted acoustic strum and toe-tapping off-beat. E saunters along with his always-interesting lyrics, alternately capturing desperation and hope (the hallmark of nearly all his songs): "Sun melting the fake smile away/I think you know I'll be okay."

In "The Sound of Fear," Butch opens with a beautifully created hollow drum beat that drives the song along throughout, and E gets to use two of his favorite things: falsettos and an organ. Using samples the most liberally of any song on the album, "The Sound of Fear" is still unmistakably consistent with the rest of Daisies more than it is similar to the sample-heavy electro-shock blues.

Following the dark "Fear" is "I Like Birds," a great little song with a simple folky guitar strum and background comprised of sampled choral chanting. "I Like Birds" is fun in a way that very little music outside of They Might Be Giants is fun.

With "Flyswatter" E recaptures the Gothic feel of some of the last two albums' best songs, again with sampled choral sighing, xylophone, sound effects and thickly laid-on guitar grooves. Some of his efforts have the effect of re-creating the initial impact and effect of Phil Spector's "wall of sound," but in a modern context, with elements borrowed liberally from hip-hop and electronica.

Since the album isn't dealing with death in the immediate tragic way that electro-shock blues did, even the slow sad ballad about loss is tongue-in-cheek. "It's a Motherfucker" is a slow piano-and-string-accompanied number - a heartfelt, bittersweet song that expresses desperation and hope, but at the same time is saying "It's a motherfucker."

R.E.M.'s Buck teamed up with E in writing the obligatory mid-album instrumental piece, "Estate Sale." It's easy to see here the influence each has had on each other - E undoubtedly having drawn from the content and spirit of R.E.M.'s early work and especially Automatic for the People, which might be the most influential alternative album of the last decade. And at the same time, eels and their few inventive compatriots have without a doubt pushed the alt-rock grandfathers in their current direction, exemplified by Up and their work on the Man on the Moon soundtrack.

Again staying true to his traditional album structure, E follows the subdued "Estate Sale" with "Tiger in My Tank," a rollicking piece of power pop in the style of Elvis Costello at his best. They follow with "A Daisy Through Concrete," a happy little jazz-tinged pop song - or at least as happy as eels gets. Again the influence of Costello is obvious, though E's demeanor seems to indicate he wouldn't be quite the obnoxious prima donna Costello became if eels actually became popular outside of the art house alt-rock community. Heck, what am I saying? I don't even know if the art house alt-rock community likes eels. (They should, of course, even if they don't).

"Jeannie's Diary" hearkens back to E's solo career in lyrics and topic, but with a much more artistically advanced musical accompaniment, blending upscale lounge sounds with modern strings, while "Wooden Nickels" takes the best artistic impulses of electro-shock blues and as with many tracks on Daisies of the Galaxy adds strings and a steady backbone of acoustic guitar picking.

Though Daisies is a much more whimsical and less mournful album than electro-shock blues, "Something is Sacred" manages to capture the simultaneous hope and hopelessness of the world through E's eyes: "That could be me in a couple of years/Suckin' fumes under the highway pass...but something is sacred in your eyes/And something to believe."

The album ends with the slow "Selective Memory," but also contains the bonus track "Mr. E's Beautiful Blues," to be released as the album's first single. Even more fun than "I Like Birds," this song uses an upbeat drum score and dual electric guitars with a thumping bass beat over E's persistent proclamation, "Goddamn right, it's a beautiful day." And indeed, it is a beautiful day for alternative music and music in general when eels have a new release. Goddamn right.

- Jacob Kramer-Duffield

Violent Femmes

Freak Magnet

Not much has changed since the Violent Femmes released their self-titled debut back in 1983. The Milwaukee trio still serves up a unique blend of melodic folk music and angry punk rock, punctuated by lead vocalist Gordon Gano's off-key whining and the occasional country ballad. Meanwhile, the Femmes continue to sing rollicking odes to the bitter disappointments of the teenage years, mixed in with a few ill-advised tracks about Gano's devout Baptist upbringing. Indeed, the aging band seems perfectly content to spin its wheels, producing one formulaic album after another for the benefit of their mindless fans.

With their latest release, Freak Magnet, the Femmes seem intent on proving that they will be around for the long haul - even if they exhausted their creative resources nearly two decades ago. (After releasing a series of greatest hits collections during the '90s, the band resurfaced in 1999 with Viva Wisconsin; unfortunately, they did not stop there.) Like any Femmes album, Magnet features a collection of songs that sound like tired remakes of the band's most popular hits, "Blister in the Sun" and "American Music." As usual, Gano ruins even the most promising tracks with his tuneless brand of nasal inflections, and bassist Brian Ritchie and percussionist Victor DeLorenzo do very little to stop the bleeding with their bland, unimaginative approach to folk rock. Ultimately, the album comes across as stale and unnecessary, but perhaps that is a fitting sound for a trio that hails from the birthplace of Schlitz beer.

Bradley Whitford, the star of Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, once said that "if there was a nuclear holocaust tomorrow, the only thing left would be cockroaches and nerds." After listening to Freak Magnet, he might have included the Violent Femmes.

- Rossiter Drake