The Sweet Snob

In the nearly final final scene of the spectacular movie Fish Tank, perhaps even more amazing because it’s on Netflix on Demand right now, the lead actress, played by the magnificent Katie Jarvis dances with her little sister and mom to Nas’ Life’s a Bitch (which you can play while you read the rest of the review):

[audio:http://thesweetsnob.com/wp-content/uploads/03-Lifes-A-Bitch.mp3|titles=Nas – Life’s A Bitch]

Dancing is an important part of the movie in its own awkward way, so her dancing with her more innocent sister and less innocent drunken mom ties the whole thing together.

Usually this kind of British poverty stricken youth thing gets kind of tiresome for me, but this movie is something special.  Its acting and writing is immediate and streamlined.  When it’s sexy, it’s sexy without apology.  It impressed me with its first moments, and I enjoyed it all the way through.

Check the trailer:

My friend Louie just hit me up on IM and the Ida Maria song Louie popped into my head.  I wanted to play him the song, and also realized that I’d never written about Ida Maria, and I really love her.

I can’t help thinking she came out in the wrong era.  If she’d released this album alongside Blondie in the 80’s I feel like this could have had big hits, and they’d be playing Drive Away My Heart at weddings across the country.

But maybe there’s just something too spiky, too howling, too raw, too hookless to really be popular.  I think I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked was meant to be the hit, and it has a damn cool video, but I can’t say it’s my favorite song on the album:

 

Cute huh?  Ok, then let’s get right to the Louie and play the Louie song for Louie!

[audio:http://thesweetsnob.com/wp-content/uploads/03-Louie.mp3|titles=Ida Maria – Louie]

 

And then the songs I really like the most.  First of all the bomb album opener Oh My God. Weirdly when this album came out I used to like to put this on as I started off to work, and I’m sure if I were a girl it’s the kind of thing I’d rock out to in the mirror while I put on lipstick:

[audio:http://thesweetsnob.com/wp-content/uploads/01-Oh-My-God.mp3|titles=Ida Maria – Oh My God]

 

And her drunken send-off, Queen of the World, where she explains why she’s so damn drunk:

I got no plans for tomorrow
I got no plans in sight
In fact I’m free this week
I’m free this month
I’m lonely
Lonely this year
I’m lonely forever

But you know, tonight she’s Queen of the World. She bumps into things. She spins around in circles.

[audio:http://thesweetsnob.com/wp-content/uploads/09-Queen-Of-The-World.mp3|titles=Ida Maria – Queen Of The World]

I’m not sure why Ida Maria Sivertsen’s songs have stuck with me for so long, but to each his own right?

 

When I first heard Kurt’s Vile’s album, Smoke Rings For My Halo, I was so expecting something vile.  I was almost disappointed, so I hardly even heard it.

I went back and listened though, and I’m glad I did.  This is some really passionate, low-key Rock n’ Roll that makes Kurt sound like some kind of veteran.  Like, he already got famous and this is an album he did years later.

Not really though, Kurt’s still an up-and-comer, and I’m about to listen to his other three albums, cause he has my attention.

I’m listening to Puppet To The Man:

[audio:http://thesweetsnob.com/wp-content/uploads/03-Puppet-To-The-Man.mp3|titles=Kurt Vile – Puppet To The Man]

Jesus Fever

[audio:http://thesweetsnob.com/wp-content/uploads/02-Jesus-Fever.mp3|titles=Kurt Vile – Jesus Fever]

Peeping Tomboy

[audio:http://thesweetsnob.com/wp-content/uploads/08-Peeping-Tomboy.mp3|titles=Kurt Vile – Peeping Tomboy]

And a video from his first album:

Neko Case got so much attention for this album when it came out that I forget sometimes how many people didn’t experience her until KEXP started playing the haunting Deep Red Bells.  By then I already was in love with Furnace Room Lullaby.

Neko Case and her wailing power have no like.  She is a monster.   And this isn’t the only album where she depicts herself dead.   Hell, even though it’s true that this album is about heartbreak and death, theres plenty that’s uplifting about it to me.  It’s just about being in pain and making an amazing howl of it.  Plus there’s a real amazing love song to Tacoma, and you don’t see that very often.

Later on, her production gets smoother, and she refines her Feminist-Country-Femme-Fatale songwriting style to a more polished shine, but here it’s not so smooth.  Just rousing country music songs with her voice slicing through everything like a knife.  There isn’t a single song I don’t love on this album, but there’s a few that stand out to me.

First, there’s Mood To Burn Bridges, her ode to giving the kiss-off to “Snooty Bitches”:

Then, I am a huge sucker for the watery guitar and Patsy Cline style of No Need To Cry:

Finally, I think you’re ready for the heavy hitter, the astounding South Tacoma Way.  Is it too inexact to just say I consider this an example of some kickass songwriting?  From the very first words, “I put on that sweater you gave me.  I woke up in the kitchen, a few minutes later.  I didn’t know how I had gotten there.  Did you guide me?” to “couldn’t pay my respects to a dead man, your life was so much more to me, and I chased it away with sticks and stones, but that rage kept following me” to “I can’t comprehend the ways that I miss you, they come to life in my mistakes” to “the cross-streets bear your name.”  (Which, I’m sure they do.)

“I had a droam in which my hoart was ripp’d from my chost.  I want’d to punch th’ shit out of my g’ography toach’r for doing it, but my hands felt lik’ load.”

— Who Knows?!