Ours is a city with a mythology. New York has an extraordinary number of symbols--Liberty, Chrysler, Empire--that are familiar to billions, and even the relatively recent past--checker cabs, Gotti, Giuliani--tends to acquire mythic importance in record time. The surging music scene of the late '70s gave us not only a series of remarkable, inventive albums from the likes of the Ramones and Television but also its very own hallowed ground: CBGB's, Max's Kansas City, the Paradise Garage, Studio 54. It makes sense, then, that the title of Yes New York, a compilation of current local bands, references the city's musical past. And given the city's reputation, it's probably also fitting that the titular reference is both ballsy and somewhat dishonest.
The reference in question is to No New York, a famed 1978 compilation of the artsy "no-wave" scene. People--or at least the kind of people who'll start to genuflect at the mention of Max's Kansas City, the Paradise Garage, and so on--look at it as a towering classic, and it's no surprise that Yes New York has attracted droves of scornfully unfavorable comparisons.
But is there even a comparison to make? The no-wave bands were obscure before they were compiled--and they stayed obscure afterward. Their music was fiercely different, by which I mean almost unlistenable: No New York is a catalogue of dissonant screams and screeches, and the bands involved never wanted popular success in the first place. And no-wave was, unquestionably, a capital-m Movement: bands such as D.N.A. and Mars very consciously sounded like each other and unlike everybody else.
The Yes New York bands certainly don't share the same philosophy. The album's liner notes claim, with plenty of chutzpah, that the artists it anthologizes can be divided into "the ones who've gone on to achieve international celebrity and the ones who will"--no self-imposed obscurity here. The songs included are all eminently accessible (and, for the most part, very good).
But are they part of a proper Movement, some underground rumbling that'll bring the city back to musical glory days of the '70s? Is there something that can properly be called yes-wave, as the album's title begs, even though that's possibly the lamest genre name since trip-hop? And how does it sound?
According to the Strokes, who start off Yes New York, a lot like the '70s. "New York City Cops," the song included here, was the best track on the UK release of Is This It?, but was pulled from the U.S. release in a fit of incomprehensible post-Sept. 11 stupidity. It's classic, sneering, swooning rock and roll; sure, the lyrics sheet calls the cops in question "not too smart," but the music itself is all sweet, swaggering joy. The drumbeat's heavily indebted to Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life," and so is the sentiment: just as the strutting guitar riff makes it clear that "Satisfaction" is about being satisfied, no matter what words Mick's reciting, "New York City Cops" is a declaration of love for New York, cops and all.
Only two more of the album's 16 tracks are actually about New York, but it so happens that they're among the best. Interpol's "NYC" sounds absolutely nothing like the Strokes. Its chiming, warbling guitars and melancholy harmonies come together into a sad tribute that sounds like nothing so much as a memorial. If there were ever a perfect soundtrack for the beams of light that lit up lower Manhattan in the early months of 2002, this is it.
Radio 4's "Save Your City"--taken from the album Gotham, in case it wasn't clear--continues the hometown lyrical trend, but its rhythmic urgency is more hectoring than empathetic, all anger and neuroses choreographed on top of a punishing dance beat. It's a brilliant track, and it's all the more important in the context of today's New York scene. The track was produced by the DFA, a pair of local record producers who to all appearances do much more than the usual knob-twiddling; the records which emerge from their studio all bear their unmistakable disco-punk stamp. It's not difficult to make the case that DFA-rock is not only a style unto itself, but the most cohesive, creative style in town today. The compilers of Yes New York seem to agree, because they put four DFA tracks on their album.
Unfortunately, apart from "Save Your City," they chose poorly. The Rapture's "Olio," which puts a nasal, crooning lament over a bleepy rhythm, is good, but the same band's "House of Jealous Lovers," not included on this compilation, is flat-out great, not to mention original and influential and all kinds of other good things. The DFA remix of Le Tigre's "Deceptacon" follows in the footsteps of every half-assed remix ever by taking the original track, putting it on top of a basic, thunky dance beat, and calling it quits; the original is leagues better. And when James Murphy, one of the DFA's two members, contributes a track ("Tired," under the stage name LCD Soundsystem), it's squalling, noisy, and most of all boring. Murphy and co., even as LCD Soundsystem--check out "Losing My Edge" and "Beat Connection"--can do much better.
The rest of the album is, above all, competent--and that's no insult. There are highlights, like the toe-tapping erudition of Ted Leo and the Pharmacists' "Ballad of a Sin Eater" and the spacey, intoxicated balladry of the Walkmen's "Rue the Day." Apart from Longwave's insipid "Next Plateau," which is so unremarkable that it's offensive, the songs here are of consistently high quality. There are certainly some shared musical tendencies--a rough, not-too-glossy sound, a deep affection for the bass--but what's more apparent is a similarity of approach. It's almost irresistibly easy to describe many of these bands as nothing more than sums of influences: Interpol = Joy Division + Kitchens of Distinction. As a result, Interpol and their peers have been accused of being soulless, retro ironists or copycats. But while it's true that Yes New York's bands do tend to share a certain retro jones for the music of the Carter administration, they're not derivative so much as respectful. If you've got a great record collection, as these artists undoubtedly do, why not let your music show it?
The album's last track comes as a near-complete surprise. It's by Unitard, who are basically Brooklyn heroes Yeah Yeah Yeahs minus the drummer; it's called "Year to be Hated," and it's a version of YYYs anthem "Our Time" minus the drums. It's gentle, it's slow, it's acoustic, and in its quaint, lilting sincerity, it's like nothing else on the album. As an album closer, the song is almost arrogant: we can do country-folk too, it brags. These artists are craftsmen. And they're good at what they do.
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