In the age of style mash-ups like My Chemical Romance’s latest hybrid of emo/goth/grand stadium rock or Danger Mouse’s meshing of Jay-Z with The Beatles, TV On The Radio sounds like a perfect band for our time.
You can vaguely identify their influences (David Bowie even sings backup on “Province”), but their sound is definitely forward-looking and a good sign of what we can expect bands of the future to sound like.
The fact that TV On The Radio’s sound is futuristic yet has little-to-no computerized effects is a testament to the band’s originality. It’s a wonder that bass, guitar, drums and simple keyboards can still yield a sound as original and undefinable as this. However, one listen to Return To Cookie Mountain and chances are you’ll be able to easily identify a TV On The Radio song just by listening to a few lines.
The album, their debut on a major label, is named after a stage on the Nintendo game Super Mario World
. The title may be playful, but virtually all of the songs have a murky darkness that can best be described as a mix of Frank Zappa, Faith No More and The Cure.
The album starts off with “I Was A Lover,” which makes some not-so-subtle references to the Iraq war. Tunde Adebimpe’s shaky falsetto will no doubt be off-putting to some ears. A few other listeners may be put off by the general sound of the leadoff track, which sounds like carnival music set to ‘crawl.’ Still, this is an album where patience is rewarded.
“Playhouse” and “Wolf Like Me” are songs so infectious you can automatically envision the countless dance remixes that are bound to spawn, thanks to drummer Jalell Bunton. “Province” is so catchy that most listeners will probably miss the David Bowie cameo.
Lyric wise, Return To Cookie Mountain is about… stuff. “A Method” keeps things vague, as Adebimpe and Kyp Malone sing about “A storm faced cloud / hanging in dystrophy.” “Playhouse” takes a nice swing at Paris Hilton-like club girls with “Vodka cran in your hand … whose little girl are you now?” The vagueness can be maddening for those hungering for something more concrete, but TV On The Radio’s sound excels at creating a general mood more than a specific image.
The UK release of Return To Cookie Mountain was great -- clocking in at just about an hour. The US version, released a few months later, has a few added tracks. The only problem is that it pushes the album to more than 70 minutes and the momentum generally lags toward the end. It’s like a great album with seven additional “bonus tracks"; great for fans familiar with the original album content, but unfamiliar listeners may take the additional tracks as “official” album tracks and thus may come away with a slightly lower opinion of the album.
Like Bloc Party, TV On The Radio is a band that is easily transferable to a dance floor, but ambitious enough to combine great musicianship, politics and ambition and make it sound effortless. The only blemish on the album is on “Dirtywhirl,” the chorus of which sounds almost criminally familiar with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Breaking The Girl.” It’s not a bad thing, but it was enough for me to remember Anthony Kiedis sporting Princess Leia buns in that video. A minor gripe for an otherwise stellar album that is one of the few essential purchases for 2006, regardless of your musical tastes.