A.C. Newman: Get Guilty

Artist: A.C. Newman
Album: Get Guilty
Date Released: January 20, 2009
Genre: indie-pop, indie-rock
Rating: 7.0

Review: Though he is the driving force behind the New Pornographers, Carl Newman's latest solo effort, Get Guilty, reveals that the NP's are more than the sum of its parts; without his trusty collaborators, namely Daniel Bejar and Neko Case, Newman's characteristic sound and arrangements go from great to merely good.

Unlike Neko and Bejar, whose solo efforts are a radical departure from the NP's, Newman is content to put out an album that is startlingly uninspired. Get Guilty is nothing more than the New Pornographers Lite. There's very little here that one wouldn't find on a NP album, including eye-rollingly Nekoesque back-up vocals (provided by Kori Gardner of Mates of State and Nicole Atkins). A.C. Newman is clearly comfortable working within the bounds of his trusty formula, much to the frustration of those fans hoping to hear something a bit different.

But what prevents this album from being a outright disappointment is Newman's ability to craft likeable songs. "The Heartbreak Rides" and "Submarines of Stockholm" are great tracks and they are true stand-outs. Taken as a whole, however, Get Guilty lacks punchiness and it's predictability makes Get Guilty only so-so.

Is Canada now better at rock music than the USA?

From Intelligent Life: "Canada Rocks":

Chances are that few will have been more taken aback by Canadian music’s triumphs than Canadians themselves. Their pop culture encompasses a trait largely unknown south of the border: self-deprecation. Then again, for a long time, Canadian music fans have had plenty to be self-deprecating about. It’s four decades since a generation of Canadian titans—Neil Young, The Band, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen—last emerged; and their achievements ultimately did more to bolster American folk-rock than to create a durable identity for Canadian pop.

Since then, wave after wave of excitement and innovation—punk, post-punk, indie, hip-hop, house, techno, grunge—has surged back and forth between America and Britain. Generations of Canadian hipsters have gazed enviously at those two countries, and groaned in embarrassment as their compatriots instead embraced progressive rock and its geeky offshoots. Asked to name a globally successful and recognisably Canadian band, until recently most non-Canadians might have cited Rush, the stupendously overblown pomp-rockers. Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Alanis Morissette, Shania Twain, Avril Lavigne and Nickelback have conducted their blockbusting careers as undercover Americans.

But just as it did for British pop in the early 1960s, all that outward scrutiny, that eager consumption by ambitious, dissatisfied youngsters of the fresh and thrilling from abroad rather than the second-rate and derivative at home, is paying dividends. There is no particular Canadian sound. Even as media ubiquity shrinks our world, the sheer geographical vastness of Canada makes such a thing improbable. What we are seeing—and hearing—is a new-found confidence. Canadian acts at last have the wherewithal to make music without a sense of obligation or apology; and without the ingrained assumption that a Canadian artist must either pander to the United States or settle for being at best a local hero. Pound for pound, no other country’s music scene is punching harder.

Entire article.