Carousel Corner.(popular music)(Column)(Review)

As we noted in the annual music collection elsewhere in this issue, hip-hop holds dominion over the known world. Rap rules. And the Billboard Top Ten reads like a pantheon of latter day hip-hip godbots: Eminem, Wu Tang Clan, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Kid Rock, Limp Bizkit, Blink 182, Jay Z, and so on. And while I find most hip-hop a bit too taken with lawlessnessCand for rock this is nothing new; see entries under Cash, Berry, Lewis, Valenti, Neville, Hiatt, Earle, etc.--its incipient misogyny repels. But even that is old news: Sinatra, Nugent, David Lee Roth, Poison, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, the Chili Peppers, and the like staked out that territory years ago. Of course it was no less repulsive then, perhaps, er, less direct. Hip-hop's overt gay bashing is a new twist, and a twisted one at that--further distancing it from those who view art as a means for communication instead of a vehicle for hate. And while one feels more or less neutral toward the music, it is someone else's music, someone else's planet, someone else's time.

This old heart yearns for melody, metaphor, musicianship--rock and roll in all its honest, nefarious, and wayward guises. It can still be found, though it's dwarfed, even engulfed, by the mainstream. And what little of it does creep above the horizon line these days struggles awkwardly amid Disney-esque pin-ups (Britney, Jennifer, Christina), great, white cross-over saviors (Twain, Brooks, Hill), and of course Peter Rabbit--hippety-hoppety, hippety-hoppety. And while a few in this month's collection are on the Geritol side of life, rock is still the province of the young.

Belle and Sebastian, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant (Ole)

The Kennedys, Evolver (Zoe)

Belle and Sebastian, originally Glaswegian duo Stuart Murdoch and Stuart David, has evolved into a seven- or eight-piece band, even the web site bios are inconclusive, whose fourth disc, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant, disguises thorny and often obtuse issues inside pleasantly loping pop melodies, soft vocals, and sensuous string arrangements. Fold Your Hands opens with "I Fought In A War", which is not so much a battle memoir as a musing on betrayal. "The Model" describes the quasi-existence of fame from the point of view of a fellow traveler. "Beyond the Sunrise" is a delicate rendering of a one-night stand--although one is not sure the tryst actually occurred or if the weary traveler suffered a hallucination. "Waiting for the Moon to Rise" seems to answer "Beyond the Sunrise" from the woman/seducer's perspective. "The Chalet Lines" turns the tables again, describing the self-loathing and revulsion felt by a woman after having been raped. The pendulum between ecstasy and gloom swings throughout the disc. "Woman's Realm" is a subtly sympathetic study in compassion, but resorts to accommodation, a modern take on Stephen Stills' "Love the One You're With".

Belle and Sebastian have done their homework, steeping themselves in older rock and soul. "Don't Leave the Light on Baby" confesses love turned bad, and manages to echo Crosby, Stills, and Nash's "49 Bye-Byes": "Don't leave the light on baby/I'll see you sometime maybe". They reach back further into American rhythm and blues for their musical forms. Both the horn and string arrangements on "The Wrong Girl" and "There's Too Much Love" are found in Berry Gordy's Motown orchestrations. "Family Tree" riffs off Herman's Hermits.

Belle and Sebastian doesn't tour, and its members are involved in numerous other bands and side projects. In fact, they seem almost a collective like Chumbawumba without the latter's arty self-consciousness but also without the latter's punchy musical and topical irony. Still, their ambivalent stance toward the dominance, especially sexual power, of one sex over the other bespeaks their youth, where roles and relationships sort themselves out seemingly on a cosmic scale--every bad day and every good lay begets a song. For some, this will be a bit too-too, but I enjoy honest reflection that admits that both sides need and get space. It's a far cry from the misogyny that characterizes too much modern music.