The Greatest Band in the World: Tenacious D

There is nothing indie about this band. It has a label on Epic Records of the mega-media conglomerate Sony, and it is headed by steadily rising mainstream star of the comedic silver screen Jack Black. However, its music still rocks because it dares to be different and knocks righteous hard rock hair bands off their ridiculous pedestals.

Tenacious D is a death metal band mockery that consists of two pot-bellied, middle-aged men with acoustic guitars. What better way is there to toss fun at bearded, skinny jeans-wearing, flying-v guitar-thrashing heavy metal bands than with two seeming nobodies?

Jack Black is by no means a nobody anymore, and neither is his musical counterpart, Kyle Gass. The two actors/comedians got their start in music by borrowing classic guitar riffs from bands like Led Zeppelin and adding nonsensical and oftentimes expletive lyrics to make an ironic clash of folk metal music. The abrasiveness and black humor of their songs brought them a small spotlight in 1999 with a short-lived HBO TV series, and the group’s popularity really took off when they started touring with alternative pop groups like Weezer, The Strokes and Jimmy Eat World after the release of their 2001 self-titled debut album.

The absurd style of Tenacious D is best exemplified in their single "Tribute," which claims the band wrote the greatest song in the world, performed it for a demon that appeared to them on a road and then forgot how to play it.

The duo will take their musical act back in front of the camera lens on Nov. 17 with the release of their highly anticipated movie titled "Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny." The musical soundtrack to the film and second compact disc release for the band will be available in music stores on Nov. 14. Stinkweeds is currently taking pre-order reservations for the CD and will throw in a free Halloween goodie bag complete with "Jack Black and friends" masks. Oooo, scary.

You say electropop, I say electroclash.

Defining music can be confining, and I can’t really bring myself to do it unless I am absolutely sure I know what I’m talking about. Just like the plethora of “isms” that exist in the art world, such as realism, romanticism and post-modernism, music forms have been categorized and labeled by critics since the beginning. Not to say that this is a bad thing. How else would I find Miles Davis in the music store if there weren’t a Jazz section?

But when I was looking up information on this fantastic British quartet called Ladytron, I learned quickly that music appreciators sometimes take categorizing music too far. I could see how Ladytron could be harder to define than say Kenny G, but six different genres is a little overwhelming. Here are four genres I found:

• New age – I can’t really see how Ladytron fits here. New age dates back to 1967 with the song “Aquarius” by a band called the Fifth Dimension, and I would say Ladytron is a lot more awesome and a lot less psychedelic. While they do create the electronic, synthesized sound that most new age music is associated with, Ladytron also packs a drum machine sound that kicks acts like Enya into the old age.

• Britpop – This genre is almost there. It’s derived from the British indie scene like Ladytron, but it’s more of a trendy alternative-rock style in the fashion of bands like Oasis and Blur.

• Electropop – Nope, no Ladytron here, but we’re really close. This British and German genre contains the synthesizers, electronic sound and characteristic abstract sci-fi lyrics, but there’s one more genre that seems to be a better match for Ladytron.

• Electroclash – This is the closest we can get to Ladytron. This genre is more of a movement of the electropop sound that incorporates the band’s stage presence, consisting of post-industrial fashion and attitude. When the they perform, they wear matching black military uniforms to symbolize sexual ambiguity, a characteristic of the electroclash movement.

Ladytron will be performing at the Clubhouse in Tempe on Oct. 24 if you’d like to decide for yourself where these uber-hip synthesizing Europeans belong on the musical spectrum.

Hard to Do

Neil Sedaka got it right when he sang “Breaking up is Hard to Do” in 1962. It seems that the best songs throughout time have been sad bastard hits about love, and from the early 2000s emerged an entire genre dedicated to matters of the heart: emo.

Thanks to MTV, emo has become a hodgepodge of mainstream crap for teenaged recluses with the popularity of such bands as Dashboard Confessional and Fall Out Boy. However, I still have a soft spot for the heart-wrenching whiny guitars and screeching voices that belt out lyrics of loves lost.

So with that said, in the spirit of one of my favorite films "High Fidelity," here are my all-time top five indie emo breakup albums:

5. “Something to Write Home About,” The Get Up Kids (1999) – These guys may not have written this album with breaking up in mind, but every time the wailing guitars blare out the intro of the first track and front man Matthew Pryor swoons “say goodnight, mean goodbye,” I immediately feel heartbreak. The album keeps up the low spirit with songs like “Valentine” and “I’ll Catch You.”

4. “XO,” Elliott Smith (1998) – I love this musician, but listen with caution. A breakup is never a happy experience, but Elliott Smith can cause depression of a very clinical kind. With Smith’s sweet soft voice and his clean acoustic guitar, this album is guaranteed to leave you curled in a ball, sobbing in your bed for days. Don’t say I didn’t warn you first.

3. “Dilate,” Ani Difranco (1996) – OK, so this isn’t really an emo selection, but it’s indie! No one can string lyrics as real and poetically as Difranco, and Dilate defines every sour breakup moment you can imagine. The song “Adam and Eve” taps into the rawest of emotion and defines what happens when two people finally give up on each other after countless efforts to make it work.

2. “Rock and Roll Part Three,” Ozma (2001) – “I’ve been cheating on you ever since we broke up,” sings California-based Ozma in their song “The Ups and Downs.” The whole album combined is one big love ballad dedicated to that crush in your fifth grade class or even that special someone on the silver screen. Either way, it’s all about the heartache.

1. “You Are Free,” Cat Power (2003) – When singer/songwriter Chan Marshall declares acceptance in the song “Good Woman” with her unparalleled somber tone, you can’t help but feel the defeat. The album takes its listeners through heart-sunken regret to tranquil understanding of having love and losing love, and she does it with graceful prose, crisp piano chords and bold guitar riffs.

I'm bringin' radio back ... and you should, too.

Since I refuse to get technologically inclined like the rest of the American collegiate population and purchase an Ipod, I’ve had to find other means of whetting my musical appetite when I’m spending unhealthy amounts of time in campus computer labs. What I’ve found is at the very heart of my purist ideals: the radio! And not just any radio, BAGel Radio.

BAGel is an Internet radio station, so it puts me just at the edge of submission to the ever evolving technological musical world where my scratched compact discs and shattered jewel cases become obsolete. The station touts itself as one of the best sources for indie, pop, alternative and rock music. To prove it, they won the 2005 College Music Journal Specialty Music Director of the Year Award, making it the first Internet station to receive such an award -- and with good reason. The music is outstanding, and there are no commercials and barely any talking to distract the flow of song play.

BAGel’s got everything from the well-known British singles band “The Smiths” to more obscure rising indie groups like “Citizens Here and Abroad.” According to one of their slogans, the selection of music is guaranteed to help you “out-snob music snobs,” which I always strive to do.

The station has made itself extremely accessible, too. I stumbled upon BAGel while using an iMac in Coor Computing Commons at Arizona State University. Another way to access the station is through its Web site, or even from its blog on this very site, Blogger.com.

I’m not quite sure where the name came from, but between songs, band members from commonly aired groups promote the station by stating their bagel of choice. Here's a little video clip of The Flaming Lip's frontman, Wayne Coyne, doing one of these shout-outs for the station after a show. My personal favorite is an everything bagel with veggie cream cheese. Yum.