Life in Technicolour

In a time of plummeting album sales, bona fide hits are few and far between. After selling 40 million albums, one can clearly see what side of the fence Coldplay fall. After breaking out on the scene with the sleeper hit "Yellow", the band quickly drew comparisons to another British alternative band, its biggest influence- Radiohead. But while the latter group has sought to constantly evolve its sound and challenge its listeners, Coldplay, over 3 albums have become the musical equivalent of comfort food for millions. With first album Parachutes, the band emerged at a time when Radiohead started to shed its signature alternative rock sound, invariably alienating some of its listeners. In fact, it has been suggested that Parachutes' commercial success was due to Radiohead's experimental shift. With sophomore album A Rush of Blood to the Head came greater sonic pushes, even more commercial success, an inclusion on music Bible Rollingstone's list of 500 Best Albums of All Time and two more Grammy awards. However, the backlash came with their third album X&Y. Sure, it sold another gazillion copies, but as most critics were quick to point out, the album felt flat and reheated in most parts. It had in abundance what Coldplay does well- soaring ballads, moving instrumentation, affecting vocals- but the band still hadn't grasped how to smooth out its creases. So the feckless lyrics were still intact, and Chris Martin sounded more earnest than ever. Suffice it to say, the band was in a precarious position with fourth album, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends.
The frenzy started when it became known that Brian Eno, the "father of ambient music", legendary producer for U2 and the Talking Heads, was producing the album, and only further increased with the announcement of the the somewhat portentous-sounding album title (which takes its name from a painting by Frida Kahlo), and revelation of the album cover.
Starting with the instrumental track (Yes, instrumental!) "Life in Technicolor", the album bursts into, well, colour, with a Persian santur, akin to the traditional music of Iran and Iraq. It's as avant-garde as Coldplay get here, but it's still pretty damn good. Building up slowly, the track sets the mood for the next 45 minutes.
"Cemeteries of London" begins the journey in Colplay's own back yard, telling a story of God, witches, ghosts, curses and "walking till the day"- "God is in the houses and God is in my head, and all the cemeteries of London/I see God come in my garden, but I don't know what he said, for my heart it wasn't open" laments lead singer Chris Martin over clattering percussion, before segueing into what may be the very best track on the entire album, the pounding "Lost!". As Coldplay songs go, it swings the most left-field and is their most sublime pop moment. Built on a simple church-organ riff, a kick drum, some hand claps and a drum-circle groove, the song obviously is the result of Martin having rubbed shoulders with hip-hop pioneers Kanye West and Jay-Z- "Just because i'm losing doesn't mean i'm lost... Just because i'm hurting doesn't mean i'm hurt... I'm just waiting till the shine wears off" Martin plaintively sings
One shift that is apparent in the band's delivery is Martin's vocals. Now singing in a lower register, he evinces real swagger. On "Yes" he laments a lover's indecisive ways- "I'm just so tired of this loneliness", he moans. Could he be referring to hottie wife, Gwyneth Paltrow? Who cares when the song is this good? Starting as a woozy, doomy ballad replete with sweet-and-sour Bollywood strings, the song effortlessly spirals off into hidden track "Chinese Sleep Chant". The track easily brings to mind My Bloody Valentine (yes, you read right- My Bloody Valentine) and it's the album's genuine "wtf!" moment. Jonny Buckland's fierce guitar tone overwhelms Martin's hollered vocals, the melodic outline of his phrases barely discernible before being cut off entirely by ragged psyhchedelic riffs. Seriously, what has gotten into Coldplay?
Despite these wondrous sonic touches and soundscapes there are moments which stop this being Martin's masterpiece. He's still got that habit of writing lyrics in platitudes and cliches - the otherwise excellent "42" solemnly informs us that "those who are dead are not dead, they're just living in my head". It's a shame, though, as this might be the hardest Coldplay have ever rocked, or pushed- the song has about 3 different melodies in there, switching from piano ballad, to funky guitar wig-out, to a hand-clapping section, before switching back to the piano section, all in the space of four minutes.
Another troubling aspect of the album is Martin's amorphous political messages. On title track, "Viva La Vida", Martin convincingly plays a king (or rock star) used to life's excesses now at the end of his empire- "I used to roll the dice/ Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes...One minute I held the key/ Next the doors were closed on me". However, with the chorus "I hear Jerusalem bells a-ringing/Roman cavalry choirs are singing" Martin sounds like he's rallying the cause for a Christian empire. If only Martin could inject some pathos into his often-embarrassing universal scripture. (The choppy, synthy opening weirdly enough conjures Madonna's “Papa Don’t Preach”.) Similarly, in "Lovers in Japan", possibly the album's dullest track, he states "Soldiers you've got to soldier on/Sometimes even the right is wrong". Um, ok... Whatever that means... Thankfully there's the lilting "Chinese Sleep Chant" afterward, another backended "bonus" track.
Martin's Zen-like ability to get out of the way of his own songs and not inhabit them fully can be grating, and nowhere is this more apparent than on the bouncy, plinky almost Japanese-sounding "Strawberry Swing". But when the melody is this lovely, a slight mis-step can be forgiven.
First single "Violet Hill" is glorious. Bludgeoning delicate Eno soundscapes with big, bluesy, reverberating guitars, the song is restless and agitated- "If you love me, why'd you let me go?" demands Martin, before the entire bottom of the track falls out, giving way to the most delicate piano delivery on the entire disc.
The album ends almost in the same vein as it begins, with a hidden track called "The Escapist" where Martin repeats "And in the end we lie awake/ And we dream we'll make an escape".
With Brian Eno's help as well as producers Markus Dravs and Rik Simpson (responsible for recent work with Arcade Fire and Bjork respectively), Coldplay have changed for the better. The producers colour their trademark twinkly guitar rock with arresting, ambient and even weird Middle Eastern, hip-hop, and African influences. Some purists and detractors might balk at such appropriations, but each element surprisingly finds a natural place within Coldplay's general sound. For all of the album's sonic expansion and exploration, though, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends and its sturdy melodies and themes of war, death, love, peace and loss feels like an album created for mass connection- one can easily imagine the euphoria of "Lost!" or "Violet Hill" thumping through an arena. Sure mis-steps still abound, and Martin still seems a little too inoffensive and twee, but never before has the band sounded this confident.The wimpy Brits behind "Yellow" and "In My Place" seem intent on being the premier band of our generation and with Viva La Vida... and its implications, that dream doesn't seem that far-fetched. Let's hope that with Album Number Five they will be perfectly placed to decree the new rock order.

Albums of the month!!!

Santogold, Santogold

At the time of this album's release last year, Santi White's band was called Santogold. One year and the threat of prosecution later, said band has been renamed Santigold. It hardly matters, though, the music remains the same, and what glorious music it is!
Rock, hiphop, ska, grime, techno- you name it, it's here. Sure, detractors have compared to her to M.I.A. and while that comparison may not exactly be unsound, it's just a little too lazy. It's hardly a flawless album, but that's precisely the point- White isn't interested in proving herself the best new act around, but i'll be damned if she isn't.

Download now: Creator; Say Aha; L.E.S. Artistes; Unstoppable.



Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)

Having been on the music scene since 1997, Ms. Badu may be one of a select few of R&B artistes who have been allowed to dabble in their own pretensions and indulgences, while still garnering acclaim. Nowhere is this more apparent than on Badu's first LP of new music since 2000's introspective Mama's Gun. But where that album posited Badu as all-encompassing Earth Mama, New Amerykah sees her falling back down to her gritty, hiphop-centric roots.

Download now: The Healer; Honey; My People; Soldier.



Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion

Named after the Columbia, Maryland venue of the same name, and described by band members as their own version of soul music, MPP represents the collective's most complete form of pop. With deep bass, exaggerated melodies, complex rhythms and warped textures, the album takes cues from Panda Bear's 2007 solo album, the acclaimed Person Pitch. While the adjective "mainstream" may never be attached to the group's name, the album sees the band writing and singing its most straight-forward lyrics about familial love, identity and growing older. I've never been a fan of the group's seemingly patchy aesthetics, but patchy they are no more.

Download now: My Girls; Also Frightened; Lion in a Coma; Brothersport.




Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It's Blitz!

Ever since forming in the early 2000's, and having an entire mantle thrown on their heads, Yeah Yeah Yeahs have been an uneasy band. While lesser bands (The Strokes) would have shrugged their shoulders and rested on their laurels, Karen O and company have sought to expand their sound, stretching their creatives limits to the very edge. It seems appropriate that TV on the Radio's David Sitek co-produces, and if the album sounds like a response to new bands like MGMT and The Killers, it's because it is; YYY's have practically spat these bands out anyway. Guitar heads may whine at the evolutionary synths and electronics, but O sounds at turns fiercer and more vulnerable than ever.

Download now: Zero; Skeletons; Heads Will Roll; Dull Life.

Best Books of 2008

1. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein - The best part of the The Art of Racing in the Rain? Enzo, our narrator, the most insightful and expressive all year. The weird part? Enzo is a dog. Sure, the idea seems kitschy, but it's a device that works remarkably well through-out this inspirational, silently heart-breaking novel. A philosopher at heart, with a nearly human soul (according to him), Enzo has educated himself about the ways of the world by watching television extensively. Through his owner, Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition. On the eve if his death, Enzo takes stock of his life, recalling the life and memories of his owner family: Denny's wife, Eve; their daughter, Zoe; and by extension the other members of the family who come into focus due to a series of unfortunate events. Having learned what it is like to be compassionate, Enzo cannot wait to come back as a human in his next life. Deeply funny, and a tear-jerker of the highest order, The Art of Racing in the Rain is the most captivating and beautiful book of 2008, and an illuminating look at the absurdities of human life, as only our closest non-human friend could tell it.

2. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri - As she did in her Pulitzer Prize-winning debut of short stories, The Interpreter of Maladies, and her first and only novel, The Namesake, Ms. Lahiri writes about immigrants from India, and their American-bred children who straddle the two cultures, but belong to neither. These Indian parents want the American Dream for their kids- namebrand schools, prestigious jobs, a roomy house in the suburbs- but are cautious about pitfalls in this land, and are usually isolated due to their difficulties with the language and customs. Written with poise and breath-taking elegance, Lahiri uses her lapidary eye for detail to conjure up their daily lives with extraordinary precision- what she makes possible in a mere 15 pages, other writers often take 500 to flesh out. Lahiri knows what makes a story work, and she cuts to the chase, excising all the fat and frippery, giving us sharp insight and vivid descriptions. There is an almost palpable sense of loss coursing through these stories, an indication that Lahiri is cognizant of the wages of time, and understands too the missed opportunities that plague her characters.

3. Home by Marilynne Robinson - Robinson must be the only writer alive today who does not feel pressured by the hands of time- at 65, Robinson has written 3 novels in nearly as much deacade, and 2 works of non-fiction between 1989 and 1998. Any fan of hers know though, that what Robinson lacks in proliferation, she makes up for in depth and quality. In 2004, after a 24 year wait after her first novel Housekeeping, Robinson published her Gilead about a church minister in Gilead, Iowa, winning the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in the process. Now, 4 years later, she returns to Gilead, telling the same story of the church minister, through different eyes. Recently shortlisted for the National Book Award, the novel presents Robinson at her poetic best, with the usual character insight, fluidity of prose and cornucopia of metaphors.

4. The Host by Stephenie Meyer - Some writers have all the luck as their name alone, attached to almost anything, can ensure commercial success. Stephenie Meyer is the perfect example of this- her Twilight series is the most popular teen series this decade, after Harry Potter, but unlike Rowling, Meyer has sought to expand her horizons, writing her first "adult" novel in the form of The Host. The story centres around Wanderer, a member of an alien species that takes possession of human minds and bodies. Nearly all of humanity have succumbed to these alien beings, but Wanderer's host, Melanie, is an especially strong human being who will not go quietly. Suffice it to say, this is science fiction for those who do not like science fiction, as the book is imbued with drama, sensuality and romance. Still, the book is frightening and utterly believable in its portrayal of a non-human society taken over by these creatures. Meyer's writing is subtle and never flashy, an the plot moves sure-footedly in unexpected ways. Oh. More great news- the ending seems to be the perfect set-up for a sequel. Be prepared to lose precious hours of sleep.

5. The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga - Having won the Man Booker, Adiga has cemented his place as one of the most exciting new writers to have emerged in the past decade. Telling the story of Balram Halwai, born into the dark heart of India, the book highlights his ascent from lowly driver to eventual murderer. Balram's eyes penetrate India as few outsiders (and narrators) can: he sees the call centres and the cockroaches, the ancient and internet cultures, the buffalo and the white tiger. At once shocking and uproarious, The White Tiger possesses not one swirl of sari or whiff of curry spice, but cuts deep to the injustices and poverty faced by many unknown citizens. In an almost anarchic, satirical tone reminiscent of Chuck Palahniuk and Junot Diaz at their best, the novel is an original, incendiary tour de force, announces Adiga as one to watch.

6. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski - Much has already been made of this novel, the first from heretofore unknown Wroblewski. Written over the course of ten years, the novel is a great, big, mesmerizing, 600-page wallop of a book. Filled with sign language, ghosts, dogs, murder, mystery and the great outdoors, Wroblewski freely borrows from the greats before him- William Shakespeare, Rudyard Kipling, Stephen King- infusing their trademark elements into his own story. The narrative centres itself around mute Edgar, who has an uncanny ability to communicate with dogs, and his family which, over generations, has strived to establish (through an amalgam of breeding, training and mysticism) the perfect breed of companion dog. The novel is a coming-of-age tale, that pays rapt attention to the power and intricacies of communication; and despite its unhurried, free-wheeling progress, the book still manages to guilelessly captivate with its sometimes beautiful prose. Readers with no interest in dogs or Oedipal complexes, can still find much to delight in. Pick the book up and expect to feel very reluctant to put it down.

7. Song Yet Sung by James McBride - Best known for his memoir The Color of Water, Remiscent of Harriet Tubman, McBride's protaganist here is Liz Spocott, who like Tubman, becomes a visionary after being bashed in the head. Liz's vatic dreams start on page 1 and continue straight into the future, providing a sort of prophetic view of 21st century gangsta culture. With one of the best opening sequences in any novel this year, the action quickly starts with a breakout of slaves imprisoned in a tavern operated by a roguish woman named Patty Cannon, a historical figure presented under her real name. From this point onwards, McBride engages us in an such an excellent adventure story, that one risks turning the pages so quickly, missing the richness of the writing. The subject matter is heavy, but the tone is dispassionate, so the book never comes off as bitter. Turning much racist mythology on its head, McBrie presents a historically-sound tale and exploration of slavery and its effects.

8. Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan - Born in southern Nigeria, ordained Jesuit priest Ikot Akpan Eda presents chilling, heart-breaking themes and character arcs in this, his first book, a collection of 5 stories. First published in The New Yorker's Debut Fiction issue in 2005, "An Ex-mas Feast" tells of a family having to sniff shoe glue in lieu of an actual meal. "Fattening For Gabon" tells of a brother and sister coping with their uncle's attempts to sell them into slavery, while "My Parents' Bedroom" illustrates a girl's shattered innocence in the face of civil unrest in Rwanda. Each story creates a microcosm of life in Africa, issues that its denizens would call reality. In clear, unadorned prose, Akpan presents his faceless, sometimes nameless child protagonists in the face of absolute horror, and awe is sometimes the only appropriate response to Akpan's creations. In lesser hands, the book would have been heavy-handed, preach-y and depressing, but with Akpan's clear vision, the novel emerges as one of the year's most striking debuts.

9. When You are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris - Sedaris has now hit mid-life, and with ...Flames, more than with any other of his collection of essays, he has started to question his own mortality, Sure, the side-splitting humour remains along with a plethora of curious characters (the golden-aged. foul-mouthed neighbour who forces Sedaris to retrieve her dentures from a planter outside their building; a stinky baby-sitter named Mrs. Peacock who lies face down and forces him and his siblings to rake her with a back-scratcher; the human skeleton hanging from the bedroom ceiling that suddenly starts to speak), but there's pathos here, more obviously abundant than in his previous works. The last essay entitled "The Smoking Section", cut into three sections, is the book's highpoint, detailing how Sedaris tried to quit smoking- he smoked Kool Milds for about 30 years, and his mom died of lung cancer. Sedaris knows that death always wins, but in quitting, the fighting spirit shows that there should be more excellent work to come.

10. The Same Earth by Kei Miller - Recently launched at the Calabash Festival, Miller's first novel has enjoyed runaway success locally, and international acclaim. Inter lapping stories surrounding the residents of a smalltown rural Jamaican community, The Same Earth is reminiscent of Alexander McCall Smith, and Andrea Levy, imbued with Toni Morrison's rhythm for language. At once an indictment of smalltown religion and an expose on how it feeds hypocrisy, ignorance and even violence, Miller has presented one of the funniest books of the year, and raised the standard for local novelists

A Life Lived Backward

Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Julia Ormond, Taraji P. Henson, Jason Flemyng, Tilda Swinton, Jared Harris
Director: David Fincher
Screenplay: Eric Roth, based on the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald

With director David Fincher, one can certainly expect forays into darkness heretofore unexplored. After all, for the last decade, he has either been frightening us with such films as Zodiac and Se7en, or battering us to a pulp with Fight Club and Panic Room. With this his latest project, however, Fincher curiously excises his usual anarchic undertones in an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short-story of the same name. Simply put- it is not a film one would have expected, or could have predicted, from the director. Telling the tall tale of an infant who is born as an old man and lives his life in reverse, becoming younger with each passing year until he achieves real infancy at the end of his life, the film is picaresque and affecting, though sometimes too laboured. The film begins with the elderly Daisy on her deathbed with her daughter Caroline in a New Orleans hospital as Hurricane Katrina approaches. Daisy tells the story of a clockmaker named Gateau, who was commissioned to create a clock to hang in the New Orleans train station. After receiving news of his son's death on the battlefield, he continued work on his clock, which he intentionally designed to run backward, in the hope that it would bring back those who died in the war including his son. The film flashes back to the present-day where Daisy asks Caroline to read aloud from a diary containing photographs and postcards written by a Benjamin Button. So begins his story. Born on November 11, 1918, just as the citizens of New Orleans are celebrating the end of the Great War, he has the appearance and physical limitations of a man who is 86 years old. Shortly after giving birth, his mother dies, and the father, Thomas Button, takes the baby, abandoning him on the porch of a nursing home. Queenie and Tizzy, an African-American couple working at the nursing home, find the baby. Unable to conceive, Queenie decides to take him in as her own, against Tizzy's wishes after which she names him Benjamin. Over the course of the story, Benjamin begins to physically grow younger. In 1930, while still appearing to be in his seventies, he meets a young Daisy, whose grandmother lives in the nursing home. A few years later, he leaves to work on a tugboat on the docks of New Orleans, eventually leaving New Orleans with the tugboat crew for a long-term work engagement. Benjamin gets caught up in World War II where he gets enlisted by the United States Navy. During a battle, the tugboat rams and sinks a German U-boat in the Atlantic Ocean. After returning to New Orleans, Benjamin again meets with his father, unknowingly. Benjamin then learns that Daisy has become a successful dancer in New York City, and having visited her there for a recital, finds that she has fallen in love with a fellow dancer. Heartbroken, Benjamin leaves, eventually returning to New Orleans in 1962 where the two again meet up and fall in love. Playing the role of the protaganist in a story of this nature seems a formidable undertaking. After all, how does one play the part of a character who ages backwards? Suffice it to say, Brad Pitt does a satisfactory job. He is a capable actor, as evidenced in such roles as Babel, the above-mentioned Fight Club, and 12 Monkeys. But looking sullen and stone-faced for much of the first-half of the film, it's as if he reserved to let his make-up do his acting for him. His portrayal is solid but lacks the extra element necessary to catapult it into greatness. When Benjamin looks old, Pitt plays him as old, not as a young man trapped in a much older body. And when Benjamin looks young, Pitt plays him with the verve of a young man, not as an "old soul." The subtleties are missing and this may be the single element that could make it difficult for some to accept the premise. Blanchett's performance, then, comes as welcome respite. Injecting the film with grace and poignance, the actress elevates what starts out as a gimmicky story, into a moving rumination on the nature of love. She eventually grows older as he grows younger. Only for one magical moment will these lovers share the same age. The movie’s emotional center of gravity — the character who struggles and changes and feels — is Daisy, played by Ms. Blanchett from impetuous ingénue to near ghost with an almost otherworldly mixture of hauteur and heat. It is testament to Mr. Fincher’s ability as a director to turn an incredible conceit into a plausible love story. The romance between Daisy and Benjamin begins when both are chronologically pre-adolescents and Benjamin is, physically, a codger, but the initial element of pedophilic creepiness in the relationship gives way to other forms of awkwardness. Their love is uniquely perfect and enduring. At the same time, like any other love — like any movie — it is shadowed by disappointment and fated to end. If Benjamin's ruminations, and by extension the film, remind one of the schmaltzy Forest Gump, it's because both screenplays were written by Eric Roth. But whereas Gump was more interested in cheap laughs, and director Robert Zemeckis more interested in impressing with his gaudy, anachronistic style, Benjamin is more interested in its story; indeed, it's in no rush to tell it. Over the course of nearly 3 hours, one has to put up with the title character's sometimes tiresome adventures as an adolescent, as well as with the development of his relationship with Daisy. In fact, the argument can be made that the film's first half is pretty boring. Yes, there are the detailed, breath-taking set-pieces, and Taraji P. Henson's impressive performance as Queenie, but there's also the cliched flash-forward scenes with Daisy in the hospital where Blanchett sounds as annoying as ever. But what was started as detached and showy emerges beautiful and engaging in the end. Praise has to be given too, to Alexandre Desplat and his evocative score, as well as Claudio Miranda's sumptuous cinematography. There's absolutely no denying that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a largely uneven film, greater than the sum of its parts. There's also no denying that it is genuinely moving and unforgettable. It is way longer than it needs to be, and sadly, we don't get inside of Benjamin's head as much as we should have, but there's something oddly haunting about the metaphor of a life lived backward. Benjamin's saga is singular yet universal: anyone who has contemplated his own mortality will find it hard not to be moved by Fincher's evocation of the fickleness of fate and the ephemeral sweetness of love. Lyrical, original, misshapen and deeply felt, this is a one flawed beauty of a movie.

One of the Boys

Having had formal training in ballet, Madonna is well aware of the value of dance. It’s no wonder then that the pop mega-star has built an entire career around the concept. From her seminal self-titled debut 25 years ago onwards, Madonna has swathed herself with dance, techno, trip-hop and pop sensibilities. Drawing influences from Bjork, R&B, Catholicism, Jean-Paul Gaultier, gay culture, Spanish culture, Japanese culture and Kabbalah, Madonna Louise Ciccone has posited herself as the ultimate pop culture junkie. And while her detractors may opine at her occasionally vapid lyrics, her rather thin voice, her seemingly insatiable need for controversy, and her often scandalous frankness on sex and sexuality, Madonna’s music can rest on its own laurels. Not only has she influenced a whole generation of performers and entertainers, and remained the most successful female recording artist of all time with over 200 million records sold, but the music that she has churned out, while not without its inconsistencies over the years, has been enjoyable and memorable. Starting with the afore-mentioned Madonna, Mrs. Richie has always had her roots firmly planted in urban-disco. After moving from her hometown in Michigan to New York with less than $50 in her pocket, or so legend goes, she was soon discovered by a local disc jockey that helmed some of her earlier work. The rest, we say, is history. Now, with her eleventh studio album, Hard Candy, Madge has come full circle, re-presenting herself as an ever-present, dominant force in pop music. Album-opener “Candy Shop” sees Pharrell Williams generating the beat on the innuendo-laden track. “My sugar is raw, sticky and sweet,” Madge sings atop Pharrell’s paint can bangs. First single, “4 Minutes”, features Justin Timberlake on vocals, and suffice it to say, it may be the best song heard this summer. Timbaland provides a clanging whopper of a beat, with Madonna’s vocals bobbing alongside Timberlake's, fighting not to drown in the brassy funk of a marching band. With his emotive harmonies, Timberlake provides the emotional axis for the album, borrowing from his more introspective work like “Cry Me a River” and “What Goes Around… Comes Around” on such tracks like “Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You” and “Miles Away”. It may be the first time in Madonna’s history, but for the five Timbaland-produced tracks, she writes but does not co-produce. A disadvantage of this is despite the beats being solid, they sound slightly generic, as though they could have been passed on to any other singer. One would have hoped that for the album, Timbo would have custom-made some beats unique for Madge. In that aspect, Pharrell and the Neptunes do not disappoint. Beside “Candy Shop”, Pharrell pumps up the electro clash on “Give It 2 Me”. The track continues Madonna’s pervasive life-as-dance-as-sex metaphor when she sings "Don't stop me now, don't need to catch my breath/I can go on and on." The bass-popping “She’s Not Me” continues the facetious vibe of “Candy Shop”, telling the story of a copycat who’s "reading my books and stealing my looks and lingerie", and given the state of pop music, it could be about any young starlet on the scene. But when Madonna confidently sings “she’s not me/she doesn’t have my name/she’ll never have what I have” one can’t help but believe. “Heartbeat” is euphorically groovy, with Madge singing “On any given night catch me on the floor”, pulsing like another Madonna classic, “Lucky Star”. Featuring an unimpressive Kanye West cameo, “Beat Goes On” references classic Donna Summer and Chic, two obvious influences on Madonna’s early career, with its “toot-toot, beep-beep”, while “Incredible” morphs from syncopated shuffle to hysteria all in the space of 6 minutes. Like her last album, Confessions on a Dancefloor, Hard Candy celebrates the power and salvation of dance. However, while Confessions was a disc jockey’s wet dream with its almost perfect flow and sequence of song (and no ballads, to boot), Hard Candy does strike its wistful notes here and there. The afore-mentioned “Miles Away” if not the best thing on the album, is at least Madonna’s best ballad since “Don’t Tell Me”. Produced by Timbaland, the song oozes with yearning, undercut by a melancholic pining, thanks to Timberlake’s well-crafted harmonies. “You always have the biggest heart when we're 6,000 miles apart," Madonna sings. Given the state of recent tabloids reporting on the state of the house of Richie, the track takes on a new meaning. The album isn’t without its weaker moments. On “Spanish Lesson”, the Neptunes waste a perfectly good beat. The song sounds indebted to both Timberlake’s “Like I love You” and Madge’s own “La Isla Bonita”. Still, with the song’s empty lyrics (“If you do your homework, I will give you more work”) the track feels way too literal. “Dance 2night”, also, with Timberlake is completely pointless. With its almost embarrassing lyrics, the song sounds lazy- “you don’t have to be beautiful to be understood/you don’t have to be rich and famous to be good.” Huh?! The song’s intent was clearly one of empowerment, but its naiveté makes it laughable in its execution. In many ways Hard Candy is the album Confession on a Dancefloor was supposed to be. Not since her debut, has Madonna filled out one entire album with this many vapid floor fillers. The entire album is a self-declaration of Madonna's stamina, but it also sounds like a woman who clearly feels like she's in a furious battle against time, after all, she celebrates her 50th birthday this year. The album smacks of stupidity here and there, but with an album like this, as garish as its cover and art-work, stupidity is clearly one of its main themes and virtues. Thanks to its A-list team of producers and writers, the album sounds almost anonymous, engineered for any pop fledgling this decade. But after near three decades in the business, Madonna knows the importance of just having fun. She knows more than anyone that she's beyond informing the zeitgeist, instead being more than content to mine her influences and even borrow a few tricks from the very same people she’s influenced.

The Reader

First published in 1995, Bernhard Schlink's acclaimed The Reader has had many turns in the spotlight. Originally penned in German, the book enjoyed runaway success before being translated to the English and published in 1997 when it was chosen for Oprah's Book Club, becoming the first German novel to top the New York Times bestseller list. Then in 2008, after being in production for years, The Weinstein Company released an adaptation of the film, directed by acclaimed filmmaker, Stephen Daldry, earning itself 5 Academy Award nominations, including a win for Kate Winslet, a career first. So why is it that this slim book is still a literay sensation, more than 10 years after its first publication?
Telling the story of 15 year old Michael Berg who has sexual encounters with Hanna, a woman more than twice his age, the novel is divided into three main parts. Starting rather pointedly, the first part deals frankly with Michael and Hanna's sexual affair- "When I was fifteen, I got hepatitis," our narrator tells us. Collapsing near Hanna's appartment, he is helped home by her. When he recovers some months later, he visits her with flowers as a gesture of thanks. He is fascinated by her and on his third visit, the two start having sex- "I was afraid: of touching, of kissing, afraid I woudn't please or satisfy her. But when we had held each other for a while, when I had smelled her smell and felt her warmth and her strength, everything fell into place. I explored her body with my hands and mouth, our mouths met, and then she was on top of me, looking into my eyes until I came and closed my eyes tight and tried to control myself and then screamed so loud that she had to cover my mouth with her hand to smother the sound."
Michael is swept up by his infatuation with Hanna, but can't help noticing certain oddities in her behaviour- she is emotionally closed, often curt, has wild fits of temper, and bouts of insecurity. Their relationship seems strengthened when Michael starts reading to her, oft-times before they have sex.
As their relationship continues building, Michael becomes more involved in school life and the social element it provides. But to Michael's detriment, and our surprise, Hanna goes missing towards the end of part one. The book informs us- "Next day she was gone... The days went by and I felt sick. I took pains to make sure my parents and my brothers and sisters noticed nothing. I joined in the conversation at table a little, ate a little, and when I had to throw up, I managed to make it to the toilet. I went to school and to the swimming pool. I spent my afternoons there in an out-of-the-way place where no one would look for me. My body yearned for Hanna..."
In part two, Michael is older, and now a law student sitting in on the case of six female Nazi guards accused of varying degrees of atrocities. Suffice it to say, Hanna is one of them. "When I saw Hanna again, it was in a courtroom" the novel informs us. Michael again becomes obsessed with Hanna, this time with the idea of what she is being tried for and the inconsistencies of her testimony.
Part 3 deals with the post-trial proceedings- Hanna has been condemned, and Michael is now much older, having gone through a failed marriage. The two keep in contact via a chain of recorded tapes, planning Hanna's eventual release from prison.
At a concise 217 pages in paperback, The Reader is a quick read. Written in the first person narrative, Schlink is adept at conveying the emotions that Michael, in his three phases of life, experience. In the first third, we experience a vibrant Michael, excited at the prospects of the newness of his relationship with Hanna. But with every pang of doubt and utter longing, we feel it too. In the second section, we are faced with Michael's disillusionment at how he, and by extension us as readers, never took the time to fully notice who the woman Hanna truly was before it is too late.
Probably the most interesting and engaging part of the novel is the way the text deals with Nazis, the second World War, and the generation who came after the war- Germany's baby boomers, if you will. While there is a plethora of literature and history written about the Jews, and the Poles and other outcasts in the second World War, anthropologists and historians agree that there isn't much from the point-of-view of the Germans. This could be the silence of shame that many Germans experience about their part in the war, or what they perceive to be the guilt of their fore-parents. The post-war history of Germany is fascinating for this very same reason, with this text revealing a sliver of the complexity of emotion and reasoning from a character who is passionate about the wrongs perpetuated by his country, while at the same time battling with his ignorance of one of the perpetrators.
The novel's take on the Holocaust is doubly unusual among Holocaust fiction, as it not only develops a narrative between the time of its events and wartime events, but posits a perpetrator, instead of a victim, smack in the middle of the text's proceedings. In doing so, Schlink ruminates on how generations after the Third Reich have struggled to come to terms with the crimes of the Nazis. But while he does that, Schlink himself complicates things even further by the mere characterization of Hanna. Are we supposed to feel empathy for her? Should we condemn her for her actions? Should we be interested in her as a person? And if so, what would that be saying of ourselves? A strong version of this plays out in a scene where the student Michael is taking a taxi to a concentration camp during the trial, in hopes of getting some insight into the trial. The driver, an older man, questions him about the motivation of those who carried out the killings, before offering an answer of his own-

"... executioners don't hate the people they execute, and they execute them all the same. Because they're ordered to? You think they do it because they're ordered to? And you think that i'm talking about orders and obedience, that the guards in the camps were under orders and had to obey? No, i'm not talking about orders and obedience. An executioner is not under orders. He's doing his work, he doesn't hate the people he executes, he's not taking revenge on them, he's not killing them because they're in his way or threatening him or attacking him. They're a matter of such indifference to him that he can kill them as easily as not."

The passage seems callous, but there has to be some modicum of truth there in trying to understand why and how the travesties of the Holocaust happened. Indeed, if we are to be identifying with our protagonist, what should we make of his inability to neither condemn nor understand Hanna's role in what she is being prosecuted for? He asks himself, and the reader,

"What should our second generation have done, what should it do with the knowledge of the horrors of the extermination of the Jews? We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not inquire because to make the horrors an object of inquiry is to make the horrors an object of discussion, even if the horrors themselves are not questioned, instead of accepting them as something in the face of which we can only fall silent in revulsion, shame and guilt. Should we only fall silent in revulsion, shame and guilt? To what purpose?"

But what of Michael and Hanna's illegal (immoral?) relationship itself? Should it be seen as just a device for shock, or should it be seen as a microcosm of the pas de deux of older and younger generations in post-war years? And what of the sex? What purpose does it serve?
Schlink's writing is nothing short of masterful, using both the hardboiled tones of the detective novels he is most famous for, and a more poetic approach more suitable for the material he presents. His chapters open quite bluntly, as mentioned above, often using chiasmi to portray the protagonist's confusion. He pulls off a rare feat of presenting an arresting story and book, even while having not fully characterizing his secondary characters; in fact, we aren't even made aware of their names.
Accused of falsifying history, Nazi apologism, and cultural pornography, Schlink has no doubt given us an important work of incendiary power; the fact that 12 years after its publication it is still on best-seller shelves speak to this. Thanks to the text, as well as Jonothan Littell's controversial The Kindly Ones, now is the perfect time for open discussions on the power and role of literature as it relates to the unspeakable crimes perpetuated through-out the Holocaust. Full of rhetoric, profundity and charged with sometimes unbearable eroticism, The Reader is a story of secrets, desire, horror and compassion. It is philosophically elegant, formally beautifully and technically flawless; a haunting contemporary classic.

Questions for discussion

1. Does the novel's denouement offer any sort of absolution?
2, Would the novel be just as effective without the oft graphic sex scenes?
3. What is the significance of the title in relation to Hanna?
4. In our understanding of the text, how best should the characterization of Michael and Hanna's relationship be perceived?