Neon Neon
Stainless Style
Neon Neon is one of those "bands" that exist when one of the members of a more popular band--Gruff Rhys from Super Furry Animals--decides that he wants to do something totally wacked out that probably shouldn't be listed in his regular catalog. Think about that breakdown for a second though: the guy from Super Furry Animals--a band that once found global success with a Welsh-language prog-rock album--has something that's outside of the Super Furry Animals wheelhouse?
And it's a concept album?
A concept album about the life of John De Lorean?
Okay, let's be clear about this: you make a concept album about the life of John De Lorean, a man whose legacy is unfortunately not his totally awesome and wackjob life story and is instead the fact that Michael J. Fox "didn't need roads" when he lined Robert Zemeckis with the cash that eventually gave the world The Polar Express and Beowulf, you've just made one of the best albums of the year, any year, even the year Thriller came out and every musician stared aghast at their radio and said holy shit I just lost my job and will to live at the same time why can't I stop dancing. He's John De Lorean. This ain't Mad Men, this ain't jacks and skipping rope, we're talking the original No Limit soldier, the guy who walked out of his house everyday and told Johnny Cash he could keep rocking the black shirt, but check back tomorrow morning, maybe De Lorean needed his car waxed. You know, the one with the gull wing doors that he spat out right before the Federal Government tried to take him down. Dude fought in World War II and came up with the GTO. Where you at? You nowhere, because you ain't John De Lorean.
There's no way on Earth you can come up with a concept album that's going to live up to the De Lorean legacy--that's like saying you're going to publish a sixteen page fanzine that will give people the same experience as five years of Spetsnaz training. It's not do-able, some things aren't possible, like cold fusion or having respect for people who watch the Stargate television show. Still, if anybody is going to try, why not have it be Gruff Rhys teamed up with Boom Bip, the guy who produced Roadkillovercoat and likes to hang out with Four Tet? Why not? Hell, why not have it be a Manute Bol (look it up) and a purebred bull mastiff who can use Auto Tune? It's John De Lorean--you're going to miss the mark, but when you're going for the De Lorean mark, you're going to hit something that's going to make you want to throw Guitar Hero out the window. What they ended up with--a pretty standard late 80's synthesized version of what the album art implies--isn't the next coming of the Holy Christ, but it is damn fine dance music about what it's like when you're John De Lorean, and you wake up everyday hell bent on making the world bend to your personal flavor of insanity. It's a sexy trip back to the days of big hair on boys, bigger hair on girls, sex fueled by cocaine, hard steel corners, and, because it's a look back but not a throwback, guest rapping by Spank Rock, Fatlip, and Yo Majesty. It's what you call a great album, it's what you call one of the best.
And shit--it's all the way down here!
-Tucker Stone, 2008
"It's a look back but not a throw back." Well put. Also, this capsule has a lot more about the album in it than I was lead to believe.
Posted by: Marty | 2008.12.10 at 10:59