Pirates: Junk Arms

Well, I haven’t seen anything particular interesting about the Pirates yet this year worth posting about, but this Pirates Q/A from Wednesday was a little silly. The reader points out that the Pirates have signed a lot of junk arms, hoping to maybe salvage one or two of them. He then says he is not a fan of this approach. Dejan Kovacevic responds appropriately by pointing out that there is no risk involved in these guys. I really wish though that Dejan would relax about the Buccos relief pitching. Their offense, defense, and starting pitching need just as much work. And really if they just used Matt Capps more efficiently, in the Jamesian “Relief Ace” model for example, they would be just as well off as if they had spent millions upgrading the bullpen (or maybe better, see Orioles, Baltimore).

None of these 12 pitchers should be considered as a starter anymore, so I will assume the Pirates are profiling them either as relief pitchers or just minor league fodder. Anyways, these are my thoughts on the pitchers (with age on July 1 listed in parens), who are broken down into 3 categories…

The Bad:

• Mike Thompson (27) – Mediocre K/9 and high BB/9 in the minors with an ERA over 5 with the Padres (in Petco!). Its quite clear at this point he is not starting material.
• Phillip Dumatrait (26) – Not a good strikeout pitcher nor an adequate control pitcher. Thats as a starter at least, so its possible he could be an almost serviceable reliever. I like his last name for some reason though. Say it with me… Doooomaaaatraaaait…
• Adam Bernero (31) – Had Tommy John surgery almost a year ago, so hasn’t played since ‘06. He’s had decent control in the past, but hasn’t struck many batters out. At age 31 coming off of surgery, he isn’t very interesting.
• Jaret Wright (32) – Managed to trick the Yankees into signing him for a $21 million three-year deal. The Yankees then managed to trick the Orioles into trading for him. Too much trickery.
• Elmer Dessens (36) – Fantastic. Dessens was never very good, though he did manage to put up a good ERA in ‘02 and ‘05 despite a terrible strikeout rate. Dessens should probably retire though.

The Meh:

• Ty Taubenheim (25) – Exhibited decent control in the minors (except for his most recent AAA stint) but with a subpar K/9 rate. He’s pitched mostly as a starter, so if converted to a reliever its possible he could be an adequate major leaguer as soon as the coming season. Also, he could still possibly improve as he is only 25.
• Hector Carrasco (39) – Had a couple decent years as recent as ‘05 and ‘06. Gets the strikeouts still, but what little control he had is breaking down. At age 39 there is no upside, but due to the small sample size of relievers it would not be mind blowing to see him make the team and put up adequate numbers.
• Masumi Kuwata (40) – Should not be in the major leagues and I’m sure the front office knows this. The only reason I imagine for them signing him is to keep the Japanese media interested in the Pirates, rather than on the divisional rival Cubs and Kosuke Fukudome.
• Casey Fossum (30) – So many walks. Fossum worked mostly in relief last year which I think helped lower his walks some, though he still gave up a lot of HRs. Shifting to the NL and becoming a full time reliever and spot starter could work out somewhat.

The Good:

• T.J. Beam (27) – Really good last year on the Yanks’ AAA team. 8+ K/9 and less than 2 BB/9. He progressed very slowly through various levels of A ball early in his minor league career (injuries maybe?), but always put up very good numbers. I hope he makes the team out of spring training as I think he could be a decent reliever for very cheap.
• Jimmy Barthmaier (24) – Walks many, many guys, but is still only 24 years old and has mainly worked as a starter. He also gave up a lot of hits last in AA, but some of that is probably due to some bad bounces, as he had a very good strikeout rate and was decent with home run prevention. He could be converted to a reliever, but he already manages to strike out a lot of guys and I don’t think being a reliever would help his control. I would like to see him start in AA or AAA and work on his control some more, as its still possible he could be a major league starter or at the very least a reliever when he hits his prime.
• Evan Meek (25) – The Pirates’ Rule 5 pick from this last year. Meek is a really good strikeout pitcher, striking out about a batter per inning. His control still needs more work in order for him to a decent major leaguer, but I think he has the potential still. Meek was traded from the Padres organization to the Devil Rays in 2006, who switched him to a full-time relief pitcher, despite his great K-rate he managed to post as a starter. I don’t see why they expected this to fix Meek’s main problem of control. If his problem was striking guys out, then perhaps this change would have been warranted, but I would like to see him get work as a starter in spring training. As a Rule 5 draftee, however, he doesn’t have the luxury of working out his problems in the minors as a starter. Meek still has a good shot to be an average to slightly above average major league pitcher (either as a reliever, or even more valuably, as a starter), but I don’t see how he can work these problems out in a major league bullpen. He could possibly be a serviceable, below-average reliever in the majors this year.

I really wouldn’t mind seeing the Pirates ‘08 bullpen with Meek, Barthmeier, and Beam, or even Taubenheim or Fossum in it. Out of those, I think Beam has the greatest chance for immediate (relative) success followed by Fossum, due to their very good AAA numbers and major league experience respectively. Compiling cheap-as-free arms with some upside is a great way to get a decent reliever or two with almost no risk.

Anyways, I still hope to do a couple more things on 2007’s music, so hopefully that will be my next post.

Arbitrary song of the day: Penguin Cafe Orchestra – Music for a Sound Harmonium (Pandaharmonium Orb Mix)

Sam Lloyd is Jeff Van Gundy

Or maybe the other way around. If you haven’t seen this commercial yet, you probably don’t know who Jeff Van Gundy is, but here it is anyway: [link] . He looks just like Ted from Scrubs and his line in this ad makes it seem even more so.

Arbitrary song of the day: Circulation – “Limited 5″ (like/as a remix of The Strangers – “Golden Brown”)

The next Aaron Sorkin show

I really love Aaron Sorkin’s TV shows. Sports Night had snappy banter, a great cast, and an excellent balance between humor and drama. The laugh track for the first 1/2 of the first season is really creepy and out of place, leading me to believe that ABC didn’t know what to make of this show. Sports Night only lasted two years because of this (the eventual purchaser of the fictional television show said, “Anybody who can’t make money off of Sports Night should get out of the money-making business.”). Well, that and because TV audiences are incredibly dumb (Two and a Half Men has been on for five years, really!). The West Wing was all about the drama, bringing one of the greatest ensemble casts ever to television. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip had some issues. First, the fictional show wasn’t very funny (additional writers would have been needed to fix this), too many romances at once (Matt/Harriet, Jordan/Danny, Lucy/Tom), and that it focused too much on Matt/Harriet’s romance (far less interesting when compared to the network stuff going on with Lou Grant and Brian Hackett). But even with this issues, the show had great potential and Sorkin and co. were finally figuring out the right buttons to push as the series neared what would be its end.

As a disclaimer, I should state that I have little knowledge of the television industry, Aaron Sorkin’s plans, or stuff along those lines. I know Aaron Sorkin is currently pushing for a film script to get made, but that’s it. These are merely some ideas I had about a premise that I would love to see.

Summary: A small-market sports franchise front office struggles to outsmart their league rivals while ownership tries to cut payroll. The town is hungry for a winner, with this franchise having had a very respectable history. New hires are made with a couple industry outsiders, long-time baseball scouts, and probably an ex-player.

Cast: The GM will probably played by either a young “hotshot” guy or a kickass older dude like Philip Baker Hall. The main two or three characters will be similar to the stars of Sorkin’s past few shows in age and personality. Joshua Malina will of course be in it (as the stats guy – obviously!). There will probably be an olderish female head of marketing or press. Among the hires will be a young female scout (or consultant or something) – she will be controversial and will inevitably fall in love with someone. The owner will be a general sort of bad guy executive, though he will have a right-hand man who is kickass and convinces the owner to be kickass on occasion. The owner and the right-hand man will have disparate ages. There could be some fun player (coaches, managers, too) cameos with mock interviews. These cameos could help be facilitated by the network, which we will get to later.

Plot(s): The plots here are limitless. There are countless ones to be stolen from the annals of sports history. Draft day will be unbelievable. Sports drafts are exciting on their own, but infuse quality direction and snappy dialog, Sorkin could make some seriously compelling television. Maybe ownership wants to move the franchise. Maybe a player tests positive for steroids. Heck, maybe the owner turns out to be a Nazi. In any case, almost all plot lines will be off the field.

Production: First off, the network. The antenna networks seem impatient with Sorkin’s work and their audiences are generally fickle and stupid. I think cable would be a good call. HBO or FX might be good, but I think the ESPN audience would eat up a show about a front office. This would be a huge investment for the network, but I think the regular ESPN audience would be captivated and it would bring casual or even non-sports fans to ESPN, which ESPN seems to want to do. They did good work with The Bronx is Burning from the few episodes of the mini-series I’ve seen. They would probably need to be wiling to give Sorkin a lot of freedom with the series and a decent budget in order to get him to work on a cable series. Maybe even a couple guaranteed years to ensure Sorkin that he won’t get cut short like he did with Sports Night and Studio 60.  ESPN would also have an easier time getting sports personalities (heck, they could easily shoot mock SportsCenter segments), players, and perhaps using some real team and league names.  In case it wasn’t implied already, the franchise itself will have to be entirely fictional and the other major teams involved in the plot would probably need to be fictional as well.

I’m not quite sure what sport would be best for this. Baseball and basketball are probably the best two choices, as football doesn’t really have any exciting trades or much in-season front office decisions. Basketball would probably make it easier to shoot the necessary sports scenes (there will be some after all) as there is a small playing field, fewer players, and generally has more easily repeatable actions, though digital effects could make baseball scenes easier.

Someone needs to make this happen.

Arbitrary song of the day: Joy Division – “Love Will Tear Us Apart”

Why Have There Been No Great Women Athletes?

Like Linda Nochlin’s question in her essay from which the title of this entry is taken, this query is not to be taken entirely at face value. Nochlin in her ARTnews essay states that a great artist is focused “on historical analysis of the basic intellectual issues”, rather than centered on “the present and its immediate needs”. Nochlin claims that female and feminist artists possess the “naive” idea that “art is direct, personal expression of individual emotional experience, a translation of personal life into visual terms”, whereas, she claims, “Art is almost never that, great art never is.” Keep in mind here that this is 1971 and the quality of “greatness” as it was applied to art at this time was generally limited to a more formalist and modernist approach.

While at first this might seem to have little to do with athletics, lets take a more broad approach to some of these issues. I don’t think it is a particularly large jump to reformulate Nochlin’s thesis to be that there have been no female athletes who have made a truly “great” impact in American sport (I will stick to American here, as this is what my knowledge is limited to – sorry Britons). Certainly, there have been impressive female athletes: Mia Hamm, Kerri Strug, Michelle Kwan, etc. However, right here we can see the first problem. Americans don’t really care about the sports of soccer, gymnastics (only debatably a sport), and figureskating (again, debatably). So, what sports do Americans care about the most? Well, we’ve got the team sports football, baseball, basketball, and hockey in about that order. After that, its probably golf, tennis, boxing, and the like (I’m not including NASCAR as a sport), but those are definitely secondary to the “big four” of American sports. While there are a few popular personalities in that tier of athletics like Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong, it is exceedingly difficult to make a good case that these sports possess the same (historical and current) popularity and cultural relevance as the big four.

Have their been any “great” sportswomen in any of these four sports? Well, there really haven’t even been any organized women’s teams for football teams until the past few years, so we can safely say no for that one. Only one woman, Manon Rhéaume, has ever played for an NHL team and that was only a couple abbreviated appearances in exhibition games for the Tampa Bay Lightning. There aren’t any notable female hockey leagues to speak of and certainly nothing compares to the NHL in terms of skill. As for baseball, interested women are generally pushed towards softball – an issue we will get to later. This leaves basketball, which means the WNBA. What to make of the WNBA… well, lets put it this way. A friend of mine asked me, while watching a basketball game, how well the best WNBA team would do against the worst NBA team. After some consideration, my conclusion was that the WNBA team would probably score at some point during the course of a regulation contest. There’s just too large of size and strength difference. An NBA team would score every time just throwing the ball into the post and backing down the female defender, whereas a WNBA team could not score in the paint at all and would have to rely exclusively on outside jump shots.

Here, at this point, it is necessary to notice a divergence between art and athletics. Nochlin asserts that “The fault lies not in our stars, our hormones, our menstrual cycles, or our empty internal spaces, but in our institutions and our education.” Now, I believe that this is correct – that the reason a woman has not appeared in any meaningful way in a men’s professional league is due to our cultural institutions. However, men do have obvious natural advantages of greater strength and height which, while not important to the creation of great art, is vital to sport. Is the best female player in any of these four sports good enough to play at replacement level? For football, the answer is definitively no. Amateur football for girls is far too early in its development to warrant even brief consideration. How about baseball? The existence of college softball is draining the talent pool for women’s baseball, making the answer a solid no. Hockey is a much more interesting case. I would like to think that the top female Olympic hockey players would be able to skate with some of the lesser players in the NHL. Maybe they could, but the stats of Rhéaume, who goaltended for Canada’s national team at Nagano in ‘98 (and thus, was assumedly one of the best female goaltenders of the time), against IHL and ECHL teams (AA teams essentially) were less than stellar. While a WNBA team would get trounced by an NBA team, I think it is quite likely that a few female players could play in the NBA. Though center and forward positions would probably be impossible due to the requirements of height and strength, it is quite imaginable that a current NBA player could adjust enough to be a serviceable to good point guard or shooting guard. Its quite probable they would get shoved around on defense and could be frequently exploited with picks and mismatches, but I still like to hope that the best female players could be better than Eric Snow.

There are currently strong amateur and college systems in place for women’s hockey and (obviously) basketball. Football will most likely get there at some point. Women’s baseball, on the other hand, has a large institutional obstacle in its path – softball. I don’t feel I need to extol the virtues of baseball; they are self-evident enough and, if not, there are a great many writers who have acclaimed the beauty of America’s pastime. Additionally, softball is severely lacking in historical and current (mainstream) interest. Why do women play softball instead of baseball then? The main reason seems to be that women are funneled into softball for what were sexist reasons (women can’t play a “man’s sport” like baseball) and the formation of collegiate softball (institutionalization, as Nochlin describes the construction of such cultural barriers) has meant that this has become the norm for young girls.

Why do I write all this? I think my reason is selfish one: I wish to see sports played at the highest level. This is not possible unless we are drawing from the largest talent pool available. By excluding women from the NBA, MLB, NFL, and NHL, we are reducing the pool by 50%! I realize, of course, that there are not rules explicitly forbidding women from joining these leagues, but then there were no rules banning black players from baseball in the first half of the 20th century either. Now, there is an important distinction to make; while the Negro leagues had talent that stacked up to that of MLB, women’s talent in the four major sports is not there yet. Because of this, I hope MLB makes some kind of effort to create more girls’ baseball youth leagues and eventually pushes for colleges to create female baseball programs. I don’t see this at all now, but I think this would benefit the long-term health of MLB. Perhaps one day, it will be as unthinkable to have a league without women as we do now to think of a league without black or Hispanic players. While its debatable whether there have been any “great” female artists since Nochlin’s landmark essay, I am hopeful that in the not too distant future we will have some great women athletes.

As an addendum, I think it would be fun to hypothesize as to what position in what sport we are most likely to a see a female regular player. Football, I think, is out of the question – except maybe as a punter or kicker. Basketball is intriguing. I am curious as to how much the WNBA impedes a woman’s progress to the NBA. It is not unthinkable that without the WNBA we might have already seen our first female NBA player, probably as a guard. The top talent in female college basketball has to go somewhere, right? While the WNBA might impede a female player’s progress now, it is probably beneficial for the long term development of the sport, at least until full integration could be accomplished (I am hopeful of full integration decades down the line, but it may not be possible or practical for basketball and football or even hockey or baseball). I could imagine a female player in the NHL years from now, probably as a finesse player, at any position. Women’s baseball has the opposite probably of basketball in that it has zero structure currently in place to support a rising female baseball player. However, this might actually be beneficial for a single player. A female basketball player would have to adapt from the lesser talent of female divisions to the much faster and stronger play of her male counterparts, whereas a female baseball player would most likely develop in an all-male environment. Certainly a daunting task for her, but imagine the promotion and marketability of such a player. This wouldn’t be just some gimmick (unlike the first female blurnsball player – see photo right), though I’m sure there would be accusations of such. In any case, which team wouldn’t want this? What sensible marketing department wouldn’t kick their “good ole boy” owner in the balls until he let his GM sign her? Also, who wouldn’t want to see Keith Hernandez explode on national TV upon seeing a female player on the field? He can’t even handle them in the dugout. As for a long term solution for women in baseball, however, it is essential that high school and college softball are phased out.
In any case, because of these reasons, I forecast the first female athlete in one of the four major American team sports leagues to be a baseball player. My best guess would be as a middle infielder, as I think the power demands for a corner infielder or corner outfielder would be too great. A center fielder could be possible, too, but I have no idea about catcher. Even major league catchers don’t seem to be very good, but thats another post.

Arbitrary song of the day: Aphex Twin – “B+W Stripes”

Pujols or A-Rod – How about neither?

In a recent Jerry Crasnick ESPN.com chat, the point of discussion was who would you rather build a team around: Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols.  Now, the question is, in Crasnick’s words, “If I’m a general manager and I’m starting a major league team today, which superstar would I choose: Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols?”  First off, if you get to choose any player in the league, why would you pick between two players already in their peek?  I guess it depends on the rest of the parameters of this hypothetical question.  If the rest of the rules were in line to those of the 1997 MLB Expansion Draft, then you probably aren’t going to get enough good other pieces to contend any time soon.  If there were fewer protected players, than perhaps you could acquire enough players to contend, but I seem to get more of the idea, throughout the chat, that we are constructing a team from the ground up – meaning that contending is years off.

Since contending seems years off, why wouldn’t you go with someone younger and have them peak around when it would be useful?  By the time you field a team, A-Rod will be way past his peak and Pujols would probably have lost some of his great range at 1B and some pop.  I suppose I would rather have Pujols out of the two of them, but I would much rather build my team around a player playing a more difficult position.  I’ve heard a couple scouts say on ESPN.com that they would actually go with 20 year-old Justin Upton, rather than a player with more experience.  Realistically, it would take many years to build a team from scratch and get it to a point where you would actually be able to bring in enough revenue to put a contender on the diamond, so Upton would probably be a good choice.  He will be cheap during this theoretical franchise’s infancy (though he probably won’t be that great) for two years plus another three of arbitration (I believe the fact that he will not be a rookie next year means that his clock has already started – please correct me if I am wrong).

If for some reason there was reason to believe that this imaginary franchise could contend in only a couple years, then I would much prefer David Wright.  Wright is a quality 3B with great contact, excellent on the basepaths (over 81% on SB attempts including last year’s of 34 SB and only 5 CS), good plate discipline, and growing power.  This coupled with the fact that he could very well still improve, given that he only turned 26 last month.  I would prefer to take a middle infielder, but there aren’t really any young ones who I’m as confident in their two way play as I am Wright.  Jose Reyes dropped off last year in power and batting average last year, though his increased walk rate is certainly encouraging.  Hanley Ramirez is a fantastic hitter, but his walk rate is not very good and he is a butcher at SS.  Troy Tulowitzki is amazing defensively and he had some great offensive stats last year, though the Coors factor is difficult to put aside.  There really aren’t any exciting 2B right now younger than Chase Utley.  Brandon Phillips is a fantasy star, but nowhere near as valuable in real-life sporting only a .331 OBP.  BJ Upton, the other Upton brother, has become primarily a center fielder, and I’d be hesitant to take an outfielder with this uber-pick, even if he is a center fielder.  SS is the most important defensive position, so maximizing the fielding and hitting value here would be ideal.  Unfortunately though, I don’t see anyone here to warrant bumping Wright or the potential of Justin Upton.  If I did take a SS though, I would take Tulowitzki and not feel particularly bad about it either.

I realize this is just some January nonsense to pass the time, but its a chat based on an ill-defined question with misinformed answers, often degenerating into insistence on A-Rod’s lack of “clutch” and “clubhouse presence” from the fans.  Also, people don’t seem to realize that he doesn’t play shortstop anymore.  Though, it is amusing to wonder if he would be a better SS than Derek Jeter currently is.

Arbitrary song of the day: Flash Brothers – “Mirage (Shmuel Flash Punk Mix)”

You get no Hall with one meatball

More 2007 music stuff to come, but how ’bout some baseball? The 2008 baseball Hall of Fame elections recently concluded and the big news is out. No, not that Goose Gossage made it or that Jim Rice barely missed, but that Todd Stottlemyre received a vote. In honor of that, I thought picking out some of the interesting single vote-getters of the past 10 years. I only picked one for each year, so for a few there were some interesting choices, but no choice at all with others.

1999 – John Candelaria A key member of the Pirates World Series team from 1979, when apparently it was considered heterosexual to nickname a guy “Candy”. This is no longer the case.

2000 – Bill Bullickson An ERA+ of 98, which means he was worse than average overall in terms of ERA. I guess he won 20 games once, but then so did Mike Krukow, who coincidentally also received exactly one HoF vote in 1995.

2001 – John Kruk Fantastic. For a beefy 1B/OF, its surprising that he hit for so few home runs. In any case, I presume that his voter must be a fan of round numbers, as Kruk finished his career with a .300 AVG, 1200 G, and 100 HR. I guess you could say that he was a well-rounded player, in more ways than one! Ha, ha, ha… you see what I did there? The man is portly and I have made fun of him for this. Maybe he will eventually be enshrined for his broadcasting.

2002 – Lenny Dykstra Double fantastic: Dykstra and Kruk together again. A good lead-off guy and an interesting “dude”, the latter of which is probably more responsible for the vote. He was recently named in the Mitchell report, which probably hurts his chances of getting elected by a cracked-out Veterans committee which has fallen under the leadership of John Kruk.

2003 – Darren Daulton Really, I imagine it was probably just a Philadelphia writer who essentially wanted to marry the entire early 1990s Phillies team. I really don’t know much about his defense, but his offensive rate-stats are pretty great for a catcher. It would’ve been interesting if Daulton hadn’t had injury issues (he had only 5 seasons of 100+ games) as he did have great plate discipline and decent power for a catcher. Also he was crazy.

2004 – Terry Pendleton Has probably the highest BCI ratio (# Baseball Cards I own of him vs. my Interest in him) of all time. Won an NL MVP award in 1991, though Bonds should have certainly won it instead. Had two other above average offensive years (including his abbreviated rookie year) and two average years. Doug Drabek (who I think was my favorite player at some point) crushed him in the 2004 election, doubling Pendleton’s number of votes. So, yes, the Pirates got their revenge. ed. note: Does sarcasm work in typing? In hope so. Also, italics are fancy. They are for fancy words.

2005 – Terry Steinbach Not any particularly interesting 1 vote-getters this year. He did, however, Hav one spectacular outlier of a season in 1996,where he totaled 19 more HR, 91 more TB, and 33 more RBI than his second best year. Some of this can be attributed to his career high 145 games, but not too much of it. Anyway, there were many more interesting players hanging around at the bottom of the election list in ‘05. Darryl Strawberry, Jack McDowell, Jim Abbott… its like my SI for Kids collection from over a decade ago threw up all over the bottom of the ballot.

2006 – Walt Weiss The sole 1 vote-getter of 2006, Weiss was a terrible hitter. He had no power, hitting career high of 8 in 1996 at Coors Field. The previous year, his OBP was 82 points (!!!) higher than his SLG. Thats approximately negative power at Coors. I’m pretty sure Dante Bichette bunted for more than 8 for home runs in 1995. Weiss did walk a good deal though. But why were pitchers walking him? He had a terrible batting average and hit for no power.

2007 – Jay Buhner Part of that Mariners juggernaut of that somehow managed to not win a championship. Really, he’s most memorable for the Seinfeld line by Frank Costanza directed towards George Steinbrenner: “What the hell did you trade Jay Buhner for?!” Sadly Bobby Bonilla got 2 votes, so we don’t get to discuss him here.

2008 – Chuck Knoblauch Well, I already mentioned Todd Stottlemyre, so we can’t very well bring him back. I’m surprised, actually, that Knoblauch didn’t receive more than one vote. Isn’t he scrappy enough? He stole bases, hit for little power, AND he’s white. That should certainly be enough right there for a few scrappy votes. He also played up the middle with Derek Jeter, surely thats enough for a couple New York sportswriters’ votes, no?

I’m kind of glad the BBWAA has enough insane members to warrant some silly votes and that the Veterans Committee was absolutely terrible for a number of years (now, just bad). What other baseball stuff would we occupy ourselves with in December/January?

Also, I’m starting a new feature. Every post will have an arbitrary song that I’ve been entertained with that day. The selection, is, well, arbitrary.

Arbitrary song of the day: Trio – “Da Da Da”

2007 in Music – Part 2: Goodbye

After his previous two albums, Ulrich Schnauss’ Goodbye was a relatively anticipated album with respect to mainstream publications to electronic music. Schnauss had a pretty good formula for tracks on Faraway Trains Passing By and A Strangely Isolated Place, which consisted of putting some lovely bell-like melodies and uplifting harmonies over a simple but catchy bassline and an unabashedly simple percussion layer. Each of these layers were fairly distinct and at most points you can pick out the individual lines and follow them to see what Schnauss is doing. Goodbye almost completely strips these elements of their autonomy. The opening track, “Never Be the Same”, is a fine example of this. Even at the end of track, you’re not sure if the album is really underway or if it was just a 5 minute introduction. Really, most of the album is this way, with each track having the quality of an intro or an outro that would’ve been found on a previous Schnauss album.

As I described above, Schnauss’ percussion layers are unabashedly simple. This is not a bad thing; however, Schnauss seems to think it is judging by the way he hides them among the levels of synthesizer harmonies. The percussion in each track is practically interchangeable and not at all distinctive. Just turning up the levels for the drum lines would help a good deal. The lo-fi, barely processed (maybe a filter or two) quality of the rhythm sections of tracks like “Nobody’s Home” and “Monday Paracetamol” was quite charming and without it, Schnauss’ music seems to lose some of its naivete. The fun, childlike melodies are dropped, too, leaving a bland cacophony. The loss of innocence in Goodbye is similar to that of Boards of Canada’s The Campfire Headphase. But while Boards of Canada replaced their simple lo-fi drums and clever melodies with a savvy combination of guitar and polished rhythms, Schnauss’ are just sort of dropped.

However, in “Goodbye” is found a welcome surprise. Among the generally sweeping synthesizers of the album is a little melody that doesn’t emerge until almost five minutes in. Surprisingly, its a plucked-string sound and not a music box like sound as found in something like “Knuddelmaus”. Its not so much the melody itself, which is a pretty stepwise one, but the texture of it and the way it contrasts with most of the rest of the album. It seems like Schnauss realizes the weight given to a distinct melody in an album full of sweeping pads and saves it until the finale. Though its rise is fairly unexpected, earlier tracks like “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” do hint at it. Though “For Good”, is actually the final track, it serves more as a coda with some strummed guitar which eventually is consumed by soft synthesizer chords.

This is a fairly disappointing release from Ulrich Schnauss, who is much more intent on creating washed-out new age sounds than the fun electronic melodies of albums past. Where are we supposed to focus in Goodbye? There are still some nice things going on, but none stand out and there are very few melodies of interest throughout the album. It’s just a blur, which may be what Schnauss is going for – an album which is leaving the listener behind, emphasizing the themes of bittersweet goodbyes strewn throughout his oeuvre.

2007 in Music – Part 1: Zeitgeist

It is now 2008 and so it seems like this is a good opportunity to talk about a couple of the important (to me, at least) albums from 2007 over the course of a couple posts. I was by no means optimistic about The Smashing Pumpkins return album, Zeitgeist, released in July of 2007. I figured it would be in a similar vein as the Machina II and Billy Corgan’s TheFutureEmbrace. I feel that my assumptions were pretty much correct and I’m still not entirely sure if I’m disappointed by that. On first listen, I was disappointed by the relative uniformity among the songs’ textures. There were some catchy guitar riffs such as those found in “Tarantula” and “Doomsday Clock”, but I found myself skipping a couple tracks (including “That’s the Way (My Love Is)”, which is still skipped in my random-play list). After getting accustomed to the album a bit, it became more enjoyable. However, the giant walls of guitar are still impersonal and a bit intimidating. The large, pumped up chords are tiresome by the time we get to “Neverlost”, which has some enjoyably mellow faux-xylophone. One ingredient missing from Zeitgeist is the epic Pumpkins track. While “United States” clocks in at almost 10 minutes, the same riff permeates throughout, losing the multi-partedness of a song like “Starla”, “Porcelina of the Vast Oceans”, or even “Glass and the Ghost Children”. Of course it is possible to write a complexly structured track based around a single melodic theme, but the giant guitars don’t lend themselves well to this type of subtlety.

Its important to remember, that, in fact, this is only half of The “real” Smashing Pumpkins. But how much importance should this be given exactly? Corgan is clearly the singular driving force behind the band and Jimmy Chamberlin seems determined to follow him wherever he wants to go both physically and musically. Chamberlin is a highly underrated drummer, adding something rhythmically unique to each track to which he contributes. This is by far his most aggressive drumming – its like an entire album of “Cash Car Star”-type stuff. Chamberlin often parallels the rhythms of a song’s primary melody (rather than merely keeping pace), as he did previously in tracks like “Tonight, Tonight” and “Cherub Rock”, which is especially present in “7 Shades of Black” and “Bring the Light”. Additionally, he prevents Corgan from using absurdly out of date-sounding drum machine sounds, such as those found on TheFutureEmbrance. Though certainly the overdramatic, emo lyrics don’t help, the boring kick-kick-snare drum machine of “To Love Somebody” is just bad. I don’t know how to defend Corgan’s choice here. I realize this was a “solo” album, but c’mon, better stuff can easily be drawn up in less than an hour in Fruity Loops. James Iha does seem to be have been a mediating force for Corgan’s technological desires, pushing for the country-esque, low-key ballads. I unfortunately have little clue as to D’arcy’s creative contributions to The Smashing Pumpkins, but they did create their best music with her around in the studio (Mellon Collie), so it’s difficult to disregard her. It can be argued that Corgan/Chamberlin are the “true” Pumpkins, having successfully recorded Siamese Dream with mostly Corgan’s bass and guitar.

I also have issues with the overtly political nature of the artwork and found in some of the tracks. I dislike shallow, political messages and find them, for lack of a better word, tacky. For one, they often lose their independent effectiveness, needing context to frame them. Many anti-Vietnam war songs, beat-you-over-the-head-message feminist art such as Womanhouse, and early ’90s rave music really doesn’t make any sense and certainly holds little aesthetic appeal unless taken in context of the current political and sociological climate. It’s not so much being able to take in the gestalt of a work that concerns me here so much as it is that art/music that I like doesn’t embarrass me with excessively overt and entirely unsubtle cultural references. Its entirely unnecessary to present me with images of Paris Hilton and an atom bomb as found on the cover of the Tarantula single in addition to tracks such as “For God and Country”. I get it already.

Anyways, back to the more formal aspects of Zeitgeist. The most noticeable difference for me between previous Pumpkins albums is the way in which Billy Corgan’s voice is recorded and affected. There’s a lot of what I’ve nicknamed in my mind, “Billy chorus” – that is, where multiple tracks of Corgan singing are layered. Such a technique has been applied successfully in the past, but in tracks like “Doomsday Clock” and “Bring the Light” its a bit much. Additionally the solo vocals stand out a lot compared to previous albums. The balance between vocals and instrumentation seems to be skewed much further in the direction of the vocals so as to make for a disconcerting effect that makes the vocals sound completely distinct from the instrumentation. This applies more so to the heavier tracks, rather than the lighter ones like “Neverlost”. Even in more recent albums such as Machina, the vocals were affected with similar reverb or filters as the drums and/or guitar (“Raindrops + Sunshowers”) or otherwise buried Corgan’s wails in distorted guitar (“The Crying Tree of Mercury”). I think its important to note that I, in fact, really like Billy Corgan’s voice (I’d have to in order to like the “Landslide” cover) – its just the volume balance with the hard rock, metally guitar that I find disconcerting. I can’t imagine that Alan Moulder or Flood would have allowed something like that. Heck, Flood even managed to keep most of the drum machine stuff in Adore from being absurd.

Well, after all that, I’m going to say that there is a bunch of good stuff on the album. “Doomsday Clock”, “7 Shades of Black”, and “Tarantula” have some tasty riffs which are enjoyable even if the vocals are a bit strange. “Bleeding the Orchid” is based around the “Billy chorus”, which is a surprisingly interesting novelty, though the track title and chorus does lead me to some uncomfortable Georgia O’Keeffe related imagery. “That’s the Way (My Love Is)” is a forgettable track only memorable for its appearance on the car commercial (I can’t imagine Billy Corgan is happy about that). “Bring the Light” and “Starz” have some fun syncopation and some nice finger-drumming tappability, an important quality to me in songs. The intro to “Bring the Light” really has some great soft chord progressions in there that I wish were repeated more throughout the song. The opening riffs are probably my favorite moment of the album. The last half of the album has a few interesting things going on worth mentioning. “Pomp and Circumstances” is a very grandiose, reverb-filled song, which accurately reflects its name. The plucked strings really are lovely though. With “Neverlost”, these two tracks possess the most distinct textures. “Stellar” has some nice guitar effects and a soft electric guitar part which bridges back to the main riff and sets up the expectations for the title and final track of the album, “Zeitgeist”. “Zeitgeist” is a welcome lo-fi departure from the techy tracks of the rest of the album. It even features Corgan doing some broken/mumbly singing as found in the chorus of “My Mistake”. I can’t recall having heard it on any other songs, but its something I’d like to here more of in future Pumpkins songs.

On the whole, I’d say that the album certainly has some quality aspects to it; however, its too strongly invested in the catchy guitar riffs and standard verse/chorus structure. The lack of any progressing songs (“Soma”), songs with through-composed lyrics (“1979″), or those with otherwise out-there structure (“Glass and the Ghost Children”) is disappointing. The tech-heavy approach is entirely expected, though I was hoping for more than just a single concluding acoustic track – perhaps a piano-based song along the lines of “For Martha”. Overall, lightyears ahead of TheFutureEmbrace, but lacking the high concept and creative song textures of Machina. Also, I find typing “Zeitgeist” difficult.