Oh, that magic feeling.

Many of time’s most celebrated musical acts produced their celebrated music by writing songs as a group, together. Indeed, two heads are often better than one and collaboration often results in a more well-rounded product. These collaborations sometimes manifested themselves as partnerships – Jagger/Richards, Page/Plant or John/Taupin for example – that allowed each player a role in the creative process.

The relationships, like any, were at turns tumultuous and harmonious. One could convincingly argue that the state of the relationship had an influence on the resulting music and that the emotions of the people involved were partly, but not solely, responsible for the output of quality work (certainly the musicality and creativity of the individuals played a big part too).

One of the most successful songwriting partnerships was Lennon/McCartney. DUH. A friend recently argued that the work of Lennon/McCartney as Beatles was superior to the work of Lennon and McCartney as solo artists – that their partnership conjured something magical in the two of them that they could never replicate or hope to top on their own. I completely disagreed.

See, having listened to a lot of the Beatles, and having listened to a shitload of solo John Lennon lately, I’m realizing that the dissolution of the Beatles freed Lennon to pursue his own, unique brand of music – music that never would have materialized had Lennon not been free to realize his own, unique vision.

Paul McCartney was way-awesome, and his role in the musical partnership cannot be understated. But clearly, Lennon’s post-Beatles stuff wouldn’t sound anything like it does had the two collaborated on it. Just listen to the spare “God” off Plastic Ono Band and imagine how much less effective it’d be with a jaunty McCartney bass line. Or the airy “You Are Here” off Mind Games; how would that sound with a Paul-to-the-wall horn section or a busier melody? I don’t necessarily surmise that McCartney would have actually done these things if given a seat at Lennon’s songwriting table. My point is that he could have. Without Paul in the room, John could write and perform the songs just as he saw fit. It goes the other way too: McCartney’s Band on The Run wouldn’t sound like it does – hell, it wouldn’t be as awesome as it is – if Lennon had a hand in its creation.

It’s a fact that removing an element from an equation (L + Mc = magic) produces a different outcome (L – Mc = different magic or Mc – L = different magic). That point is unassailable. It’s mathematical. The understanding that those outcomes, while magical, are still incomparable apples and oranges is the takeaway here. It all boils down to personal taste, which outcome sounds better to you or which brand of magic you prefer. Because really, it’s all magic in the case of L and Mc… and oh, that magic feeling. Nowhere to go.

Top Five Albums of 2010, Honorable Mentions

Dr. Dog, Shame, Shame
The fifth full-length from the Philadelphia outfit finds the group treading familiar waters. The album is another exercise in Beatles-style pop rock – fun, bouncy and well-written.

Glasser, Ring
Armed with an able voice, Cameron Mesirow made the year’s most refined electronic album. Her laptop beats form compelling textures of sound, providing a warm haven for her Enya-esque vocals.

Local Natives, Gorilla Manor
An ultra-hip L.A. indie band (with the gear, beards and haircuts to prove it), Local Natives managed to fly under the mainstream radar all year. Hard to believe considering their album is stacked with big, moving, harmony-laden songs.

Tokyo Police Club, Champ
The Canadian foursome switched labels (again) and recorded a set of lively songs (again) for their third album. (Again) the music is electro-tinged, energetic and ebullient.

Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kanye’s long-awaited album came out at the end of the year but still managed to top many of the year-end, best-of lists. Though it’s certainly dark and twisted, the album isn’t all that beautiful. Either way, it’s groundbreaking hip-hop that cements Kanye’s reputation as one of his generation’s greatest talents.

Yeasayer, Odd Blood
This hyped Brooklyn group simultaneously turned me on and turned me off. Their emo-dance album has some great moments, recalling Depeche Mode and Tears for Fears at their finest, but the cheese of some of the lyrics and the discord of some of the music are cringe-inducing.

David Bowie, Station to Station (Reissue)
Bowie’s far-out 1976 album, which he famously does not recall making, got the deluxe treatment this year. Even when coked-out and paranoid, Bowie again proved himself to be inimitable. The album also comes packaged with an unheard ‘76 show at Nassau Coliseum.

John Lennon, Mind Games (Reissue)
Timed with the 30th anniversary of his tragic death, all of Lennon’s solo material was remastered and reissued. This 1973 album, which he apparently just tossed off without much thought, is my favorite of the lot. Lush, introspective songs sidle up to sneering rock songs and make for a well-rounded pop album.

Top Five Albums of 2010, no. 1

Arcade Fire, The Suburbs

A focused, ambitious album about suburban sprawl and the kids that call it home, no other release of 2010 came close to matching The Suburbs in vision, timeliness and gravitas. To say nothing of the music itself, the album identified a uniquely American sentiment, took it, and ran with it. All this from a gang of Canadians. To be specific, bandleader Win Butler and guitarist brother Will spent a solid part of their formative years on the outer edges of Houston; their experience informs much of The Suburbs.

From the defeated “Modern Man” (sample line: “I feel I’m losing the feeling”) to the triumphant “Wasted Hours” (sample line: “wasted hours that you make new, and turn into a life that we can live”), a common thread runs through all sixteen songs. The album’s central theme is clear: the cookie-cutter suburban American lifestyle is crushing individuality. It is at once impressive and depressing to hear a fantastic band describe so perfectly the gloom of the burbs and the desolation of the people living there.

The album is perfectly paced, ebbing and flowing as passionate anthems (“We Used To Wait”) seek to convert non-believers and paranoid, solemn dirges (“Sprawl I (Flatland)”) speak to those in the know. Pointed without being cynical, the album is nonetheless an attack on what has become the American Way.

But even though a pervasive mood of frustration and despair colors the set, there still exist glimmers of hope. Whether it’s the building and stacking of hooks and layers on the hipster-profiling “Rococo” or the speed-string glee of “Empty Room,” galvanizing moments of profound musical beauty can be found and felt despite the album’s overall bleak tone.

And while the tunes don’t necessarily grab at first blush, they reward repeat listens. Songs like “Half Light I” and “Month of May” can feel plain initially. However, when taken in the context of the entire 60-minute set, they become more powerful, more moving, more inclusive even.

Indeed, Arcade Fire has a reputation for making audiences feel like they’re part of something bigger than rock and roll. With this collection of arena-ready songs, emphasizing feelings to which many can relate, Arcade Fire are fast approaching U2 and Springsteen levels – levels of fame and prominence that compel millions of rapt fans to hang on every word.

The Suburbs is the band’s third album; it debuted at number one back in August. It improves on their second, which improbably improved on their first. If they continue down this path, they will undoubtedly be legends in their time. Part of this is due to the uniting power of their music. Just try to ignore the grandeur of “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” or the intensity and force of “Suburban War”. So while Arcade Fire tell us that the suburbs destroy our sense of self, their fine album (so appropriate for 2010) reminds us that we’re not alone.

**UPDATE: Arcade Fire and The Suburbs were awarded the Grammy for Album of the Year.

Top Five Albums of 2010, no. 2

Beach House, Teen Dream

Baltimore isn’t a city known for its friendliness. Or its beaches. But Baltimore-bred Beach House’s alluring Teen Dream feels warm and inviting. Perhaps the boy-girl duo harnessed a strange, foreign energy to craft this album, a hazy and hooky set of layered and luscious songs.

On the opening “Zebra,” organist Victoria Legrand’s subtle, androgynous vocal simultaneously demands attention and lulls into submission as guitarist Alex Scally weaves atmospheric lines into a tuneful tapestry. “Used To Be” builds and builds only to suddenly topple, leaving alone a subdued Legrand to breathily chant “any day now” over metronome ticks and keyboard swells.

Though suffused with a notable sense of calm, the album is anything but a sleeper. The music is transporting, almost mystical (particularly on “Lover Of Mine,” which finds Legrand channeling Stevie Nicks at her witchiest).

Of all the albums I bought this year, this may be the one I listened to the most. Its airy feel fits a number of different settings and lasts from start to finish. The set ends softly, almost unnoticeably, as the closing “Take Care” takes nearly three minutes to completely fade out. It’s a fitting finale to a cloudy, drifting album that holds your attention while unobtrusively fading in and out of your consciousness.

Top Five Albums of 2010, no. 3

Best Coast, Crazy For You

Somehow, Beth Cosentino and co. wrote some of the most beautifully haunting, achingly lonely and touchingly poignant (but utterly simple) music of the year. All with just a handful of chords, no bass and a four-track. Seriously.

The production is muddy; the band is ON but each song still sounds like a demo. Even so, Cosentino’s voice communicates a sense of bracing honesty – that she means what she says. What she does say involves puppy-love, kitty-cats and pot-smoking. A simple girl with simple concerns making simple music, Cosentino definitely seems more interested in bongs and backyards than 401(k)s and nine-to-fives. Still, in that simplicity lies beauty. When soaked in reverb and splashed with sunshine, songs like “When I’m With You,” “Goodbye” and “Each And Every Day” shimmer like a summer day viewed through the tinted lens of a satisfying high.

The So-Cal vibe of the 13 tracks hits like waves crashing on the beach. And for one desperate moment, each song creeps back in your memory. By capably blending girl-group hooks with grunge sounds and pop stylings, the music feels familiar and comforting – like some kind of Ronette/Hole/Beach-Boy taco. It speaks to any young person, boy or girl, who’s been in a relationship, who’s felt happy or sad or jealous or apathetic, who’s maybe felt all those ways at once. Here’s hoping that the band’s superb full-length debut, which followed a series of EPs, won’t be its last release.

Top Five Albums of 2010, no. 4

The Soft Pack, The Soft Pack

The front of this San Diego foursome’s album shows the group on a beach, passing a joint. They look like typical stoner rock guys: messy hair, wrinkled shirts, Ray-Ban shades. And if you were to judge this book by its cover, you might assume it was typical garage rock music. However, when you assume, you make an ASS of U and ME. The Soft Pack actually make an atypical up-tempo racket, complete with deliberately-dumb vocals and shit-shaking riffs (“Mexico” even has a bit of slide guitar).

The band’s sound owes as much to nineties noise-rockers Pavement as it does to eighties punk-rockers the Ramones. Throw in a dash of present-day indie rock to firmly plant the band in the here-and-now and you’ve got a well-rounded recipe for unabashed fun.

Take the surf-y lead guitar on “Down On Loving.” It hangs loose over the rhythm section, adding a retro jolt to an otherwise contemporary song. And the Farfisa on “Move Along”? It’s so frantic, jammed between a manic one-chord guitar attack and frenzied drums, that it tells me these boys were born to boogie. And boys they are. Really, I still don’t know whether “Pull Out” is about driving or doing it.

The band’s sense of immaturity is apparent throughout (with “Flammable,” a brash threat to burn down the house, being another example), making me think the guys are more concerned with having fun than having fans. In fact, I saw them play to a nearly empty room last spring. But with an album this catchy (and assuming they follow it up with an equally accessible release), it won’t be long before they become a hot ticket.

The Soft Pack is a glib, flippant album – perfect for an escape from reality and a journey to la-la-land – something I desperately needed in 2010.

Top Five Albums of 2010, no. 5

What a year, eh? 2010 produced a glut of good music that both moved and mellowed me. To be sure, I felt more compelled to listen to new music this year than I have in recent years. Relying on word of mouth, internet buzz and magazine mojo, I was intrigued enough to buy new releases from indie crews as well as products of the major-label marketing machine. For the most part, I wasn’t disappointed…but the cream always rises to the top.

Starting today and continuing through the week, I’ll be posting reviews of my top five albums of 2010, revealing my number-one pick on Friday, January 7. Stay tuned.

The Secret Sisters, The Secret Sisters

Sisters Laura and Lydia Rogers, two gals who sing harmonies tighter than an oversized-bosom-containing bodice, came out of nowhere (well… Alabama) with this tasteful tribute to classic country music. Indeed, only two originals make the cut on the 29-minute album. The rest of the set is rounded out by choice covers from the likes of Bill Monroe, Buck Owens and Hank Williams, along with a few public-domain traditionals.

Pure and charming, the sisters’ sound harkens back to a simpler time, when the tinny sound from an old radio united friends and families around the soft glow of the dial. But just because the album has a vintage, worn-in feel doesn’t mean it lacks punch.

Executive-produced by old-timey maestro T-Bone Burnett, it features an ace band of Nashville studio veterans, all versed in the art of subtle, expressive instrumentation. For proof, check the reserved pedal steel on “The One I Love Is Gone” and the refined lead guitar on “I’ve Got A Feeling.” These two songs are also good examples of the sisters’ vocal versatility; the eerie “One I Love” calls to mind the backwoods Americana of woe-is-me country while the bouncy “Got A Feeling” recalls girl-group pop.

Certainly, their ability to cross genres is part of their appeal. That, along with their innate singing talent and the fact that they’re able to sound fresh while remaining rooted in tradition, is why the Secret Sisters are so great – and why their album is one of the best releases of 2010.

MULCH no. 3

Hot off the press, here 'tis. The third issue of MULCH features a whole mess of music recommendations as well as a collection of essays. Topics include food, fashion, music and culture. Gary Blaster shows up again, answering a reader's question about genetic mutation and revealing his true identity. You can find MULCH in Portland at Powell's on Burnside (while supplies last) or you can get in touch with me and I'll mail you one.

Sooo Bro

Who likes hot dogs? I know I do. Despite the common knowledge that they’re composed of lips and assholes, something just feels right the moment you bite into one, like hitting a homer. Though it’s a German food, we Americans have made it as connected to our culture as apple pie. It’s no surprise then that hot dogs are sold at almost every American sporting event, fair and festival. In fact, more hot dogs are consumed at baseball games than the storied peanuts and cracker jacks.

My appreciation of the hot dog is a deep one. Fed them as a child, I’ve always enjoyed their unique texture and familiar but hard-to-characterize flavor. It was that appreciation, and a hearty craving, that brought me to a Portland hot dog vendor last week. Bro-Dog sits among several other food carts in the pod at Southwest Fifth and Stark. It boasts as diverse a menu as you’d expect from a hot dog stand – that is to say, it’s not all that varied. While the hot dog turned out to be fine, the real treat was interacting with the guy who runs the joint.

A 30-ish man in flip-flops, cargo shorts and a T-shirt that read “Ask Me About My 10” Wiener,” he greeted me as I approached. “Hey dude! What-cha thinkin bout?” he hollered as I glanced at the set of choices. “Thinkin bout a dog, eh bro?”

“Yeah, man,” I responded. It was true: I was thinking about a hot dog.

“Dude, we got that chicken-apple dog – sooo bomb,” he emphatically stated, nodding with wide-eyed sincerity. “Or the jalapeno-cheddar dog, we got that one too, bro. It’s like ‘BOOM,’ for real!”

Clearly, this guy was serious about his frankfurters. I weighed my options as he went on about the Polish dog (“hella tight, bro; you bite into that one and it’s just like ‘aah yeeeah.’”) and busied himself behind the counter.

After he affably helped me make a choice according to my level of hunger and threw my dog (a 10-inch all-beef) on the grill, he asked if I wanted grilled sauerkraut or onions. ‘Grilled sauerkraut?’ I thought. “Yeah, man. That’d be great.”

“You got it, dude! It’s all you, baby!”

Really, the guy was pleasant enough, the hot dog was tasty, and I left satisfied. I just found it all funny; it was as if the local chapter of a fraternity had set up a hot dog stand as a fundraiser. This bro was just so bro. I guess the old adage is true: you can take the wiener out of the frat, but you can’t take the frat out of the wiener.

Rodriguez: Cold Fact

My friend at Saint Cleveland turned me on to this re-released gem from 1970. Sixto Diaz Rodriguez was a full-time factory worker and a part-time freak-folkie from Detroit. His music, a blend of the fading idealism of the 1960s and his own stark vision of the future, reflects the sense of dismay coming over many rust belt residents. While the social unrest and urban decay of Rodriguez’s home city weigh heavily on his songwriting, he ably combines elements of beat poetry, psychedelic rock and funky pop to great effect. The loping strut of “Hate Street Dialogue” calls to mind another Motor City fixture, only this street-walking cheetah has a heart full of worry, not napalm. The heavy-handed “Only Good For Conversation” is part “Smoke on the Water,” part “Big Bottom” – so much so that I can almost see Spinal Tap’s Derek Smalls on the double bass when I close my eyes.

Actually, the most glaring influence on Cold Fact is Donovan: “Sugar Man” and “Crucify Your Mind” are both so Donovan-esque, with mystic hippie statements like “silver magic ships, you carry…sweet Mary Jane” over languid guitar strumming, that it’d be safe to call Rodriguez the Detroit Donovan. Conversely, “I Wonder” is straight-up doo-wop-pop with an infectious bass line and a counterculture bent.

The entire album is colored by a serious feeling of disillusion, made clearer with a pointed frustration not unlike Dylan’s. The second to last track on side two, “Gomorrah (A Nursery Rhyme),” is a haunting blues with a choir of ghosts singing “America the Beautiful” on the fadeout. The song details the seamy underbelly of not only his city (“the ladies on my street aren’t there for their health”) but “your city.” Observing Detroit as a place of poverty, squalor and depravity, Rodriguez applies his thinking to the rest of the country, commenting on the sad state of the union. Though I’m sure he wasn’t alone in his disenchantment, his record didn’t sell for shit. Here’s hoping that the recent reissue can reach a new generation of the pissed-off and bummed-out, if only so the music can be heard.

Don't hate.

Robert Leo Heilman, an Oregonian, contributed a critical piece to the University of Oregon’s magazine, Oregon Quarterly, about irrational people (specifically the far right-wingers). I thought it was a tad smug, a little presumptuous, but overall, pretty thoughtful. An excerpt that I think rings especially true:

I have known a great many people over the years—nice people, decent people—who cling to harmful and repugnant beliefs that are racist, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynistic, or politically intolerant. What they all have had in common is their high levels of frustration and fear. Each has felt insecure and cheated somehow, denied their fair share of power, ignored and disrespected. Many (though not all) have been economic losers, bitter about their failure to succeed. Some have been emotional cripples, unable to sustain loving relationships and unable to tolerate ambiguity. Many have had their lives fall apart due to compulsive boozing or drug abuse or gambling. Others have simply been crushed repeatedly by an indifferent and impersonal system of things that exploits them because it is profitable to do so. Some are people who blame themselves for having suffered terrible blows that came for no good reason at all. All became, in one way or another, shell-shocked veterans of life itself.
What is there to cling to when, by your own doing or by others or by cold fate, you have lost everything? Stripped of dignity, mired in failure, caged in by tough circumstances and uncontrollable forces, what is left to people but to embrace comforting nonsense and to rage against perceived injustice?

Click here for the full piece.

Watch where you point that thing.

Last Friday night Roy Messenger crashed his car into a utility pole, knocking it down and ending up in a ditch. Miraculously, the 50-year-old Elma, Washington man was uninjured. He climbed out of his car and called a relative to help him get it out of the ditch. But when his family finally made it to the scene, Messenger was dead.

So what happened? A deputy with the Grays Harbor County Sheriff's office says that Messenger must have relieved himself in the ditch while waiting for his family. He likely died after urinating on the live power line he’d downed. Though an official autopsy will confirm the cause of death, it’s apparently clear that the burn marks show where and how the electricity entered Messenger's body.

Pretty shitty way to go, if you ask me.

The T.A.M.I. Show

David Fricke is a Senior Writer with Rolling Stone magazine. He’s apparently valuable enough to the famed publication that he’s allowed to choose his own assignments, writing features on the old dudes, interviewing legends and reviewing only the tastiest new albums. My favorite contribution of his to the mag is “Fricke’s Picks,” a column that gives him space to write about under-the-radar bands, reissues of forgotten records and other music minutiae.

In the latest issue, Fricke talks about “The Greatest Rock Concert Movie Ever.” I couldn’t agree more with his choice. He writes:

All that is dull and predictable in modern rock-show films – caffeinated-jitter edits, hagiographic close-ups, the cheesy melodrama backstage – can be traced to this fact: The best example of how to do it right, The T.A.M.I. Show – a 12-act revue topped by James Brown and the Rolling Stones, shot live in Los Angeles with a delirious audience on October 29th, 1964 – has been officially unavailable, in its entirety, for more than four decades. The T.A.M.I. Show: Collector’s Edition (Shout! Factory) is the movie’s first release on DVD. Class starts now.

The first lesson: Get to the music, immediately. After breezy opening scenes of the artists heading to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium – Smokey Robinson and the Miracles in a limo, hosts Jan and Dean on skateboards – director Steve Binder (who later directed Elvis Presley’s 1968 TV special) jumps to a sly, bracing zigzag of Fifties roots and Liverpool cheek, Chuck Berry alternating hits with Gerry and the Pacemakers. Everything follows at the same velocity – Marvin Gaye’s manly lust into Lesley Gore’s vengeful-schoolgirl sugar; the proto-garage rock of the Barbarians.

There are also long, magnetic highs, when a single camera finds a thrill and stays there. When the Beach Boys (with a smiling Brian Wilson on bass) leap into “Dance, Dance, Dance” like the Ramones with tans, you see Dennis Wilson racing at the drums like Keith Moon during all of Carl Wilson’s guitar solo. In “Prisoner of Love,” Brown’s face slowly fills the lens as he staggers offstage, in his cape, before spinning back to the mike for more spectacular agony.

The Stones follow Brown’s set (the first time many white teens saw such black fire) with a prophetic mettle. The extended leaping-devil shots of Mick Jagger capture him sharpening the sex and danger in his own R&B choreography. Note the glimpses of a cocky, grinning Brian Jones and, too, the way Keith Richards plays guitar while facing drummer Charlie Watts. Some things, even in rock-concert films, never change.I’m glad the movie is finally hitting shelves. I remember reading about the legendary show a few years ago (T.A.M.I. stands for Teenage Awards Music International) and, as a serious Stones fan, being seriously intrigued. The film being officially unavailable, I ended up finding a bootleg on eBay and having it shipped from Brazil. It did not disappoint. In addition to publishing and distribution disputes way back when, I think that some of the artists held up its official release for whatever reason. Though my version has performances by the Ronettes and Ray Charles, they don’t appear on the version now available. Either way, the movie is a must-see, must-hear if only for JB and the Stones. You buy!

the games

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver officially ended last night with the closing ceremony. It was an eventful affair to say the least, with the tragic death of a young luger, a high-stakes skiing competition, and a nail-biting men's hockey final all making for over two weeks of exciting thrills and spills. When it was all said and done, the United States had been awarded 37 medals, the highest total count. Germany was second with 30 and Canada was third, finishing with 26. Canada did however earn 14 gold medals, the most any host-country has ever received and a record that any other nation would be proud to set.

I'm reminded of something I wrote about national pride during the summer games of 2008: http://gimdang.blogspot.com/2008/08/pride.html.

Tacos, man.

What’s so great about a taco? Some might say, “big whoop, it’s just a few things in a tortilla.” I say, Really? That’s like saying a Rothko painting is just a few colors on a canvas. To the uninitiated, I suppose that could be true but, to others in the know (those with an appreciation for the finer things), that couldn’t be further from the truth. The singular joy of the taco has as much to do with what’s in it as what isn’t in it. Less can be more, there is beauty in simplicity.

Take the carnitas taco. Simply stated, it’s a pork taco. This pork however, at once tender and caramelized to a crisp, is magical. Slow-cooked with salt, oregano and cumin (along with the chef’s choice of other herbs and spices) and typically garnished with a bit of cilantro, onion and queso fresco, it is often served on a hand-sized, hand-made corn tortilla. A good one is rapture, a bad one can still be pretty good. More importantly, the taco is not weighed down with excess ingredients that might otherwise overwhelm or distract the eater.

The pork is the centerpiece – taking the focus from it would be a disservice to the chef and his/her creation. The same can be said for the carne asada taco, the tinga taco and the pollo asado taco. All feature a lovingly prepared meat as the focal point, no more than three complementary extras, and sometimes a salsa. Distinguished more by the main part than the sum of many other parts, the taco is a lot like the Cleveland Cavaliers – a great team of guys that play well together with one main guy that leads and carries the team. LeBron James is the meat – consistently good and essential to the taco’s success.

Though the tortilla on which it’s all presented is basically just a vessel, its importance cannot be understated. Warm and flexible, its subtle taste and texture hold everything together, literally and figuratively. The tortilla might even be more important than the meat – if it were to tear, the taco would cease to be a taco. If it broke down, the taco would fall apart. Think about it this way: if the taco is like the Cavs, then 2009 NBA Coach Of The Year Mike Brown might be the tortilla.

I’m not saying the taco is the perfect food. I’m just saying it's fundamentally the best. Just because the taco doesn’t always wow or hit every time doesn’t mean it’s not king. Even LeBron misses sometimes. The star of the team, the star of the taco – either way you look at it – the meat is still the main attraction, the star of the show. It can stand alone, but it tends to do a little better with some accompaniment.