Return to Cookie Mountain

I have never fully understood TV on the Radio.  The band, not the concept.  What type of music are they?  Are they a new version of funk?  Are they indie rock?  Are they rock at all?  When I first heard “Wolf Like Me”, I wasn’t a big fan.  I got tired of the looping vocals, and the music didn’t really cry out to me to listen.  But my brother, who’s always had some influence over my musical tastes, kept saying they were a good band, that I should check them out, so I persevered.

The band formed in 2001 around two key members—Tunde Adebimpe (the singer and loops guy) and David Andrew Sitek (everything else).  Adebimpe and Sitek released OK Calculator in 2002, which caught the ears of Kyp Malone, who joined soon after in 2003 (also on vocals and loops with the addition of guitars).  The number of members in the band grew to five in 2005, and they released Return to Cookie Mountain in 2006 after garnering critical and commercial success with Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes.  Cookie Mountain is the subject of my next post.

#50 – TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain (Metascore = 88)

If I were to describe my initial impressions of their sound (based off of hearing “I Was a Lover”), I would say they are an experimental rock group willing to switch song keys in a heartbeat.  They also mix in elements of funk and electronica, as evidenced in “Hours”, one of my favorite tracks of theirs.  I’m drawn to the “ooos” that open the song, mixed in with the funky drum beat and dancing bass lines.  I also like what sounds like a baritone saxophone or something (oboe?).  Their lyrics are oblique, but that could be the avant garde coming out.

In “Province” the band welcomes David Bowie as a guest vocalist.  Bowie has been an ardent fan of the band and wanted to contribute in some way to the band’s music.  Musically it has a different feel from “Hours”, featuring a more Coldplay sound with pianos and soaring vocals.  “Playhouses” is ok but really does not do much for me.  Then comes “Wolf Like Me”.  Over time I have grown more tolerant of the song…I even like it to a degree.  Musically there’s a lot going on here, with the driving drum beat, baritone sax, and droning guitars.  Lyrically the concept of the wolf or, more specifically werewolf, is used for the wild nature of the man.

I cannot say that TV on the Radio is not interesting musically.  The band finds ways to take their sound and craft into whatever type of music they want.  Check out “A Method”.  The song sounds like a choral chant about a head trip.  Contrast that with the other songs on the record, and you can see that they can be an interesting listen.  The rest of the album draws on the palette of sounds they have created on the previous tracks, rounding out with “Wash the Day” (for the original pressing of the album), which sounds like the band is disappearing into another cosmic realm, leaving us to wonder where they are headed.

As I listened further into this record, I can understand the critical praise it received and the direction that Dear, Science would take them.  Not every track on this record was a winner, but the tracks that are right on have some really magical moments.