The Middlebury Campus

Issue date: 1/27/05 Section: Arts

Album titles tend to be characteristic of their respective genre. Hip-hop albums revel in gnomic statements ("Da Game Is To Be Sold, Not To Be Told"); World albums are obsessed with bland, utopian euphemisms ("Surprise Dream"; "Rain Without Boundaries"); Jazz albums are victims of annoyingly smarmy, unclever word games ("Science Friction"), and rock albums are constantly trying to shatter convention and win a place in the hearts of critics forever with the perfect combination of solipsistic and nihilistic sentiment ("Nevermind," "Loveless," "Closer," "III"). Then there are just f**king awful album titles like "The Tigers Have Spoken." Neko Case has attributed the title to the apparently unfavorable condition of caged tigers at zoos across the world, but aside from featuring a song of the same name, this has nothing to do with her album, which is also succinctly pointless.

Before you throw up your arms and call me a Neko Case hater, or even worse, sexist, let me inform you that: 1) I love the ladies; and 2) I love Neko Case. Her previous album, "Blacklisted," is a brilliant piece of moody, country ballads, with haunting production that takes you right along with her onto the twilight back roads of Kentucky, the cool summer night's air running in between your fingers as you drive and ruminate on love and loss. But "The Tigers Have Spoken," a brief collection of live performances from several Canadian concerts from this pst Spring, is an unnecessary release that clearly is attempting to hold fans over until she gets around to recording another album, which is finally going to happen this year. I have immense problems with artists releasing hastily-packaged live albums such as this just to make money, especially when they sound notably similar live as they do on a studio recording. "The Tigers Have Spoken" plays like an eleven-song Neko Case sampler (albeit one with only six original compositions) with clapping in between the songs. Maybe you're into samplers, but I find them abominable.

Before you put bombs in my mailbox, like Clint Eastwood's dastardly arch-nemesis (and delightful Mark Twain impressionist) Lieutenant Briggs in "Magnum Force," I will concede that the music itself on "The Tigers Have Spoken" isn't bad. It's not like you're going to listen to this album and grow into an uncontrollable rage and throw it against the wall because you hate it. Neko Case is a good musician, and her voice is nothing short of spectacular. But this is just not an inspired release. The music is pleasant, but the concept of the album is utterly atrocious. "The Tigers Have Spoken" is an awkward jumbling of pre-recorded tracks that looks terrible compared to such a masterpiece like "Blacklisted," and it's clearly a blatant attempt to create some cashflow in the Case household.

Which, I admit, is understandable. This is her job. She needs to make money somehow. But last time I checked, "Blacklisted" was selling quite well, and was placed right alongside Led Zeppelin's "Houses of the Holy" and Iggy Pop's "Lust For Life" in the Essential Rock Album stand in Borders (which, I must say, surprised me). No, there really is no need for "The Tigers Have Spoken" to exist. As ridiculous as Guns N' Roses are, at least Axl Rose isn't pushing 35-minute live albums as he struggles to make the nonexistent "Chinese Democracy." And at least Trent Reznor had the decency (once upon a time) to release EPs of new material during the five-year span between Nine Inch Nails albums. Neko Case and Bloodshot Records have severely disappointed me here, and I encourage all of you to save $13.99 and wait until her new studio album comes out.

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