Gossip Girl

At the risk of surrendering my man license, allow me to make the following confession: My name is Jonathan Gardner and I’m addicted to Gossip Girl. Its not because of the writing, which is stilted and asinine at best. And its not because of the acting (apparently drama classes are not offered at the anonymous prep school that the characters attend). But on a much deeper level, Gossip Girl is the ultimate frenemy drama for our blog-addled times. Just like 24 captured the spirit of post 9/11 America and The Wire brilliantly used Baltimore as a stand in for an entire country ravaged by the war on drugs, Gossip Girl perfectly embodies the age of Gawker and TMZ.

For those who haven’t seen it, the show is about a pack of rich kids who, despite not being particularly intelligent or talented, are super rich and therefore form the center of a world that goes beyond just the school and extends to the entire Upper East Side of New York. Watching their every move is Gossip Girl, the unseen blogger who recounts their every exploit for her hoards of readers. Last season the ostensibly 16 and 17 year old characters had no problem ordering a martini from a hotel bar or getting into an exclusive club, a motif that seemed ridiculous until you remember the underage exploits of Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lynn Spears. It seems equally silly that there would be a blogger who devotes 100% of her time to tracking the actions of what is essentially a clique of high schoolers, but in this time when someone can become wildly famous simply for going to parties, the premise is strangely plausible.

This is not to dismiss the show’s many problems. Most of the show’s main characters are incredibly boring, especially Dan and Serena, the main romantic couple, who have spent the last seven or eight episodes behaving like no one in the history of the world has ever behaved (Serena, in particular, seems to have had a lobotomy around the time of the strike and has never fully recovered). Indeed, the show has come to rely heavily upon the antics of its resident manipulators, Blair and Chuck, to bring the scandal. On the weeks where they don’t do anything particularly interesting the show is just dull. And the writing is incoherent, oscillating wildly between slyly critiquing the culture of excess and reveling in it, depending on what they need to happen from minute to minute.

This season, in particular, seems to have suffered from any truly buzz worthy moments. Nate’s fling with an older woman is pretty tired terrain and the storyline with Blair’s summer boyfriend turning out to be an English lord was more LOL than OMG. It appears that after a season of scandal and intrigue, the writers have left themselves with nowhere to go but bland. Unlike the truly great high school shows like Veronica Mars and Buffy that focused on the outsiders, Gossip Girl has aligned itself with the cool kids, a strategy that usually causes shows to run out of steam quickly.

And yet, this show is not done yet. Blair’s evilness, for the time being anyway, continues to carry it along nicely (along with Kristen Bell’s hilariously smarmy voiceovers). And even at its shallowest, Gossip Girl is too addictive to stop. Lost may be revolutionizing television storytelling and Mad Men continues to do so much with tiny moments, but there’s something very relevant about a show where people use gossip as a weapon. It may be completely unrealistic when compared to the lives of the average high schooler, but Gossip Girl perfectly reflects what we all see on our television and computer screens.

B-

The Stand Ins

Its always dangerous when rock starts write music about how hard it is to be a rock star, but in last year’s seminal release The Stage Names, Okkervil River frontman Will Sheff managed to capture how unglamorous the daily grind of being a musician really is. A little over a year after releasing that album, Okkervil River has returned with The Stand Ins. Recorded at the same time as The Stage Names and originally intended to be released with it as a double album, The Stand Ins is less of a direct sequel and more of a continued rumination on the same themes of the struggles and failures of near success.

The major difference between the albums is the amount of space that Sheff has included in this one. Whereas The Stage Names had Sheff declaring that life “is just a bad movie where there’s no crying,” within seconds of the album starting, The Stand Ins begins with a brief instrumental. While The Stage Names benefited from being packed full of Sheff’s witty wordplay and angry observations, its nice to have a little more breathing room this time. Once “Lost Coastlines” kicks in, the album really gets going. The catchy first single, “Lost Coastlines” is a twangy song that builds slowly from a great bassline. It also features vocals from Jonathan Meiburg, the band’s guitarist who has left to focus on Shearwater. However, Lost Coastlines isn’t the only song that cribs off of the sound of 1970s AM radio. From the Dylanesque insult song “Singer Songwriter” to the jangly “Calling and Not Calling My Ex” the album has a warmer, slower sound than previous Okkervil albums.

Which is not to say that the songs lack the emotional punch of those earlier albums. Starry Stairs, which finds Sheff crooning the sad story of a porn star over Stax Records-style horns, has an especially potent moment where the horns swell as Sheff sings “I am alive/but a different kind of alive/than the way I used to be.” “Calling and Not Calling My Ex” is about having an ex who gets famous and hits its heartbreaking climax when Sheff sings “you look the same on TV as when you were mine.” Most surprising is the new wavey “Pop Lie,” which has Sheff railing against “the liar who lied in his pop song.”

Watching Sheff turn his poison pen against the shallowness and falsity of the music industry and the touring life has been a pleasure. The Stand Ins is not as life-changingly epic as its predecessor, but it ups the subtlety without toning down the darkness. The cycle of songs ends with a song about a fictional interview with middling pop star Bruce Wayne Campbell, who perfectly sums up the album when he confesses that he’s “sick with singing the same songs in the bars they’ll soon be drinking, let me cash my check and sing along.”

Narrow Stairs, Death Cab For Cutie

Its been a rough few years to be a Death Cab for Cutie fan. After a shout-out on The O.C. propelled them to success, the boys seemed to embrace their Myspacey side on the uneven Plans. I thought it had some good moments, but all in all found Plans to be a little on the boring side. However, I'm pleased to report that they have recaptured the magic on Narrow Stairs. The record is a real step forward for the band, as they explore different styles and ideas than what they've done in the past.

The album starts off with "Bixby Canyon Bridge," a slow burner that starts with just a guitar and Ben's vocals. Soon, however, the song explodes into a song that genuinely rocks. It was at this point that I realized this wasn't going to be like most other Death Cab albums. However, I also think a little too much has been made of how different it is. Songs like "Amputations" and "We Looked Like Giants" foretell a lot of what's on this album, its just that the dose of that kind of rock has never been as concentrated as it is here.

Ben Gibbard's lyrics are a little more direct than usual, like on "Cath," my pick for the stand-out song from the album. "Cath" sounds like We Have the Facts-era Death Cab, with the jangly, Built To Spill-style guitar. The lyrics tell the heartbreaking story of a woman who has settled for marrying someone she doesn't love because her "heart was dying fast." However, Gibbard ultimately takes her side, concluding "I'd have done the same as you." On "You Can Do Better Than Me," he cleverly subverts the expectations that title sets-up. Instead of being a song about someone who's afraid of being left, its about someone who's too scared to do the leaving.

Some have complained that the lyrics are a little too direct, especially on tracks like "Your New Twin Sized Bed" or "The Ice Is Getting Thinner," however both of these songs pack a pretty strong punch. That's mainly thanks to the contribution of Chris Walla, who I think tends to be unfairly overlooked. "Your New Twin Sized Bed" is emotionally riveting, with the guitar part effectively evoking feelings of loneliness to the point that Gibbard could be singing about what he had for lunch and the song would still be as moving.

"The Ice is Getting Thinner" ends the album with another surprise. Like Bixby, the song starts out sounding sparse and airy. However, just when you expect the drum to kick in, it doesn't. The ice is getting thinner, but it never actually breaks. Ultimately, this song reflects why Death Cab succeeds on Narrow Stairs. They don't focus on showing huge life-changing events, but instead they portray the little realizations we all have everyday.

A