I've watched Mike Doughty's discussions of his new album with a sick fascination. He decided to re-record several of his old band's most popular songs, despite the outcry from Soul Coughing fans.
Soul Coughing has a lot of props in the alt-world and one hit, "Circles," is a good example of what they did, stripped-down and slowed-up for the mass market. My opinion is that the band was probably the best amalgamation of the alternative rock movement and hip-hop. Doughty didn't try to rap, which was the most common mistake artists made in the 90s, but instead used the forceful delivery of MC punchlines with a hint of melody. The rest of the band took the influence of sampling and break-beats and delivered something similar to a Bomb Squad (of Public Enemy) sound, aired out for live instrumentation. The old saw is that great artists steal, and Soul Coughing stole the thinking behind hip-hop's sound to create their own.
Doughty is a recovering drug addict and most of his reasons for re-recording these tracks are about band acrimony and general bad memories about his time with them. I can understand trying to reclaim them; I saw him maybe eight years ago and everyone requested SC songs (which he mostly refused)--it must be difficult to be reminded of the worst time in your life every time you step on stage. But I suspect that this is a "Fuck you" to his old band-mates; Doughty can claim a larger amount of the royalties for the same songs.
How's the album? Terrible, mostly. Useless, certainly. None of the songs seem to be re-imagined. They are arranged very similarly to the originals, only wimpier and with a few extra light samples thrown in here and there. The vocals are pushed forward, which is probably gratifying for Doughty but take away from the texture that made SC so good. Without the tension and input of the rest of SC, Doughty's songs lose a lot of their urgency.
Years ago, I read a book about The Beatles' Get Back sessions, the aborted album that was later shaped into Let It Be. The author took each tape and more or less gave a synopsis, ie, the songs they played and the discussions in between. The primary lesson I took was that it's difficult to determine who actually wrote a rock song. Paul would come in with a melody, a chord progression and a couple of lyrics and the rest of the band would flesh it out, making suggestions all the while. Someone might come in with just a riff. The final product is often much different than the original idea. So, who gets the credit?
The real pop revolution of the rock era is that the recorded performance is as important or even more important than the song. "White Christmas" may have been popularized by Bing Crosby but any performer can sing it with impunity. Rock doesn't allow that--witness the popular decline of Pat Boone, who covered R&B tunes as if they were "Three Coins in the Fountain." In the modern pop era, instrumentation and production matter as much as the quality of the song itself.
Doughty's problem with his band-mates ultimately circled around writing credits, just like so many other bands. Doughty was the frontman and originally a solo folk artist and poet. SC's albums are credited to the band, and so they get publishing rights as much as performance royalties. The new album is credited to Doughty alone, but that doesn't mean you should buy it. A good band is a chemical reaction while Doughty's newest is inert.
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