''Rock and Roll Night Club'' is Canadian recording artist
Mac DeMarco
MacBriare Samuel Lanyon DeMarco (born Vernor Winfield MacBriare Smith IV; April 30, 1990) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer. DeMarco has released six full-length studio albums, his debut ''Rock and Roll Night C ...
's debut
mini-LP
A mini-LP or mini-album is a short vinyl record album or LP, usually retailing at a lower price than an album that would be considered full-length. It is distinct from an EP due to containing more tracks and a slightly longer running length. A ...
. It was recorded in 2012 in DeMarco's
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
-based studio Jizz Jazz Studios and released through
Captured Tracks
Captured Tracks is an American independent record label based in Brooklyn, New York. The label was founded in 2008 by Mike Sniper.
About
Current flagship artists include: Craft Spells, DIIV and Wild Nothing.
Captured Tracks has reissued record ...
on March 13, 2012.
Composition
''Rock and Roll Night Club'' combines elements of American
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
,
chopped and screwed
Chopped and screwed (also called screwed and chopped or slowed and throwed) is a music genre and technique of remixing music that involves slowing down the tempo and deejaying. It developed in the Houston hip hop scene in the early 1990s by DJ ...
music,
glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s and was performed by musicians who wore outrageous costumes, makeup, and hairstyles, particularly platform shoes and glitter. Glam artists drew on diver ...
, 1950s
rock and roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...
,
garage rock
Garage rock (sometimes called garage punk or 60s punk) is a raw and energetic style of rock and roll that flourished in the mid-1960s, most notably in the United States and Canada, and has experienced a series of subsequent revivals. The sty ...
,
new wave and Captured Tracks' signature
jangle
Jangle or jingle-jangle is a sound typically characterized by undistorted, treble-heavy electric guitars (particularly 12-strings) played in a droning chordal style (by strumming or arpeggiating). The sound is mainly associated with pop m ...
guitar pop
Pop rock (also typeset as pop/rock) is a fusion genre with an emphasis on professional songwriting and recording craft, and less emphasis on attitude than rock music. Originating in the late 1950s as an alternative to normal rock and roll, earl ...
sound.
''
Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...
''s Evan Minsker opined that, lyrically, "it's probably safe to assume that at least 80% of ''Night Club'' is laced with a meta joke that nobody's in on except DeMarco,"
and No Ripcord described his performance on the record as resembling a "hopelessly romantic
swinger."
DeMarco himself said ''Rock And Roll Night Club'' was a joke as well, saying that he was being "intentionally sketchy" in making what Elliot Sharp of the official site for
Red Bull
Red Bull is a brand of energy drinks of Austria, Austrian company Red Bull GmbH. With 38% market share, it is the most popular energy drink brand as of 2019. Since its launch in 1987, more than 100 billion cans of Red Bull have been sold worldwid ...
described as "over-the-top", "conceptual", "kooky", and overall "a trashy, sleazy rock album that celebrated rock's trashy, sleazy core."
DeMarco's vocals on the first rough half of ''Rock and Roll Night Club'' were analyzed to be an
impersonation
An impersonator is someone who imitates or copies the behavior or actions of another. There are many reasons for impersonating someone:
*Entertainment: An entertainer impersonates a celebrity, generally for entertainment, and makes fun of ...
of
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
.
The first two songs, which No Ripcord compared to
Charlie Feathers
Charles Arthur Feathers (June 12, 1932 – August 29, 1998) was an American musician most associated with the rockabilly scene of the 1950s. Although not initially recognized for his contributions to rockabilly, over time his presence would bec ...
, "are both written in the point of view of a heartthrob whose eyes are dead set on his girl, whether he wants to play games with her, have an intimate night, or even make mental annotations on her country girl style."
The
Peter Sagar
Homeshake (stylized as HOMESHAKE) is the solo musical project of Montreal-based singer-songwriter and musician Peter Sagar.
Featuring contributions from Mark Goetz, Greg Napier, and Brad Loughead, the project started in 2012. In 2014, he left Mac ...
co-written
"Baby's Wearing Blue Jeans" was called by
Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
's Fred Thomas a "weird denim-fetish anthem", containing clean guitars and muffled drums in its instrumentation.
[ The exact same vocal melody and soft singing is later brought into "One More Tear to Cry", which Thomas analogized as a ]Lou Reed
Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942October 27, 2013) was an American musician, songwriter, and poet. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. ...
song produced by Ariel Pink, and then [ "European Vegas", a song in which DeMarco "pleas his baby to stay one more night while a jangly chord chimes in with a dash of sorrow," according to No Ripcord.] "Vegas" likewise reflects "One More Tear"'s use of slight variations of the same melody as the previous tracks. Thomas opined that "instead of being an annoyingly repetitive conceptual misfire, the identical melodies work in DeMarco's homespun glam thug sonnets in an if-it-ain't-broke kinda way, lending different shades of the same color to their respective songs."[ However, a new melody is introduced on "She's Really All I Need", a track which was lyrically compared by Loud and Quiet to Pavement.] and instrumentally containing wobbly guitar riffs and "beachy" percussion, as well as the absence of DeMarco's distorted vocals.
Some say "Moving Like Mike" is about Brooklyn Based Video Editor "Doc" Mike Kutsch, but it is most likely an out-of-key "dork-fest ode" to Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...
that restores the overall vibe of the LP, after the "She's Really All I Need"-induced departure.[ The album's standard track list is closed with the Lou Reed-style funk song "I'm a Man",] Initially titled "Eyeballs", DeMarco said he was trying to write about a man's lifestyle in Montreal with the song. The bonus track "Only You", lifted from the Makeout Videotape album ''Ying Yang'' was described by Thomas as near towards a modern take on indie rock, and sounding like a worn-out cassette demo recorded by the band Deerhunter
Deerhunter is an American indie rock band from Atlanta, Georgia, formed in 2001. The band currently consists of Bradford Cox (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Moses Archuleta (drums, electronics, sound treatments), Lotus Plaza, Lockett Pundt (guitar, ...
around the time of their third studio album ''Microcastle
''Microcastle'' is the third album by Deerhunter. After the album had been leaked on the internet, it became available on iTunes on August 19, 2008, while physical copies were released on October 27, 2008. In the U.S. the album was released on K ...
''.[ The song forms a ]Duane Eddy
Duane Eddy (born April 26, 1938) is an American rock and roll guitarist. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he had a string of hit records produced by Lee Hazlewood, which were noted for their characteristically "twangy" sound, including "Rebel- ...
-esque twangy guitar line into a "garage stomp" by the time its "dark, seductive chorus" comes in. Minsker describes the two bonus tracks, "Only You" and "Me & Mine", as the "biggest surprise" of the album, comparing the two tracks to Real Estate
Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...
and emphasizing the contrast of these two songs with the rest of the album. However, Minsker later resolved that there is a relatively small difference between the "goofy creep" who sings about "the boogie woogie woman lookin' my way" and the "straightforward crooner" who sings "I'm done crying over her."
Recording
All of the tracks were recorded on a TASCAM 244 Portastudio 4 track cassette recorder except for one track, which was recorded on a Fostex VF-80. The recording took place in a Montreal apartment that Demarco and his girlfriend shared. The vocals and drums were all recorded with a Shure Beta 58A. The guitars and bass were all Direct input into the 244. The recording made extensive use of the 244's pitch control, Demarco described this to Tapeop Magazine: "I was trying to make a Ramones record... I thought, 'I'm going to do basic power chord riffs, I'm going to do solos, and I'm going to do it really fast.' It turned out I'm awful at it. When I slowed things down it was like, 'Ah, now I've got something'". Demarco also used a method of track summing to record more than the 4 track limit: "I learned to ping-pong the 4-track too, so I would do three tracks, bounce it to one, do another three, and hopefully the song would be done by then". Bouncing the tracks degraded the signal resulting in generation loss. This contributed to the sludgy lo-fi sound of the record and was partly inspired by the techniques of Joe Meek
Robert George "Joe" Meek (5 April 1929 – 3 February 1967) was an English record producer, sound engineer and songwriter who pioneered space age and experimental pop music. He also assisted in the development of recording practices like over ...
's I Hear a New World
''I Hear a New World'' is a studio concept album written and produced by Joe Meek with the Blue Men, partially released as an EP in 1960 before financial issues at the Triumph label prevented further release of the material. In 1991, the f ...
. Mixing was a challenge due to the limitations of the 244. For the guitars Demarco often turned the parametric equalizer up all the way and adjusted the gain to remove the bass and provide a space for them in the mix. Extreme panning was also used to separate the channels. An Alesis MicroVerb 4 was used for effects on guitars and vocals.
Critical reception
At Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a weighted mean
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 79 based on 5 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Fred Thomas of AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
opined: "''Rock and Roll Night Club'' is a confusing record, but not a mess. On the contrary, it's so deeply calculated that the intentions and possible motivations of its songs are likely to be lost on most. This would be a problem if the good songs weren't so incredible and strange and the weak ones so immediately forgettable."[
]
Track listing
Personnel
Adapted from the liner notes.
* Mac DeMarco
MacBriare Samuel Lanyon DeMarco (born Vernor Winfield MacBriare Smith IV; April 30, 1990) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer. DeMarco has released six full-length studio albums, his debut ''Rock and Roll Night C ...
– vocals, guitar, bass guitar, drums, percussion, keyboards, composer
* Maddy Glowicki – background vocals on "European Vegas"
* Josh Bonati – mastering
* Ryan McCardie – cover design, layout
* Evan Prosofsky – cover photography
* Peter Sagar
Homeshake (stylized as HOMESHAKE) is the solo musical project of Montreal-based singer-songwriter and musician Peter Sagar.
Featuring contributions from Mark Goetz, Greg Napier, and Brad Loughead, the project started in 2012. In 2014, he left Mac ...
– co-writing on "Baby's Wearing Blue Jeans"
Release history
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
2012 EPs
Mac DeMarco albums
Captured Tracks albums