What the hell is this “pop sensibility” all about anyway? What is this essence of pop that can only be extracted with refined sensibility and careful technique? Rock doesn’t need it. Rap, even less. Country, forget about it. Blues and jazz apparently don’t even require the “sensibility” pop music does.
So what is pop’s big artistic secret? Is it akin to writing the perfect song? Creating the perfect advertisement? Writing the perfect review? Is it really worth thinking about? Whatever it is, The Glands are gushing it all over their system, infusing their every note with the melancholy sounds of subtle pop knackery.
Though cultured critics will compile endless “Sounds like …” lists, it is extremely hard to describe the sound The Glands have invented and even harder to decide if they actually invented it, discovered it, built it, or just found it floating carelessly in the airwaves over Athens, Ga. The band’s eponymous second album sounds like it could have been recorded any time after the dawn of Beatlemania, yet it was recorded in 2000. It sounds so much like so many pop bands, it’s impossible to name just one, but it’s so distinct it couldn’t have been played by anyone other than The Glands.
The Glands have found something very special. Though it is difficult to guess where they got it from, The Glands have found a sort of Taoist form of pop music. They sound like other pop bands because they play it like everyone else strives to play it, but they sound distinct at the same time because nobody else can play it as purely and cleanly. They play pop in its most essential poppy form; but they are not the quintessential pop band.
The Glands’ show with Elf Power on Nov. 18 garnered a sheepish look from everyone. The whimsical, intensely personal and beautifully sad secretions of The Glands made everyone feel as if they themselves had just revealed a bit too much. About 200 people stood in place, nodding, grinning and grimacing while The Glands floated in and out of peoples’ heads. It was not a spectacular show, and nobody really moved from their original places, but it all seemed to come together perfectly. The Glands said almost nothing to the crowd during the entire show, and they swapped instruments slowly, quietly and often.
Keyboardist Doug Stanley drifted onstage, eyes down, face expressionless, played the entire show enthralled with only the keys in front of him, and left exactly the same way. The Glands are a group of guys making music together, all the time, regardless of who’s watching, and their Middle East performance was no exception, though vocalist Ross Shapiro said, “Sometimes it falls apart differently.”
Whatever The Glands do, it is extremely hard to hear, even when you’re listening to it. A skillful incarnation of a few decades of not-always-skillful pop music? Or maybe four guys expressing themselves the way they want to? Whatever it is, they’ve found something and do it well enough to convince the most avid pop hater that maybe pop music and pop culture aren’t always the same. The Glands will never be part of a daily “TRL” countdown, even though The Glands could pop the Backstreet Boys right back into suburbia. Though they are pop incarnate, they aren’t the right pop for mass consumption. Their careful craft would just be lost in the Great Advertisement anyway. Whatever this “pop sensibility” is, The Glands practically own it, and they’re not giving out the secret anytime soon.
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